[rescue] Blades in the dark

[Jeff Borisch]

George Adkins wrote:

>> If you are lamenting the demise of the fully manual SLR, I wholeheartedly
>> agree. 
> 
> To the degree that they have disappeared, yes I am. (I am the proud owner of
> 2 K1000's which I use regularly...)

Those are nice and should last forever. It is reassuring that to see that my
body (camera that is) still fetches decent money in camera shops.

> More than that however, I am lamenting the consumer attitude which diminishes
> the talented and the motivated people in the world.  This idea that everyone
> should somehow be able to do anything for themselves, and that all the people
> who worked hard to learn specialized skills are now somehow redundant and
> should re-train to be ordinary, or starve to death.

Most of the people who paid for that talent didn't recognize it then and
probably still don't recognize it now. It's just back then they had to pay
for it. I went through the same thing 10 years ago as a "degree holding
graphic designer." Back then all the conferences were talking about
accreditation, that to be a designer to had to pass a test that proved you
had learned all kinds of arcana which would prove you had gone through
traditional design training. Everyone was whining "everyone thinks they are
a designer now!" Well what happened. Some designers, who added little value
over knowing how to spec jobs for printers had retool to compete with DTP
centers like Kinko's. Very few of the good shops both large and small went
out of business because of Pagemaker.

The people who appreciate it still pay. Those people have always been less
common, unfortunately. I would say retrain to be "extraordinary". Technology
has been making folk's "secret knowledge" less valuable and their creativity
more valuable. Never mind what an MCSE will tell you, it is harder to
develop creativity than it is to pass a MS exam. Lots of people get burned
thinking they can just use a program and not hire a lawyer, graphic designer
or financial adviser. The landscape has changed for these professions. And
it will take a while for them to sort things out. The same can be said for
computer professionals.

It's interesting and sad that in some areas the expectations of quality have
gone down while in other areas the expectations have gotten much higher. Who
today would accept the reliability of almost any American car from the mid
eighties? I mostly agree with you sentiments, but I can't help but think
back to the gentleman (was it from DEC?) who said he could see no reason why
consumers would have computers in their homes. Meaning they should stay in
the glass houses with the professionals.

> Sure...  Tech economy is in the crapper, nobody's hiring, hey, let's cut his
> salary...  It's not like ge's going to go anywhere...

They are weasels, they deserve no loyalty. Take sambo up on his offer, you
have the skills to go elsewhere. Best of luck.

Prolly going kind of off topic here... If anyone wants to add, email me off
list as I can't handle the traffic on geeks. (maybe someday) (-:

--jeff