text:
IBM's contractor crackdown continues: Survivors refusing pay cut have hours reduced
IBM's efforts to crimp the cost of its contract workforce are continuing, The Register has learned. Big Blue recently stopped hiring new contractors and asked those who remained to take a 10 per cent pay cut. Now it's trying to cut contractors' hours, in three ways. We were told today that some contractors have been told they …
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Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:24 GMT chrismevans
Why contract these days?
When you look at stories like this (which may or may not be indicative of the wider industry), I wonder why anyone contracts these days. Add in the UK governments obsession with "equalising" tax payments for those who have permanent jobs and those who find they may not get paid for 2 weeks next month and it isn't surprising that we keep claiming there is a skills shortage.
Who would want to work under these conditions?
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Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:38 GMT Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
Re: Why contract these days?
From my perspective, and from speaking to other contractor colleagues I'm not sure this is indicative of the wider industry - it's just IBM being IBM. Corporate and "management" fuckwittery of the highest order. They tried this back in 2004 also and I happily walked away to another client rather than agree to their terms. Whilst it may sound a little arrogant, I'm assuming the only reason any contractor would agree to this situation would be because they have either been at IBM too long and grown too comfortable - in which case they kind of deserve what they get; or that they don't feel they have the skills to move on - which again, begs the question as to their motivations as contractors.
There is plenty of work out there at the moment, both in the UK and mainland Europe. No reason to put up with any of this crap.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:43 GMT Unep Eurobats
I know it happens in the States but I don't think companies are allowed to do the furlough thing in Europe. Although it may be coming to the UK in a couple of years.
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I don't think companies are allowed to do the furlough thing...
Not to permanent staff, but if the contract says they can, then they can. One of the real differences between being a member of staff and a contractor.
Re: I don't think companies are allowed to do the furlough thing...
Agree totally, they don't need you for a fortnight, go do some work for another client - that's what I do. These guys are running their own businesses, they should not be relying on a flaky customer like IBM.
If I was them I'd be pitching my services to the client - fuck whatever clauses IBM has written into their contracts, spark up a new Ltd. company and go get 'em!
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:12 GMT John Riddoch
I know some companies force contractors to take 2-4 weeks off over Christmas, when things are normally quiet anyway. I suspect this is written into the contracts, so people go in with eyes open, though. Having the employer force you to take 2 weeks off without much notice is a bit off.
It does happen in the U.K.
My previous client had a policy of telling all contractors to take some of August and December off as there wasn't enough need for them in those holiday periods.
The option was to either accept these 'close down' periods or take the notification as your 1 week's notice.
If IBM are complaining about hours, then why not 'force' contractors onto day rates? I get the same rate whether I do a 6 hour day or a 20 hour day - unless. I've negotiated a set price for a specific deliverable.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 09:24 GMT Gordan
"I don't think companies are allowed to do the furlough thing in Europe."
If you are a contractor, of course they are. They key distinction between employees and contractors is mutuality of obligation.
Employees have mutuality of obligation, employer is obliged to provide work for them to do (or rather, pay them whether they provide the work or not), and the employee is obliged to do it in line with the terms of their contract of employment.
Contractors have no mutuality of obligation, so yes, they can indeed be told to take two weeks off, obviously unpaid.
On the other hand, two weeks is plenty of time to attend enough interviews to secure an offer, if your holiday plans don't happen to coincide with it.
I work in the UK as a contractor - we are most definitely furloughed, twice, each and every year in the company I work for.
Exemption requires the CTO to sign off on it.
I work for a major mobile carrier.
Wednesday 21st June 2017 13:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
IBM is doing this in the UK now, and has been for a while. Delivery Managers have to load furlough plans with a minimum of 2 weeks per quarter per FTE contractor. When accounts / sectors miss the targets contractor hires / extensions are suspended or take monumental effort.
Doesn't seem to matter if it impacts customers... people are just told to keep it hush from the client.
"or those who have permanent jobs"
Contractors have permanent jobs too. The distinction you're looking for is staff vs freelance. Just because you own your employer doesn't mean you're not an employee.
"Who would want to work under these conditions?"
Contracting is not, and has never been for everyone. There is always more work for those at the top of their field than there are hours in the day, far too much to consider a permanency pay cut.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 09:57 GMT AbortRetryFail
It's true that contracting is getting less and less attractive.
I've been freelance for 17 years now, and am starting to wonder why I do it. I just can't bring myself to take the collar and leash of wage slavery though.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 12:57 GMT cyclical
I did this after 19 years and it was a pretty good decision - less stress, better hours, far less paperwork - the pay is lower but I don't have to deal with mystery fluctuations when someone decides to query my invoices (how can you charge that much for migrating our legacy PERL systems to a new server, the bosses nephew reckons he could have done it in a day!) and you don't get paid for a few months. But yeah, I'm a touch bored too,
Tuesday 20th June 2017 14:53 GMT Peter2
Add in the UK governments obsession with "equalising" tax payments for those who have permanent jobs
Which is a direct response to many companies severely taking the piss by making practically every employee a "contractor" to avoid having to pay holidays, sickness, pensions and in some cases, the minimum wage.
Presumably it was thought that reducing the benefits to doing this would reduce the attraction for doing it for companies. Personally I consider that the companies taking the piss were the problem here, not the Government responding to it.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 18:40 GMT Wensleydale Cheese
"Add in the UK governments obsession with "equalising" tax payments for those who have permanent jobs"
And many of the guilty companies are those offering outsourcing services to what were once in-house to local/central government and the NHS.
When NHS and education employees were being offered this kind of employment back in 1995, no wonder that the government was concerned about "Friday to Monday" changes in employment contracts, for government itself was going to be a driving force in that direction.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 18:51 GMT ecofeco
Why? Many people have no choice. Many companies offer NO choice.
People don't work crappy jobs because they want to.
Wednesday 21st June 2017 15:25 GMT Lotaresco
" I wonder why anyone contracts these days."
I was with HP as a contractor when they tried this nonsense and tried to play hardball with the contractors. We had a meeting and we all said "Fine, we'll be off then if you don't need us."
