Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Up The Downside
October 31, 2022 Victor Rozek
For all its transformational benefits, technology has an undeniable downside which regularly produces a range of disagreeable outcomes from annoyance to overt threat. As a subject, technological disfunction is a target-rich environment, but my word count limit – not to mention a reader’s attention span limits – prevent a full accounting. So, I’ve chosen three illustrative examples.
On the annoying spectrum, is the near-complete destruction of customer service. These days, reaching an actual human being on the phone requires the patience of a monk and the persistence of a mosquito. No matter who you call, be advised their menu options …
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As I See It: Different Yet the Same
September 19, 2022 Victor Rozek
For all of you who must discover,
for all who seek to understand
In having left the path of others,
you find a very special hand— Christy Moore, Bright Blue Rose
It is among the most common of human yearnings: the desire to see oneself as special and distinct from the herd. Individualism, coupled with exceptionalism has long been ingrained in American mythology. The model endures, even as it evolves over time, as each generation rebels against the prior in an attempt to create its own unique identity.
But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to claim uniqueness when we live …
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As I See It: Thank God It’s Thursday
August 8, 2022 Victor Rozek
The five-day workweek is generally attributed to Henry Ford, although it actually originated some 18 years earlier. In 1908, a New England cotton mill adopted the practice so Jewish workers would not have to toil on their Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Ford, who ironically was a virulent antisemite, not only embraced the idea but made two notable improvements: His five-day workweek was limited to 40 hours; and, employees did not suffer a decrease in pay.
At the time Ford was paying $5 per day, which doesn’t sound like a princely sum, but his employees were actually able …
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As I See It: Pass The Chips
July 18, 2022 Victor Rozek
Decades ago, I was sent to Taiwan and met a colleague there to install a computer system in a silicon wafer manufacturing facility and provide necessary training to the staff. I took a cab from the airport to my hotel in Taipei and recall marveling at the extraordinarily generous freeways that served surprisingly light traffic flows. In many places, six to eight lanes stretched for miles in both directions supporting traffic that could have been accommodated by no more than two.
I became curious and finally asked my driver if he knew why the roadways were so incongruously wide? It …
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As I See It: Unwritten Rules
June 6, 2022 Victor Rozek
Organizational change is always a bastard. Getting hundreds – if not thousands – of people rowing at the same speed in the same direction is about as problem-free a proposition as . . . well, nothing. Getting people to agree is never easy. But they like to be employed, too, because eating is a good habit.
Companies generally have a stated vision, imparted goals and formal policies, but they tend to morph over time or are superseded by regime and marketplace changes. Alternately, they are simply ignored. Although desired behavior and motivation are outlined in job descriptions and employee handbooks, …
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As I See It: A Taxing Problem
May 3, 2022 Victor Rozek
Elon Musk sifted through his couch cushions and found $44 billion in pocket change, so he bought himself some barbecue with a side of Twitter.
Elon managed to make a lot of money while the economy tanked during the pandemic years, and there have been rumblings of discontent from mere mortals suggesting that perhaps he, and his billionaire brigade, should actually pay their fair share of taxes. But while Americans are disinclined to begrudge a man his good fortune, these days, middle class realities are rife with rising costs and resentments. To put things in perspective: the average American would …
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As I See It: Transitions
April 18, 2022 Victor Rozek
Over the past two years, as many of us sequestered, masked-up in public, dodged strangers, and kept friends at arm’s length, our socially distanced conversations shared a common, oft-expressed yearning: “I just want my life back.”
Now that we’re in a lull between variant fronts, millions of us are anxious to reclaim our old, comfortable and predictable lives. They may not have been perfect, but they were at least manageable, set in a world we knew how to navigate.
Beyond familiarity, our old lives were even more central to our identity. As sociologist Anthony Giddens notes: “A person’s identity is …
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As I See It: Two Front War
March 28, 2022 Victor Rozek
History records that the Second World War began when Germany invaded Poland, breaching its western border on September 1, 1939. For the Poles, however, that accounted for only half of their unfolding misery. Largely forgotten, 16 days later, the Russians invaded Poland from the East.
Being situated between Germany and Russia in the war-ravaged 20th century turned out to be geographically inauspicious. Long after the Germans were defeated, the Russians stayed. Opportunistic invasion turned into long-term occupation.
A similar story is unfolding in Ukraine, where a two-front war is being waged: one analog, the other digital. Weeks before tanks and …
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As I See It: A Second Life
February 28, 2022 Victor Rozek
These days it’s not unusual for high school students to be computer savvy to a degree their parents could only dream of. But that wasn’t the case in 1972 when Jay Brandt attended high school.
Oregon-based Benson Polytechnic High was conceived as a trade school, but over time adopted a pre-engineering curriculum. There, students could build a rudimentary foundation in a technology that would shortly transform the world. Jay quickly mastered the Four Horsemen of ancient IT: Basic, Fortran, COBOL, and Assembler; and when school broke for the summer, he had a novel idea.
Although the high school had a …
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As I See It: The Ideal Workplace, Part 2
January 24, 2022 Victor Rozek
New year, new possibilities. And what better place to start than sharing the experiences and aspirations of IT professionals.
Last month, as 2021 was coming to an end, I asked readers for feedback on how they would describe their ideal workplace; the issues that were important to them, the quality of their working environment, and how they wanted to be treated by their company and its management. I offered a list of issues for consideration, and below is a summary of their responses.
The first question was a variation of the classic “paper or plastic” dilemma. Would you prefer to …
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