A question for the ages
Does your boss have to pay you while you wait for Vista to boot up?
Apparently this has become an issue:
During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years.
What I think:
- He’s gonna have to pay me to install Vista in the first place. I will not tolerate that sort of malware — and expensive malware at that — on a machine on which I have to do actual work.
- I’d like to know what other crap these people are having to load that takes up to half an hour a day. The single slowest app I have is Lotus Notes, and bringing it up takes maybe two minutes and a quarter, tops. (Shutting it down is a matter of 12-15 seconds.)
- In general, if a manager requires a specific set of software for a work position, he is responsible for seeing that its use doesn’t bog down the troops.
(Seen at the Instant Man’s new WordPress digs.)
Kay Dennison »
18 November 2008 · 12:55 pm
Yikes!!!!!!!!! I have Vista and I hate it! If Miss Ruby (she’s my car and every time I think that I’m gonna have some spare cash, she’s had to go to the car doctor) lets me, I’m gonna buy a UMPC laptop with Linux and if I like it as well as I did when I tried it, this computer will be outfitted with it. I am tired of the Evil Empire’s monopoly. Linux doesn’t cost a nickel unless a body wants a CD. As far as I can see it’s easy to use and there’s a lot of help if one needs it.
fillyjonk »
18 November 2008 · 1:36 pm
Wow.
I’m branded a Luddite because I refuse to “upgrade” to the 2007 incarnation of Office. (We’re a Microsoft campus).
I’m sorry, but when they put on so many bells and whistles that it takes me five minutes to find out where they’ve hidden the “SAVE” command, that’s too much.
It takes my computer maybe 45 seconds to boot up. Just long enough for me to remove my coat and stow my purse and lunch. (Then again, if I started complaining about all the things I did that I didn’t technically get paid for, it’d be a long list. I think it’s rather…petty of some one to gripe about waiting 15 minutes at the start of the day. Don’t they still have water coolers in the office where you can go and talk about sports or something?)
CGHill »
18 November 2008 · 1:42 pm
I avoid Office wherever possible; I make use of OpenOffice.org for things I create and MS’s quick-and-dirty readers for the rare occasion when OOo chokes on an Office document.
Except my referrer logs, which I keep in (gasp!) Lotus 1-2-3.
Scooby214 »
18 November 2008 · 1:48 pm
A nice thing about getting a UMPC is that you can still buy one new with XP installed. This means that if you need some piece of software that doesn’t play well with Linux, you can still avoid Vista.
I have two Vista machines. The desktop still has the dreaded Norton installed. It is much slower to finish loading up when powered on. My laptop, with nearly identical hardware specs, doesn’t have Norton. It is much faster to load, and is also much faster in normal usage. I wonder if Norton is the cause of the difference… If I hadn’t already paid for a subscription to Norton, I’d remove it and look for an improvement.
I run Linux on the desktop in a dual-boot setup, and it is much faster than Vista.
My Vista laptop is quick to start up.
I venture to guess that such a lawsuit won’t make it too far.
deaths_little_helper »
18 November 2008 · 2:04 pm
Or, they could do like I have users in our company do, and just not turn the computers off at night…click on restart at 4:58 P.M. and walk away, the next morning, log in and start working in less than 2 minutes for our slowest computers!
Paul Robinson »
19 November 2008 · 12:24 am
I have an HP Pavillion s3220n, a dual-core x64 machine with Windows Vista Home Premium, just for the machine to do a POST can easily take 5 minutes, and the boot time can also be as much as 5 minutes or more, so it can easily take 10 minutes to start up.
unimpressed »
19 November 2008 · 3:09 pm
My mom bought a laptop and desktop in the last year. Up until that time, I’d not touched Vista. Either/both, right out of the box, took pretty close to ten minutes to boot, where my much older and slower XP Home machine with all sorts of crap loading takes less than a minute and a half.
If and when I can actually afford a new system (I’m drooling over the new i7 processor), I’ll buy it without an OS and also pick up an XP Home or Pro disk and install the far superior OS myself.
unimpressed »
19 November 2008 · 3:10 pm
There’s always this story to make you think:
http://dotnet.org.za/codingsanity/archive/2007/12/14/review-windows-xp.aspx
High Tech Puppy Mill »
19 November 2008 · 10:30 pm
It depends on the workplace. If the powers that be are paying you by your signon time, they likely have a reporting package like Kronos. Major system/network hog, especially when everyone is hitting the server at the same time. If you are in an electronic sweatshop such as third party outsource support, you have a several datbases to login to for customer tracking, knowledgebase, proprietary databases for ordering parts and dispatching service. I had five, each with a different password which changed on a differing rotations. And you are likely working with an obsolete computer with little RAM. Coffee break my @ss.
Stormbringer »
21 November 2008 · 5:01 pm
I got lost in all of the discussion praising Linux and bashing Vista. What was the point, again? Oh, yes. The boss calls the shots on the operating system that you use. Does s/he have to pay for your time while you wait for it to boot up?
Damn straight. I have no say in what gets installed. I have to launch the applications needed to do my job, and wait for them to load. Windows XP, Norton antivirus, Word 2003, Outlook 2003, custom processing module, Firefox Portable (oops, did I really say that?) keep the antiquated hardware crawling along for a 5-10 minute boot. Hell yes, we take a smoke break or get coffee. It’s multitasking, since we have to sit there and wait for it, may as well get something else done while we wait.
Also, these short-sighted United Healtcare types forget that, in many instances, work time is not necessarily computer time. Checking voice mail, reviewing the papers that need to be processed, reading love notes from the hot babe in the mailroom (OK, so I wish) happen during startup. And there are non-computer items that are still business related that happen during the day as well. Is that “down time”, when I’m discussing something with a co-worker that is relevant to how we’re dealing with the latest situation caused by incompetent management? Not bloody likely.
Thegreatcerebral »
24 November 2008 · 8:36 am
WOW you are stupid. First of all nobody is going to PAY YOU to make you use Vista so shut up whiny bitch.
Second you obviously have not worked in an enterprise situation before with roaming profiles, computer and user policies. All of these things load BEFORE the user can even see (not to mention use) the desktop. Also remember things like scanning software for viruses/spyware also cause slower logon times. Add to this the time that is increased for logins when there is increased traffic on the network like everyone is coming in at 8:00 etc.
The joke always used to be that you press the power button on your PC, you go talk at the coffee station/take a shit, wait 15 minutes or so and when you come back your computer is ready.
Don’t try to give your “thoughts” on something you have absolutely no idea about.
[Note: Snipped an unnecessary expletive at the end. - cgh]