Odd, how a big company can suddenly realise what a massive gooly it has just dropped. Several years on I'm still contracting and my day rate is a lot higher than it was then.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:27 GMT goldcd
"be forced to reduce their CLAIMED hours by 15 per cent."
and then it just gets worse as the article continues.
Might as well just say "Anybody who can get a job elsewhere, please do so. Those unable to get employed will shortly be appearing as the new expensive IBM expertise on customer sites."
Re: "be forced to reduce their CLAIMED hours by 15 per cent."
But taking a pay cut in return for reducing your hours is a lot fairer than taking a pay cut ... and having to work the same number of hours. I know which I'd prefer.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:26 GMT frank ly
@Unep Eurobats Re: "be forced to reduce their CLAIMED hours by 15 per cent."
These are contractors who are paid by the number of hours worked and the 'pay cut' is a reduction of their hourly rate.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:53 GMT Doctor Syntax
Might as well just say "Anybody who can get a job elsewhere, please do so."
Or this:
"In the last seven months I've pretty much worked constantly with five of my former clients, who have hired me directly to do the same work they can no longer find anybody at IBM to do."
Non-compete clauses? IBM is repudiating its own contracts so it might have a hard time enforcing them.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 09:52 GMT keithpeter
What is IBM actually providing? Access to software? Access to servers? What is to stop people dis-intermediating the big blue fairly aggressively and at scale?
Coat: actually shorts and flip flops at present in UK
Tuesday 20th June 2017 12:46 GMT caffeine addict
You're clearly a contractor. An employee wouldn't have to go get his shorts so he could leave.
Reducing hours is a better deal
Yeah, with 15% fewer hours you make 15% less money, but that's better than the guy who is working the same number of hours before and making 10% less money. Free time is worth something, and if your objection is "but I need that income to pay bills" then you shouldn't be a contractor - contracting is absolutely 100% not for people who live paycheck to paycheck, and don't have reserves to tolerate months off work, let alone a two week surprise furlough. If I was contracting for IBM, I'd respond to the 15% fewer hours by working 8.5 hours a day instead of 8 hours a day, and taking Fridays off. Your move, IBM.
As for the emphasis on "CLAIMED" hours in this thread, claimed hours = actual hours. If it doesn't, you might as well not be contracting. I've never worked a single hour I wasn't paid for - if I'm on a contract that limits me to 40 hours a week of work, when I hit 40 I'm done for the week, or I take it as comp time in a future week (if such an arrangement has been made) Anyone dumb enough to work 40 hours for IBM and bill them for only 34 hour needs to realize they turned down a 10% pay cut in favor of a 15% pay cut!
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:33 GMT Anonymous South African Coward
Seems things will be getting worse before they get better - but gut feeling says it will be MUCH worse.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:51 GMT Dan 55
I notice my bigcorp is taking the hint from IBM and HP
Everything was rosy last quarter, but now Savings Must Be Made.
Re: I notice my bigcorp is taking the hint from IBM and HP
They're not taking their hint from IBM and HP, they're taking their hint from Wall Street. The market is overvalued right now, with overly high P/E ratios. Stocks that can't make earnings to justify their valuations will be punished in favor of those who do, and stock prices going down hurts senior management who typically have stock options or bonuses based on "shareholder value" (which unfortunately is shorthand for stock price, because compensation committees are lazy)
They respond with cost cutting measures to save quarterly results because failure to make quarterly numbers hits them in the wallet. Once they reach a point where even extreme cost cutting won't allow them to make the numbers they'll either leave for another job, or try to bring forward a bunch of expenses to make a few quarters REALLY bad, to lower Wall Street expectations and set them up for making big bonuses next year for their "recovery". Short term measures lead to short term management.
Don't worry, when the inevitable correction hits, it will be easier to make targets, and the pressure will be off. Assuming your company is actually healthy, and not in dire circumstances like IBM and HP. HP has been in cost cutting mode for about 15 years now, and now that they've driven away all the competent people the chickens are coming home to roost. IBM didn't have that head start, but they're doing their best to catch up in only a few years' time.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 22:57 GMT Alan Brown
"HP has been in cost cutting mode for about 15 years now, and now that they've driven away all the competent people the chickens are coming home to roost."
Which goes a long way towards explaining how lifetime (30 year) LTO media warranties have been changed to 3 or 5 years.
Cloudy outlook? There's a storm coming.
Someone on ZeroHedge warned that IBM could be looking at bankruptcy because a high ranking insider warned that the saving drive is extreme; so much so that expensive projects are being stalled because ordering a cheap part can't be authorised and warns IBM people to beware!
Thursday 22nd June 2017 04:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
The problem is that cloud has now started to bite and it is very disruptive. 15 years ago IBM made big money on outsourcing. But then everyone saw how much they were making and all piled in -- the margins dropped and companies got wise to how to deal with the outsourcers (no more billion dollar deals, but maybe $100 or just $10 three-year rolling contracts).
In fairness to IBM they saw the writing on the wall some time ago and have been trying to ditch the outsourcing business and focus on cloud. Their selling point was/is to add these high-value business services on the back of them, so cloud is cheap or a loss-leader, and then the businesses are all supposed to want to buy into Analytics, etc.
While IBM has been pushing AI (branded as Watson) everyone else has jumped on the AI bandwagon. It remains to be seen how successful this will be for everyone, but the proof of the pudding will be how much money those companies that come to IBM and the rest can make on the back of this technology.
If Brexit means we get anti-austerity, inflationary policies that put more money into Joe Public's pocket, this may help in the longer term.
Oh, look, is that a flying pig?
At this rate there will soon be no IBM worth talking about.
Unfortunately the rot started a long while ago when the MBAs and marketing wonks got control in the board room.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 07:58 GMT Whitter
Abuse, plain and simple.
Only those who cannot walk for whatever reason can conceivably still be contracted to IBM. This sounds like straightforward abuse of such people. Without doubt a mass walk-out by contractors would hit IBM where it hurts but sadly, it would hit the contractors that much harder.
Re: Abuse, plain and simple.
IBM loses it's ability to support the customer.
The customer sues for breach of contract.
IBM wins court case.
IBM loses customer.
End result? Contractor still looking for a new contract, so better to start now before the flood of contractors hits the market.
AC because I am ex IBM and loving it.
"End result? Contractor still looking for a new contract"
End result, if they've any wit, contractor still supporting ex-IBM customer and divvying up IBM's slice between them. Sort of having your cake and eating it.
