Sounds very familiar.

>At the risk of getting majorly yelled at here - I see the point of the story - and probably agree from an overall industry view.
>
>I came up through "small business" - from a few employees to maybe twenty or thirty. When I went out contracting at some BIG (to remain unnamed) companies for awhile - I was flat out ASTOUNDED at the levels of non-performance that were not only accepted - but seemed to be the norm. And it wasn't just programmers - it was almost everybody! ... although the programmers may have been some of the worst. Tasks that I wouldn't have allowed a week to program in my own company were routinely spread across months (plural) - After a couple weeks (at my first job at one of these companies) I actually had to slow down - massively - because I was getting ahead of the pace the Proj Mgr had set and was handing specs out at - not to mention the "peer pressure" from both in-house programmers and other contractors not to "show off" - when I wasn't - I was just working along normally.
>
>Glad to be back working on my own again ,, although at a little less of a pace than I did 10 years, 40 lbs., 3 kids, and one blown knee ago! :-)
>
>Just an observation.
>
>Ken
>
>>Hmmmm.....IMHO, it's because what we're calling a "programmer" now and what we used to call one and what the Europeans call one are two different things. Some so-called programmers nowadays wouldn't have been given the job to sweep the floor in the IT shops of old.
>>
>>Our standards are declining, therefore, productivity declines.
>>
>>>http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9904/15/slacker.idg/