the "no good Perl jobs"/"no good Perl programmers" myth

[Nik Clayton]

Dirk Koopman wrote:
> I think my point was that volunteering to opt out is a very carefully
> engineered illusion - which you so neatly illustrate :-) 

It ain't necessarily so.  Four and half years ago, when I started at 
Citi, they invited me to opt out of the working time directive.

I declined.

This has had no obvious negative effect on my performance when compared 
to my peers at our performance review meetings.

Now it's possible that my crack ninja coding skills[1] are responsible 
for this, but I doubt it somehow.

I think a lot of this is because people have a "won't bother" attitude 
to these sorts of things, for whatever reason.  One of my other hot 
button topics is the "we own everything you do" clause in the contracts. 
  I indicated at the interview that that wasn't acceptable, and had it 
removed, so if I do it on my equipment and on my time then it's my code. 
  Do other people bother 'fighting'[2] about stuff like that?

N

[1] I did try to write 'skillz', but there's part of my brain that just 
won't let me.

[2] Wasn't really a fight.  They said "Oh, OK", at the interview, and 
accepted the amended contract without a fuss.