I've never contracted for IBM, but when I've contracted for a company that supported another customer, my contract has always included language preventing me from working, directly or indirectly, for that customer for a couple years or so. The contract the company has with that customer also prevents THEM from hiring on any of their staff or contractors, directly or indirectly.
I'm sure this sort of thing still happens because it isn't worth fighting over, but I've never thought it was worth testing those clauses. Maybe it is a more reasonable course of action is less sue-happy countries than the US.
"my contract has always included language preventing me from working, directly or indirectly, for that customer for a couple years or so"
It sounds like you have a badly written an IR35 caught contract, at least in UK terms.
The contract should be between ClientCo or AgencyCo and YourCo not you. As someone said in a previous comment, start YourCo2 which never had such a contract.
Increasingly, the contract between the agent and YourCo is including obnoxious clauses.
Currently looking at a new contract where the agent is wanting to put a clause demanding 25% cut of the earnings for a year if you end up working for the same client through a different agent. And when the client they are talking about is IBM, that puts a significant restriction on where you can find future contracts in my main line of work.
I personally think it is an abuse of the unequal power relationship between a big agent, and a small contracting company, but the only power I have is not to accept the contract, which otherwise is attractive, as long as they don't attempt to trim the rate from what was on offer last week.
All my contracts are between my corp and another corp (a go between for the BigCorp I'm consulting for, because in the US no big corporations will contract directly with a little one person corp like mine)
This language covers anyone my corp employs on the contract, which is always just me, but if I had others in my corp it would affect them too. I asked about that clause once long ago, and was told it was a requirement of BigCorp to the go between so there was nothing they could do about it. I've had clauses struck from contracts before, but I only bother with ones that would negatively impact me to a significant degree like noncompetes, and this is one that does not impact me.
Since all of my contracts have been made through contacts in the various BigCorps, who then sole source me to their go between, I'm not beholden to that go between. If I find something I want struck, like the 25% example provided, if they won't play ball I tell my contact. They've always been able to tell the go between to do what I ask. It also allows me to negotiate my rate directly with the contact - the rate that will be paid to the go between. I then tell the go between they can take $10/hr, and if they squawk remind them I arranged the gig, not them, and there are other go betweens available for BigCorp (not always true, different divisions may have set go betweens, but by this time they're scared of me and just accept that I'm probably telling the truth)
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:22 GMT Bob Vistakin
One obvious question - who picks up these extra hours if it's no longer the contractor? It has to be the remaining permies.
Way to go for morale boosting, Intense Bowel Movement.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:45 GMT ckm5
What happens is all the best people leave - basically the ones who were propping up everyone else. Because only C/D players are left, contracts are lost or not won.
It's basically a death spiral. IBM is circling the drain.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 18:08 GMT Adam 52
"What happens is all the best people leave ... It's basically a death spiral. IBM is circling the drain."
This is my perception of what happened at Northern Telecom. They made a whole load of people redundant. That, in turn, made lots of people nervous. Including Nobel Prize calibre physicists. Turns out that if you make that quality of person investigate their market worth then they discover that they can get a *much* better deal elsewhere, all the smart people left and Nortel declined into bankruptcy.
Going, going...
Gone?
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:10 GMT GruntyMcPugh
"This has been communicated to senior IBM management as non-negotiable with no recourse for exclusion, regardless of the business case or impact to clients"
Oh dear, and they wonder why they lose contracts. A big fuss used to be made about 'New Logo' contracts, but not enough effort put in to keep the existing customers happy. I guess they see the landscape being paved with three year tie ins, and customers are disposable after.
I bet the trophy wall at Warwick looks a bit sparse these days.
Long since replaced by staff art exhibitions...
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:29 GMT Miss Lincolnshire
HPE were doing this when I was there.
10% Rate cut demands
Easter "Furlough" - 4 days
Summer "Furlough - 8 days
Christmas "Furlough" - 10 days
All sprung on you with no notice. When you aren't there the increasingly sparse, and non overtime earning, permanent staff get battered to cover the gaps. They can't and customers suffer.
I won't work for them again, they either want the job you were employed for doing or they don't. I worked a "professional" day so they were already getting at least a free day a week off me as it was but they still had to take the piss and push it.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 08:40 GMT Jeffrey Jefferson
How does IBM keep winning outsourcing contracts if things are that bad?
FTFY
Lloyds Bank & Bombardier?
"does IBM keep winning outsourcing contracts if things are that bad?"
You might recall a recent story about Lloyds outsourcing to IBM.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/
Somehow IBM salesy bullshitters seem to be able to convince upper management of large corporations to sign up, in this case for ten years, and ~£1.3 Bn . You really have to be naive to sign a contract of that duration.
"You might recall a recent story about Lloyds outsourcing to IBM.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/06/lloyds_confirms_ibm_cloudy_outsourcing/"
However, there's also https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/20/ibm_xeon_only_discount/
Won't hurt winning new contracts
Because the customer will be fleeing someone else they were unhappy with, such as HP. It is easy to assume things will be better with a new partner. Kind of like how you are giddy when you start a new relationship and it takes a little time to see each others flaws and annoying habits :)
Where it will hurt is renewals and references. The impact on those won't be felt for a few years, but I'd expect to see IBM's outsourcing revenue begin to make a steep dive around 2020 as a result.
"You really have to be naive to sign a contract of that duration."
Or taking a very large sweetener. Follow the money.
Re : How does IBM keep winning outsourcing contracts if things are that bad?
If it is anything like some of the pre-sales meetings I had to endure when I was at IBM, it's (A) because the IBM salesmen are full of bullshit, and (B) because for some strange reason I guess the 3rd parties still seem to be enamoured and impressed by that fact they are talking to IBM perhaps??? In that case you have a bizarre, strange and self fulfilling relationship.
Kickbacks are a very big incentives to the executives who are actually signing the contracts.
Did you think those offshore tax shelters were JUST tax shelters?
And yet IBM are hiring contractors
I wonder if it may be to replace people who have walked, but JobServe is currently awash with agencies advertising for C++ contractors to go into IBM Hursley. All demanding a current SC Clearance, which is in clear contravention of guidelines issued by the Ministry of Defence (not that such things bother IBM of course).
The more I read and hear about IBM, the less I want to have them as a client.
