OT: Employment Security Options

[Jim Kuzdrall]

On Friday 17 April 2009 23:25, VirginSnow at vfemail.net wrote:
> > From: Jim Kuzdrall <gnhlug at intrel.com>
> > Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:32:56 -0400
> >
> >     My wife made a suggestion that seldom gets discussed, guilds. 
> > The medieval guilds established several tough-to-reach competence
> > grades for their members, spanning apprentice to journeyman to
> > master.  They strictly enforced their workmanship and knowledge
> > standards.  They often, in effect, insured the quality of the work
> > done by their members by leaning hard on them to straighten out any
> > problems that were reported.
>
> <snip>
>
> >     Might this concept be modified, updated, and revised to meet
> > the needs of today's technical experts?
>
> That's what the Microsoft certifications are for, right?

    Or computer science degrees, Professional Engineering license,  or 
FAA pilots license.

    But one goal of these certifications is just the opposite from that 
of a guild; that goal is to produce as many certificate holders as 
possible to keep the wages down.  The certificate programs serve the 
corporate sponsors who use the trainees, not the interests of the 
workers.

    In addition, guilds kept the techniques of their craft secret, where 
possible.  (The Microsoft guild's secret would have  been 
"ctrl-alt-del, sssh don't tell anybody".)

    I doubt anyone will go start a guild today.  The working conditions 
just aren't bad enough.  American professionals live very well by world 
standards.

Jim Kuzdrall