[Tfug] OT: Proposed increase in H1B visas

Tue Mar 18 08:03:43 MST 2008

When I graduated from the UofA I thought the doors would fly open.  I thought I would experience what my wife has as a nurse.  If she wants a new job she can find one in short order.  As a result I have had a love/hate relationship with IT.

The IT industry has it's challenges.  I have to wonder if importing computer professionals from places like India is the solution.  Seems those people would be similar in skills, abilities, desires... etc, just cheaper.  AND that is mostly my point.  If a company can hire an employee for $20,000 less, then that is $20,000 profit.  If they can hire 5, 6,...20 then the profits go up.

I have found the best way to deal with customers is with a contract that addresses almost everything you will be doing.  I do no project without a signed contract.  My contract has grown to 8 pages.  It is a life saver.  And I find I can avoid some grief by turning down some customers.  If I get a bad feeling about a prospective customer, I pass them by. 

As for employees... I tried to hire while in Phoenix and it turned out to be a fiasco.  I may try again now that I am in Tucson.

If there is anyone on the list interested in NOT seeing the expansion of H1B visas please contact me off list.  I would like to see if we can bring enough opposition against this bill to stop it. 

Harry McGregor <micros at osef.org> wrote: Hi,

I am not going to get into details on the H1B Program, and if it's good 
or not, but I can provide several levels of insight.

IT consultants are idiots:
As an IT consultant, I can tell you that many of the people in our 
industry are a disgrace to the industry.  I have seen servers setup with 
RAID0, 30 computer windows networks with a Linux Domain Controller setup 
with XP Home instead of Pro, thus no domain auth.  I have seen telephone 
systems installed (VoIP/Asterisk based) that you could not even return 
missed calls on, as the dial plans were not built properly.

Customers are idiots:
I have seen my support contracts (at very reasonable $/month) dropped 
due to stupid issues (took too long to fix the owner's secondary home 
computer, or change the name on a phone), then the replacement company 
actually thought they were have to restore from backup when the server 
did not reboot properly (raid id's got replaced), they experienced days 
of down time vs virtually zero down time, and had to pay more to get it.

Another previous customer never notified us of an on-going issues 
(echo), and then won't let us resolve the issues, nor will they pay for 
the work done, or equipment that has been installed.

I actually had to sue the company my dad works for, as they would not 
pay for my time recovering a double drive failure in their raid 5.  The 
president of the company thought I would do it as a "favor" for their IT 
manager.  We got their data restored (company would not authorize $ for 
additional backup tapes, and the one set had not been brought back 
onsite for about 4 months).  Who does the company send to represent them 
in small claims court?  Their accountant?  Owner of the company?  No, my 
dad, who had nothing to do with the transaction or work being done.

Trying to hire is a PIA:
I have hired for numerous positions, both at U of A and else where.  
Finding qualified IT personnel is almost impossible.  I was recently 
hiring for a Windows/Linux server position, and had one of the three 
finalists properly describe RAID0, and then go on and say it was 
appropriate for a server!

Training is available, but never enough:
I teach classes for Pima, mostly centered on Linux and Unix.  I end up 
going into routing technologies, switching, vlans, windows domains, 
basic dns and ipv4 concepts, and general hardware.  It's not that the 
students have not been exposed to it before in one way or another, but 
it's just not enough.  Now we are going into virtualization 
technologies, and teaching the classes via VMWare server, on a debian 
base.  I actually took most of a class explaining how virtualization 
works, and how it applies to the class.  We just started getting into 
virtual network interfaces, and setting up routing and firewalling 
between two interfaces on the virtual linux box to permit a virtual 
windows box to get internet access.

I have of course had good students and bad students over the years 
(including one that would always keep his hand on the mouse, even though 
we were at the command line, and I had not had the students setup GPM, 
think what that will do to your typing speed).  I know of several that 
have gone on to have very successful IT careers, and others, no matter 
how talented they were just give up on the industry (one is in a nursing 
program now, and he is in his 40s)

So in summary, it's difficult to find people willing/interested/have a 
love of technology that want to go into the industry and who do well, 
while at the same time you have people that should not be touching a 
computer over charging clients, and the clients liking it.  It's really 
hard to cut through this.  For some reason people seem to think that IT 
is a cash cow, it's not, it's a lot of work, a fair amount of stress, 
and it has ups and downs, and the pay can be good, but generally not 
"high" end.  Most entry level nurses in Tucson make more than even the 
server related IT people in Tucson.

                                        Harry

keith smith wrote:
>
> Hi fellow tech people,
>
> Seems we have a sort of problem locally with our own congresswoman 
> Gabrielle Giffords. 
>
> I first learned of this problem on the PLUG list.
>
> Seems she wants to double the amount of H1B visas from 65,000 to 
> 130,000 per year and remove the student H1B visas from 20,000 to 
> unlimited.  The legislation would increase the H-1B cap to 180,000 in 
> 2010 to 2015 if the 130,000 cap is reached the year before.
>
> In part the article states:
>
> The Innovation Employment Act, introduced by Representative Gabrielle 
> Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, late Thursday, would increase the cap 
> in H-1B visas from 65,000 a year to 130,000 a year. In addition, there 
> would be no cap on H-1B applications for foreign graduate students 
> attending U.S. colleges and studying science, technology and related 
> fields. Currently, there's a 20,000-a-year cap on visas for graduate 
> students in all fields.
>
> http://www.cio.com/article/197100/Bill_Would_Double_Cap_on_H_B_Visas
>
> I called her office and complained.  I think everyone on the list 
> should do likewise.  Phone: (520) 881-3588.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
> (520) 207-9877
> PHP Programmer 
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>  
>
>
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------------------------
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PHP Programmer

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