Re: And yet IBM are hiring contractors
To be fair that's because the rest of government don't give a toss what MoD think about security regs. MoD have a very weird security culture.
It's an overall government policy as laid out in the Cabinet Office code of practice document 'Recruiting for vacancies requiring National Security Vetting Clearance'.
Trouble is, being merely a code of practice, it can be completely ignored quite legally.
> An IBM staffer who asked to remain anonymous tells The Register that the company has now told senior management that those contractors who refused the pay cut will "be forced to reduce their claimed hours by 15 per cent."
And this is why IBM should never, ever, be considered for critical infrastructure.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 11:23 GMT adam payne
"The Register has also seen a document in which team leaders are offered a new tool for analysing and projecting the number of hours worked by contractors in order to "improve forecast accuracy" and achieve a "Utilization Delta +/- 10%". Contractors are therefore are being asked to submit their expected working hours two weeks in advance."
Submit the hours you are going to work two weeks in advance, how does anyone know that?
"Another told us that "The most recent cut of contractor labor has left me the sole supporter of one business critical system which supports part of the information security for many clients."
This person goes on holiday and through sods law the system falls over, what are you going to do then IBM?
""In several cases they had to obtain a quote for services from IBM as a comparison and have had to wait months just to get back a quote that was twice the price and three times the duration, and could not be started for months, due to a lack of available staff. In one instance, I was even approached by IBM to do the work my client had asked them to quote for!"
You wonder why you are losing money when you leave a client waiting for three months for a quote, seriously on what planet is this acceptable?
"Submit the hours you are going to work two weeks in advance, how does anyone know that?"
That's nothing; a few years ago one of the other, now equally troubled, tech companies used to ask consultants to forecast their time up to three MONTHS in advance. Managers maintained spreadsheets of weightings and probabilities in a futile attempt to make this work.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 13:48 GMT Snorlax
@adam payne: "This person goes on holiday and through sods law the system falls over, what are you going to do then IBM?"
At 4.30pm on the day you leave for your holiday, your manager says "Keep your phone on Adam, we might need to call you while you're off."
That's why my fictional holiday destinations don't have a phone signal...
Submitting expected hours
Depends on what they're going to do with it. If they're using it to budget for your expected labor, expect the most hours you can get away with so you don't have to worry about them telling you to cut back if you've exceeded your "budget", and if you work less than expected/budgeted no one is going to complain. If it is to determine who is the 'most expensive' and therefore who to get rid of, just say 40 hours a week and stop working when you reach that limit and if they ask why you weren't working Friday tell them why - "I submitted expectations for 40 hours a week, so I didn't think I was allowed to exceed that".
When you get weird questions like this, you just have to figure out why it is being asked. Then you'll know how to respond.
> That's why my fictional holiday destinations don't have a phone signal...
Some parts of Cornwall, on the beach even :D, have no mobile signal, and the local population refuses all attempts to install them.
It's actually pretty wonderful in summer. :)
I actively seek out these locations.
It's the only time the kids look up from their phones and engage in real conversation.
It's on
in silent mode and in the safe which is an effective Faraday cage.
Tuesday 12th December 2017 14:36 GMT MarkW99
If I could forecast the future 2 weeks ahead, I wouldn't have to work for IBM or anybody else.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 11:43 GMT Mephistro
This is just another proof...
... that unbridled Capitalism has managed to create an environment in which the company's own management is also the company's worst enemy.
Seriously, this is a perfect shitstorm, and won't get fixed until it has already demolished most of our economies.
It's also another proof that our governments are either criminal or criminally stupid.
Re: This is just another proof...
that unbridled Capitalism has MBAs have managed to create an environment in which the company's own management is also the company's worst enemy
"It's also another proof that our governments are either criminal or criminally stupid."
Governments appoint MBAs to run companies? Some businesses have been run well, some run badly since businesses existed. Good businesses have fallen prey to bad management. What's it to do with government?
MBAs do -mostly- what the laws allow them to do. Some regulation regarding things like golden parachutes, bonuses, financial engineering and executives' personal liability would go a long way towards fixing these issues.
To work, these regulations would also need a serious effort in enforcement.
I agree nonetheless that what is taught in these MBA degrees is seriously lacking in ethics, but the problem would fix itself after a few of these managers find themselves jailed or personally bankrupted by fines.
And IMO, bad management due to incompetence and stupidity shouldn't be punished, as people don't usually choose to be noobs. Consider it as a form of Darwinism, both for companies and shareholders. You hire scum to run the company, you face the consequences. No bailouts, no "too big to fail", no bullshit.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 16:01 GMT Ken Hagan
"MBAs do -mostly- what the laws allow them to do."
Theoretically, they are also constrained by the shareholders. In practice, the shareholders are the infinitely smart masters of the universe who manage our pension funds, so the actual level of oversight is not experimentally distinguishable from zero.
Can the system be described as "broken" if the actual problem is that no-one is bothering to implement it?
It is a compensation problem, not a capitalism problem
If senior management is being compensated in a way that encourages short term thinking - quarterly results, stock price, etc. then they'll manage the company accordingly. When management is compensated using long term measures, they'll manage with a long term viewpoint and you won't see them pursuing strategies that will hurt the company in 3-5 years just to make this quarter/FY numbers.
So long as you realize everyone is going to pursue their own self-interest, and set goals that align the long term interests of the company with people's self-interest, you'll be fine. When their self-interest conflicts with the long term interests of the company, then it is the fault of people who set their goals (or in the case of management that sets their own goals, the board that approved it or the shareholders that stood by the board)
Re: It is a compensation problem, not a capitalism problem
"If senior management is being compensated in a way that encourages short term thinking - quarterly results"
This is an area where governments could actually make a difference: ban reporting at less than annual intervals. Yup, I know the arguments. But consider the possibility that the benefits might outweigh the disadvantages.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 11:57 GMT Gordon Pryra
The cuts are impacting morale
Well, no offense, but you have a choice.
As a contractor myself, I constantly get annoyed by listening to other contractors complain about pay/working conditions etc
In this case it seems that the IBM contractors see themselves as IBM staff, just on more cash than the full timers, tough go full time or deal with it.
