🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 9:30:04 AM UTC-4, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

> > From the late 1960s onward, many schools got Teletypes and timesharing
> > and offered BASIC classes.
> 
> 	In the early to mid 70s our school had a Teletype, and there was a
> lunchtime BASIC class offered to a few of us. The Teletype did not connect
> to a timesharing service, it connected to another Teletype to send and
> receive paper tapes of programs to be run, and the results of yesterday's
> runs. Getting a syntax error back was a real time waster.
> 
> 	The Teletype was only available to us during break and lunch. After
> school a sixth former would make the call and deal with the tapes whilst
> trying to chat up the operator at the other end.

OMG, that would be cumbersome--a 24 hour turnaround.  I would think
that would be very discouraging to students--having to wait an
entire day only to learn a comma was left out, and then needing to
wait another day for another submission.

However, there were numerous times in industry in the 1980s and 1990s
where the company computer would be so busy with production work that
programmer work had to wait until overnight, so there was the similar
long wait for results.

In those days, we were often encouraged to work evening, late
night, or weekend hours to use the computer.  People with families
didn't care for it since they missed family time.  However, single
people liked it* because it gave them a lot of flexibility.

I liked it because I could take care of day chores, such as car
repair or doctor appts without taking time off from work--I'd just
work late or on a weekend to make up the time.  I liked the flexibility.

However, I've noticed today that modern management is much less flexible
and expect staff to work on their prescribed schedule without any
deviation**.  That kind of sucks.


* There were a few people going through a rough patch at home,
and they often worked odd hours to get out of the house.

 
** My neighbor was directed to fly to a different city, take a training
class, fly home, and report to work for the night shift, all in ONE
day.  She'd be working basically 24 hours straight through.  She'd
be only paid for one day; travel time and class time was not covered.

Indeed, I've heard of a lot of companies these days, including
government, having their workers take mandated training on their
own time, and even their own expense.  To me, if a company requires
you to take certain training, they should cover all expenses of it.