Just read No matter what the boss says about flextime, get to work early, and it seems to be part of a disturbing trend in job-related articles and blog posts to note a workplace trend that's flawed, and then ask the people who are not responsible for that flaw to fix it.
It basically says "If you're a manager, you will rate employees who come in later more poorly than those who come in earlier, even if the people who come in later work longer hours or do equivalent work." Assuming the study isn't of receptionist-type positions (that do, in fact, require physical presence), the lesson is supposedly workers, come in early. The real lesson should be managers, judge your employees by their work, not when they come in.
This reminds me of all those blog posts and articles about how you should ask for a raise and negotiate your salary. Messed up. If there are unfair wage disparities, the solution isn't for workers to ask for more money, the solution is for the workers to do better work and then, most importantly, for the managers to reward better workers with better salary.
Kind of reminds me of my teaching days. If a student wanted to grade-grub, I would never give that student a higher grade, because doing so basically sends the message "Oh, if you want a higher grade, just pester the teacher for one." The message I wanted to send is "If you want a higher grade, write better, demonstrate your learning and thinking better."
Likewise, if you're a good manager, the message you want to send your employees is not "If you want a higher salary, learn how to beg for it or fight me for it." The message you should want to send is "If you want a higher salary, do better work."
Hi Ubuntucat,
this is the first time I have ever used a “”blog”” type of forum, so I don’t really know how to navigate it like normal usenet / fora. I liked your helpful guide at:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/unityplasma/
and wanted to give you some feedback but your suggestion at the bottom to put feedback at:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/about/
doesn’t work. I did find a feedback form inside this forum though. Please feel free to move it to the right place if you have mod rights to do so.
I have used Apple since system 7.1 in the mid 90s and Windows since 3.11 for workgroups, always finding Linux confusing, but recently need to learn CentOS for work. I discovered it has KDE or Gnome branded liveISOs and researched what that’s supposed to mean, discovering your thread about it:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/unityplasma/
Under “Menu Navigation” you highlight a vital, crucial difference, but you don’t follow it to its logical conclusion which I think would help Linux newbies. Ever since Apple’s introduction of menus, they enumerate for the user what options are available and wait for the user to pick the one they want. This is in contrast to DOS’s commandline or Unity’s thing which presuppose the user already has infinite knowledge of everything possible, and so the computer sits there mutely with an entry box pretty much asking, “What’s the secret magic word I’m thinking of to get your task done?” For a veteran, typing in a familiar command word might save a few mouseclicks at the expense of a few keyboard strokes (just like when using AutoCAD). But for a newbie, hiding all functionality behind an “I’m not telling” commandline or Unity query box is a total functionality blocker. Many programs on Linux have completely unintuitive names that are generally a vague homophone of some technical term that’s an obscure implementation detail from an obsolete feature of an ancient version of the software. I mean, a system update configuration utility has to be called SOMETHING, and while naming it after a primitive arcade game raises the barrier to entry and alienates your userbase somewhat, at least you guarantee a grin or a growl from everybody who stumbles through your tripwire on their way to updating their system.
Under your section “More Options” you say “Considering how much screen space the submenu takes up, it seems weird to divvy it up into three subsections.” I suspect perhaps the image next to this paragraph is not the intended image. If not, I must be missing something and it might help if you added a red arrow or rectangle to the image. I do not see any submenu at all. Nor do I see three subsections. It could just be that you are using the word submenu to refer to some different paradigm or concept to what I know of as a submenu, but the subsections bit has me really stumped.
Thankyou very much for your informative summary though! Even if hardcore Linux users have complained to you that it’s not technical enough or not sufficiently bamboozling, I can encourage you that it was clear and helpful in revealing to me the usability gulf of one interface compared with the other. Much obliged.