We are NOT talking about the poor sods on zero hours contracts that are forced to become "self employed" but the upper levels where they don't seem to want to take the negatives along with the cash
Tuesday 20th June 2017 17:46 GMT Roland6
Re: The cuts are impacting morale
Alot depends on how the cuts are implemented. A reduction in working hours isn't too bad if you can restructure your week/month to create usable time, ie. time that you can use working for another client. The problems arise when the job's worth's managers decide that you need to be present 5 days a week for "core hours" of 10:00-16:00 in the expectation that most people will actually be onsite and thus work 9'ish to 5'ish...
9 to 5? More like 8 to 7 due to lack of resources.
The 'Hours Plan'
Ah yes, the 'Hours Plan' where both FTE's and contractors have to predict their hours for the following two weeks on both project and BAU support work (if in that space). It's base number is a 40 hour week and if you predict you will exceed 50 hours during a week it questions it (I suspect if someone put 30 hours it would question it too.)
I have the dubious honour of working on both BAU and project work thanks to cuts of both FTE and contractors in both the BAU and project teams. So I now have to predict how many hours I may spend on BAU support work and how much will be spent on individual project work.
Of course, being BAU and escalation for offshore resources inevitably means that my BAU predictions blow out, project managers underestimate the hours for various activities or push to get more done over the course of the week and weekends than I may have predicted.
Then there is the customer yelling about this project or that project not being done so a delivery manager pulls me off the project I predicted my hours for to work on a different project (and different code) which then makes what I end up claiming differing significantly from what I had predicted (unless I remember to request an ad hoc plan to modify my existing prediction and I seldom have time to remember to do that.) I was once moved between 3 different projects in one week as my 'top priority' due to customer escalation - the deciding factor was which one resulted I the highest cost in penalties if not delivered on time.
Generally missing a specific predicted sub-code doesn't cause problems for the hours plan as it looks at total numbers for a week but I did get an email once or twice for the subset of hours that I had predicted but not recorded as actual - it was unclear as to which tool actually generated the email.
We also get emails that report the 'forecast accuracy' compared to actual claimed and if this was outside the expected bounds (> -10% or > +10% predicted hours) it highlights the forecast accuracy yellow if > 20% red if > 30% or higher - my team are consistently appearing in 'red' for working more hours than predicted.
I (amongst several hundred other plebs) got the recent missive about discrepancies between predictions of hours and what was eventually recorded. They want accuracy within 10% + or - of our predicted hours vs claimed and everyone was listed on a spreadsheet recording the last 4 weeks or so of hours predicted vs hours actually claimed. If a person was within the range of +/- 10% of predictions they were marked green, everyone else got marked as red. This applied even if you worked well above your predicted hours - all of my team appeared as red for exceeding our predicted hours by more than 10% (all of us had exceeded 50% above our predicted 40-50 hour work week every week of the period they looked at but that has been the case for over 12 months now.)
We now are getting questioned about our 'excessive' hours worked each week as someone is doing some sort of analysis and noted we work 55 hour weeks on average and it's often around the 60-70 hour mark. The questions weren't about working long hours impacting health or anything like that, it was more questioning why we were working so many hours because of the internal costs it generated As FTE's we don't get overtime so essentially we are each providing between 15 and 40 hours of 'free' labour each week (depending on workload.) There is an internal cost to an account when we bill to it and we guess they've got some base number of hours they anticipate that we would work and not based on anything on actuals.
Taking time in lieu only hurts the team (especially when your team has been reduced from double digits to single digits) as it means trying to find someone to take on your project work or BAU work and it's not really practicable when most of us are working days, nights and weekends.
As to why I am still here? I seldom have enough spare time to dedicate to study to update my certifications so that I can make an escape before the inevitable happens.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 13:04 GMT sebt
Re: The 'Hours Plan'
A long post, but worth the read. It's a vivid example of how much trouble a bunch of fuckwits with a spreadsheet can cause. Can we introduce some kind of licensing system, like for guns? Even if we have to prise the "metrics" out of the cold, dead hands of the fuckwits who invented them.
I remember when I used to spend my working day developing, testing and supporting clients. Rather than doing some weird kind of improvised contemporary dance routine through the hoops and labyrinths imposed by Process. Or Process Management. Or the Process Management Process.
"Or the Process Management Process."
Or the Process Management Report Process Report.
Pogs, it's all about Pogs. Wooden Dollars. Pretend money.
Fictional costs that don't actually exist when people are not getting paid overtime but that still get billed internally at the hourly rate without any cap even after you've done your 5 days. I remember working through a Sev1 where I booked a straight 38 hours because that was the hours it took to do the fix. That was 38 hours at £80 an hour on the internal rate card. Over £3k when I was not clearing amount a month. My resource pool lead looked good that month. I got bugger all.
Aside from distorting the real costs of project and live service delivery it also sees funds sucked off into areas that should not be doing anything other than break even on the resource they supply. Is it any wonder that those not delivering have more budget to waste than those that don't?
Typical that it is the costs rather than the physical effects on individuals that bother IBM (and HPE and CSC and etc ) the most.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 14:41 GMT Alistair
@AC 3600 Steeles was in this state 4 years ago. Don't bother polishing anything just start asking. There is *MUCH* better work out there. For what its worth, I *never* specced a code on target hours. Don't use lotus notes behind the tool, switch to LO spreadsheet, fill it out, save it, pop it open in lotus and submit.
Stupidity of the worst sort, and the reason I left.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 18:10 GMT cd / && rm -rf *
" it was unclear as to which tool actually generated the email"
One wonders whether the tool in question is software or wetware.
Can sock puppets be considered tools?
"regardless of the business case or impact to clients"
Yeah, that's never a good sign...
Tuesday 20th June 2017 12:59 GMT Nolveys
You know...
...I haven't seen the film "Titanic" in a while. Remember when those people fell off the stern and hit the propellers on their way down to the icy water below? Yeah, that was great.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 13:22 GMT ForthIsNotDead
Sounds like IBM is screwed
It sounds like the haemorrhage of money at IBM has reached the "OH FUCK WE'RE GOING UNDER" point.
