|
|
Customers interested in Net Slaves: True Tales of Working the Web may also be interested in:
Sponsored Links ( What's this? ) Feedback
Product Details
- Hardcover: 256 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x 9.35 x 6.30
- Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade; (September 29, 1999)
- ISBN: 0071352430
- Other Editions: Paperback (Reprint) | All Editions
- Average Customer Review:
 Based on 63 reviews.
- Amazon.com Sales Rank: 24,475
(Publishers and authors: improve your sales)
What's Your Advice?
Is there an item you'd recommend instead of or in addition to this one? Let the world know! Enter the item's ASIN (what's an ASIN?) in the box below, select advice type, then click Submit.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Authors Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin neatly summarize the operating principle behind NetSlaves: "People are nuts, no matter what profession they're in, but people forced to work like dogs with the carrot stick of stock options and 'untold' wealth dangling under their noses are especially nuts." If all you know about the Internet business is what you've read in the financial press, then NetSlaves provides a cold slap of reality. For every headline-making company like Yahoo! or Amazon.com, there are hundreds or perhaps even thousands more like the ones Net vets Lessard and Baldwin have worked for. These are the startups that never finish up, companies that hire hundreds of programmers and Web-site designers and techies of all stripes, then merge or downsize or go out of business before anyone can cash in. The authors take the reader on an anthropological expedition through what they call the New Media Caste System. At the bottom rung are the "garbagemen," the guys who have to get the server up and running when it crashes, who have to rush to help the digital morons who can't figure out how to open their e-mail. At the top, of course, are the "robber barons," the guys who really do get mind-blowing wealth and profiles in Wired magazine. For each level, the authors tell an instructive, cautionary tale of life in the new economy. Although Lessard and Baldwin clearly set out to create revenge journalism, enjoyed by all those who've lived on pizza and Mountain Dew for months on end only to end up with pink slips, those outside the tech universe should enjoy it, too. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but it's easy to warm up to NetSlaves. --Lou Schuler
From Publishers Weekly
Readers who can't bear another glossy magazine profile of Internet IPO kids will welcome this tour through the writhing underbelly of the tech biz. Lessard and Baldwin, who founded a site called www.netslaves.com in 1998, set out to document the depravity and desperation of the Internet economy, which they call the most widely misunderstood business phenomenon of our time. Far from the glamorous world painted by the few Internet winners, the authors contend, the business of technology is largely...  read more
Book Description
This beat was stressful [stressfull] enough before, when the online service kept all the racy, anarchic conversations ghettoized in one chatroom in order to keep the rest "family friendly." But tonight the owners decided upon a final solution for that ghetto: Deletion. Now the refugees, locked-out and angry, are swarming into other chatrooms like rioters storming into the suburbs to pillage its virgin daughters: Devil-worshippers flood the Spirituality forum; references to masturbation and pedophilia rear up in the Teen Talk chatroom, and it's your job to stamp them out like roaches. How much can you and your fellow overworked, underpaid "cybercops" take? You find the answer when another "cop" starts waving a real gun;he voices started during your second week with no more than an hour of sleep at a stretch. It's 4a.m. and you are permanently tethered by e-mail, phone, and beeper to software users worldwide who demand your instant attention 24 hours a day. This is your reward for saying "No" to a job with the world's largest software company. When you walked away from the worksheet-and-chinos fascism of their Seattle campus, you thought you were saving your soul. Instead you've lost your freedom. As you swill more cold coffee, each e-mail chime, phone ring, and beeper summons jolts you with the force of an electrode. And the voices in your head are getting louder. Scenes from a cyberpunk novel or an updated film noir? No, these are the true stories from the dark corners of the Internet, where platoons of perma-temp workers roam roninlike from job to job, anonymously holding the economy together. NETSLAVES: TRUE TALES OF WORKING THE WEB offers eyewitness accounts of grueling hours, gross mismanagement, and chronic backstabbing in an industry with no real rules. The truth is not only stranger than fiction; it's stranger than "Dilbert" on acid or a Hunter Thompson nightmare. Meet: A "help desk" worker overwhelmed by customer e-mail, who finds himself drawn to the elegant solution of the "delete" key; An engineer at the world's largest chip manufacturer, fired after his health is destroyed by overwork, who decides upon a gloriously futile gesture; A freelancer who is made the fall guy by her bosses after faulty software posts the wrong verdict at the end of the O.J. trial; A mail-order machiavelli who earns millions selling cut-rate PCs that spontaneously combust and interfere with airplane navigation. This is Studs Terkel's WORKING for the web era--jolted with caffeine and spiked with sardonic Michael Moore-ish humor.
See all editorial reviews...
All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.  Good, but..., January 18, 2004
A collection of stories from people in the industry who didn't make it in the "new economy". These are the people who work 80+ hours a week for little recognition or benefits, and then get fired/burned out. While these stories are true and I'm sure these situations exist, I had a hard time relating to them. They almost seemed too "perfect" in their horribleness...
Was this review helpful to you?   (Report this) 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:  A 246 Page "Support Group", April 17, 2003
Being an unemployed techie myself, I cannot begin to describe what a godsend this book is. NETSLAVES finally reveals the truth about what it is to be part of what is likely the most under-appreciated sect of the working class. The stale stories of "dorm-room success" have been supplanted by the pathetically sad/darkly humorous accounts of those who have been saddled with with million-dollar job titles, bleeding ulcers, and ramen noodle grocery budgets. NETSLAVES is an entertaining and enligtening read, written by two men who have actually been passengers in every sewer pipe that is The new-media industry. This book is a must for every modern library, as it can be considered a "warning shot" for those with IT aspirations, or as a source of vindication for those of us who have been dismissed and trampled on. Bravo! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: A 246 Page "Support Group", April 17, 2003
Being an unemployed techie myself, I cannot begin to describe what a godsend this book is. NETSLAVES finally reveals the truth about what it is to be part of what is likely the most under-appreciated sect of the working class. The stale stories of "dorm-room success" have been supplanted by the pathetically sad/darkly humorous accounts of those who have been saddled with with million-dollar job titles, bleeding ulcers, and ramen noodle grocery budgets. NETSLAVES is an entertaining and enligtening read, written by two men who have actually been passengers in every sewer pipe that is The new-media industry. This book is a must for every modern library, as it can be considered a "warning shot" for those with IT aspirations, or as a source of vindication for those of us who have been dismissed and trampled on. Bravo! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) A 246 Page "Support Group", April 17, 2003
Being an unemployed techie myself, I cannot begin to describe what a godsend this book is. NETSLAVES finally reveals the truth about what it is to be part of what is likely the most under-appreciated sect of the working class. The stale stories of "dorm-room success" have been supplanted by the pathetically sad/darkly humorous accounts of those who have been saddled with with million-dollar job titles, bleeding ulcers, and ramen noodle grocery budgets. NETSLAVES is an entertaining and enligtening read, written by two men who have actually been passengers in every sewer pipe that is The new-media industry. This book is a must for every modern library, as it can be considered a "warning shot" for those with IT aspirations, or as a source of vindication for those of us who have been dismissed and trampled on. Bravo! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) See all 63 customer reviews...
Customers who bought titles by Bill Lessard also bought titles by these authors:
Listmania!
Look for similar books by subject:
Browse for books in:
|
.gif){kind=logo}