"This has been communicated to senior IBM management as non-negotiable with no recourse for exclusion, regardless of the business case or impact to clients." At the beginning of May, 2017, half of the High End Server Hardware Warranty Support Team left IBM to go to HPE. That left the Team decimated. The following week, they laid off three of us, leaving only three Techs to support Lenovo and IBM Server hardware customers. Now, there likely isn't any contractors left to get the work done. Meanwhile, the over abundance of managers and Team Leads aren't the ones taking inbound calls and providing customer service. Apparently, they matter more to IBM than serving customers. How long before IBM merges with "someone else"?
Half the team left, and then they laid three off the following week? Makes me think that the half who left got wind of the layoffs and decided to make their own plans first, but the layoffs were already in motion and couldn't be stopped in time. Whoever manages that team presumably begged his boss' boss to stop the layoffs, but probably they were ordered to "make x layoffs in your unit" and were being measured on a metric that didn't take voluntary exits into account.
Shitty management!
Tuesday 20th June 2017 15:13 GMT Howard Hanek
The IBM Logo
......displayed outside their main offices done in stainless steel should be replaced by inflatable polyuerethane with some of air deliberately left out.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 15:24 GMT davidfavor
$100+/hour Multi-Client Contracting + Continuity Income Guide
My last, single client, contract gig was a 10 year engagement with IBM.
Over a 6 month period my rate was cut from $69/hour to $35/hour + hours reduced from 60+/week to 40/week.
After this I started doing multi-client work from home for $100/hour.
If I lose one client, there's a line of others on a wait list waiting to pay me.
My first contact gig was 1982 + with net connectivity, contracting is better now than ever.
Trick is...
1) Work from home.
2) Network big time - Attend Meetups. Speak at Meetups/Conferences. Participate in forums.
Effective/Lucrative Networking relates to providing such massive value to so many people, a few really smart ones will clearly understand your value + keep you on permanent payroll.
3) Target having many clients, rather than one or two big ones.
4) Ensure your hourly work drives to some sort of continuity. Example...
My work tends to revolve around setup/tuning/maintenance of LAMP Stacks running WordPress.
After wrestling with badly broken + outdated hosting setup, I started doing private hosting.
Now I only do hourly work for my hosting clients. Since all runtime setups are the same, I can do in an hour what it use to take me 10-20+ hours in random runtime environments.
So my continuity is private hosting.
Consider services you offer + work out some form of continuity.
Having $1000s/week continuity income, to me, makes the old school contracting I use to do look like a joke.
And thank you IBM, for royally screwing with my income years ago, so I was inspired to dump big clients for multi-client + at home work.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 17:31 GMT stephanh
Re: $100+/hour Multi-Client Contracting + Continuity Income Guide
So, unlike IBM, you have a profitable cloud business?
"2) Network big time - Attend Meetups. Speak at Meetups/Conferences. Participate in forums."
Let me add another to that. Work on jobs for one client that involve collaboration with other businesses future clients.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 17:55 GMT Florida1920
team leaders are offered a new tool
I'm sure they and their subordinates already know where to find the tools.
Re: team leaders are offered a new tool
"I'm sure they and their subordinates already know where to find the tools."
Don't be too sure. They may be unable to find their arses with both hands and a map.
Tuesday 20th June 2017 18:31 GMT GrapeBunch
Life after DIC
Time to brush up your EBCDIC, retirement compadres, for a new career as a very private consultant!
I've come to expect weekly, or more frequent, articles about IBM's race to the bottom. For twenty years I competed against them, partnered with them, worked for them and faced-off against them in negotiations on behalf of clients. Every experience was uniformly poor. I've discussed IBM with many people in my industry (enterprise systems) and the most common thread is the bewilderment that the company has managed to get away with price-gouging and under-performance for as long as it has. It does seem that their story is coming to a predictable end. Arrogance coupled with unjustified prices, poor service and cutting delivery resources can only result in its demise.
Could a beneficial side effect of IBM's implosion be the death of Lotus Notes? Please?
Wednesday 21st June 2017 04:05 GMT Roboiii
Cmon Mr. Robot, You're smarter than they are. Slow it down, produce shit code, etc. To unionize electronically these days, even anonymously, would be so f#cking easy. Use your brains or you deserve what you get. It's warfare ultimately.
Furlough by accident
One of my customers wanted to employ my services for two days a week for a year. They unfortunately then multiplied two days a week by four to calculate eight days a month, and therefore only have the budget for 48 weeks and not 52 weeks of the year.
Works for me.
Wednesday 21st June 2017 10:53 GMT Tronald Dump
Mystic Meg mode
Just wait till they merge with that other shower of twats DXC
Wednesday 21st June 2017 16:20 GMT Miss Lincolnshire
Re: Mystic Meg mode
Creating DXC was an excellent idea and a fitting endpoint
Put all the twats in one place...............................................Pune
In my case my renewal was put on hold on the last day of the contract. A day before I was told by my agency that the contract is renewed and a P.O. is already generated and good to continue. However, on the last day I was told it is kept on hold indefinitely due to decision from senior management. There was no chance for 15 day notice period as well. I was just given couple of hours to delegate the tasks that were assigned to me. I had a very good opinion about IBM until then but everything changed from that moment..
Wednesday 21st June 2017 14:58 GMT Bheleu
IBM joins my private list of outfits not to work for/charge a vast rate for
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IBM top brass accused again of using mainframes to prop up Watson, cloud sales
Special report Securities fraud lawsuit reloaded
SaaS 18 Jan 2023 | 36
IBM shifts remaining US-based AIX dev jobs to India – source
Around 80 positions moved to another continent, Big Blue stays silent
OSes 12 Jan 2023 | 34
Unix is dead. Long live Unix!
Comment Don't expect to see any more big AIX news. What does that leave us with?
OSes 17 Jan 2023 | 172
IBM to help Japan's government-funded chipmaker produce 2nm CPUs, GPUs
Just as Tokyo reportedly agrees to back US chip sanctions against China
Systems 14 Dec 2022 | 4
IBM set to bump up storage prices outside the US in the new year
Big Blue confirms DS8000 arrays, and various tape libraries and drives will all cost more
Storage 2 Dec 2022 | 2
IBM and Maersk to shut down TradeLens supply chain platform
Project with shipping giant was once floated as ideal blockchain use case – but industry didn't buy in
Software 30 Nov 2022 | 29
IBM sues Micro Focus, claims it copied Big Blue mainframe software
Updated It's all kicking off around company's CICS service
Systems 22 Nov 2022 | 38
IBM manager sues for $5m claiming postnatal demotion
Congratulations on the twins! By the way, our discrimination laws are 'subject to interpretation'
On-Prem 21 Nov 2022 | 15
It would take a 'catastrophic' recession to stop tech spend growth, says IBM boss
Tells Economic Club of New York no one he knows is trimming IT budgets
Off-Prem 18 Nov 2022 | 21
IBM to fire Watson IoT Platform from its cloud
Exclusive Big Blue follows in footsteps of Google in pulling plug on services
Edge + IoT 15 Nov 2022 | 19
Warren Buffett buys billions of dollars worth of TSMC stock
There's gold in them there chip mountains? World's sixth richest man seems to think so
Systems 15 Nov 2022 | 6
The Osprey has landed: IBM's 433-qubit quantum processor
Still quite a way to go before fabled 4,158-qubit system lands, scheduled for 2025. Plus: Fujitsu details quantum/HPC hybrid calculation tech


Being a caregiver can be incredibly stressful, which is something that even famous folks find out the hard way sometimes. But if you want to be the best caregiver that you can possibly be, you might want to pay attention to some of these lessons.
When you don't have the energy that you need in order to tackle the issues that caregiving throws your way, you're not going to be able to keep up. Take a moment and think about what helps you to feel more energized. More sleep, foods that are high in nutritional value, and plenty of water probably make your list. If you're not getting those things, you need to work them into your daily routine.
Get Help Whenever You Can.
You don't have to do everything on your own, although many caregivers mistakenly subscribe to this belief. If someone is offering you help, take them up on it. And if you're in a situation where people aren't offering to help, there are still solutions. Hiring home care providers can get you a variety of different types of help very quickly.
What Are You Not Doing Anymore?
Caregiving often takes so much time and energy that you gradually start to give up some of the things you've always loved to do. So what are you no longer doing? If you used to read a few times a week, do what you can to take that hobby up again. Other hobbies and methods of relaxation also need to be on your agenda, so brainstorm different activities you enjoy doing.
Learn How to Deal with the Challenges that Crop Up.
Caregiving is always going to throw something new your way. It's important that you learn as much as you can about your senior's health and about caregiving in general so you can prepare. One of the best ways to do that can be through joining a caregiver support group. The other members have all been where you are and can share their hard-won wisdom.
Everybody's experience as a caregiver is going to be different. But the basic message is the same for everyone. If you're not taking the best care of yourself that you possibly can, you're not going to be the best caregiver that you want to be. It might feel like you're being selfish, but you're actually doing more for your senior than you think.
If you or an aging loved one needs caregiver services in Elk Grove, CA, remember Senior Home Care Services. Call us at (916) 514-7006 for more information.


text:
Q: removing \n in dictionary I've got a problem with removing \n in my program here is the code
with open(filename) as f:
    for line in f.readlines():
        parent, child = line.split(",")
            parent.strip()
            child.strip()
            children[child].append(parent)

tried using .rstrip and other variants but it does nothing for my, this is the result i get
{'Patricia\n': ['Mary'], 'Lisa\n': ['Mary']}

the problem is when i call children["Patricia"] i get [], because it recognizes only children["Patricia\n"]

A: Actually, you were quite close. Strings are immutable and hence calling strip() will return a new string while leaving the original one intact.
So replacing
parent.strip()
child.strip()

with
parent = parent.strip()
child = child.strip()

would do the trick.

A: Please use strip before split:
parent, child = line.rstrip("\n").split(",")

Issue was: parent.strip() needs to be re-assigned to a string as strings are immutable.

A: Calling strip() on its own does not change the original value. You will either need to assign to a variable first or use it within your dictionary creation.
Do see if the following snippet solves you problem
with open(filename) as f:
    for line in f.readlines():
        parent, child = line.split(",")
            children[child.strip()].append(parent.strip())

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Marland Architecture is a design firm that serves Boone, NC and the surrounding area in northwest North Carolina including the counties of Ashe, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Watauga, and Wilkes. We value strong relationships with clients and builders and strive to listen and design the perfect house or addition for your needs, your property and your budget. Ecofriendly construction and living is a priority, and Marland Architecture has the experience to help you attain your goals for a new home that respects the environment. Call Kimberly at 828-964-9274 or complete the form below to send an email inquiry. Thanks!


text:
<?php include 'menu.php'; ?>

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                                            Sucursal
                                            Provincia
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                                    ?>

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                                            Observación

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                        Registre los datos de la nueva sucursal.

                    <form role="form" id="form" class="form-horizontal"  method="POST">

                                    Nombre

<input type="text" class="form-control" name="nombre" id="nombre" placeholder="Ingrese su nombre" required>

                                    Departamento

<input type="text" class="form-control" name="departamento" id="departamento" required>

                                    Provincia

<input type="text" class="form-control" name="provincia" id="provincia" required>

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<input type="text" class="form-control" name="distrito" id="distrito" required>

                                    Dirección

<input type="text" class="form-control" name="direccion" id="direccion" required>

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<input type="text" class="form-control" name="observacion" id="observacion" placeholder="Ingrese su Observación">

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                    </form>

<?php include 'footer.php'; ?>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Iowa Senate Republicans propose state grants for private school students
William Petroski Brianne Pfannenstiel
Students enrolling in private schools could be eligible for education savings accounts using state grants of about $4,000 annually under a bill introduced Tuesday in the Iowa Senate.
Senate Study Bill 3306 was assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where it is eligible for debate late in the 2018 session because it involves a state spending issue. Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, who has been assigned to manage the bill, said he is serious about pursuing the legislation and he hopes to quickly convene a Senate subcommittee to consider advancing the measure.
"The idea is to give options and choices to parents and guardians. I trust them to make the best decisions for education," Chelgren said. "Having parents with buy-ins is the goal."
The proposal is similar to one introduced earlier this year by Republicans in the Iowa House. That bill would have given students about $5,000 each to put into education savings accounts and would have expanded the ability of charter schools to operate in Iowa.
The House measure was debated but failed to gain enough support to advance out of a full committee.
The Senate legislation says kindergarten students would be eligible for an education savings account, as would any other student who has attended a public school for the two immediately preceding semesters. Home-school students would not be eligible.
The bill directs the state to put money into individual accounts that families could access through electronic debit cards or checks. Chelgren said he didn't immediately have a total estimated annual cost of the legislation, but it is anticipated it would be used by about 2 percent of Iowa students.
Money could carry over each year if it isn't used, and if any remains after a student graduates from high school, it could be used for some higher education costs until the student reaches a certain age.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the Republican-sponsored bill has been introduced at a time when there is a lot of concern about the adequacy of state funding for K-12 schools across Iowa. Last month, the Legislature approved a 1 percent increase in state aid for Iowa school districts for the 2018-2019 academic year.
"We see class sizes growing, old textbooks that need to be replaced and teachers being laid off," Bolkcom said. "Any diversion from our local public schools is something that people are going to be very concerned about as they look at this new proposal. It is unclear what the costs will be, but essentially, it is money that we don't have at this moment."
Lobbyists representing the Iowa Association of School Boards, the Iowa State Education Association, Rural School Advocates of Iowa and the Urban Education Network of Iowa all registered in opposition to the bill shortly after it was introduced.
Chelgren said the legislation would restrict spending to education-related purposes, and it could not be used for such purposes as transportation, or food or clothing.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Several movies and complimentary drinks later, you're more than ready to get off the airplane. As the pilot announces your arrival, you start to feel thrilled. Arriving in John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport, you cannot wait until your Pennsylvania getaway officially starts. You could stand in line for a shuttle to take you to your Johnstown hotel or try to hail an Uber to arrive a little faster. But, if you desire to start your trip out of town in Johnstown promptly, then having a personal automobile is essential. If you are looking for a cheap car rental when you are in Johnstown, then Hertz can help.
Once you get into in John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport you won't have to go far to get a start on your Johnstown trip. You'll discover your Hertz car rental conveniently in or near the terminal. Moreover, you'll relax knowing you reserved your airport rental car through CarRentals. That is because CarRentals works with many of the top car rental companies in the business. Hertz has over a hundred years of car rental experience and a fleet including some of the most respected in the industry, like Nissan and Ford. You know you will be in some great hands with Hertz impressive record and thousands of distributors all over the world.
Book a Cheap Car Rental in Johnstown!
Having the use of a rental car while on vacation opens numerous possibilities. If the Cambria County Community Art Center is catching your eye, then no worries! Just get in your car rental from Hertz and drive. When you reserve through CarRentals you can get the most affordable rates by prepaying ahead of time or reserve with your credit card to hold your car and pay how you want at pickup. CarRentals gives you the independence to explore.


Your photovoltaic systems should be built as efficiently as possible and be operated cost-effectively in the long term without any downtime. As a customer, you benefit from our expertise and many years of experience in the photovoltaics industry, the comprehensive range of services and our global presence. Our photovoltaic specialists responsibly support your project from the initial planning meeting to the end of the system lifetime.
Receive detailed information and find out more about the latest trends and technologies for photovoltaic applications.


text:
GRAPHICS: How Iowa's Vote Totals Shifted From The 1st Alignment To The 2nd
By Elena Moore
Published February 7, 2020 at 11:07 PM CST
Precinct captain Emily Duff, center, counts supporters for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., during a Democratic party caucus at Hoover High School, Monday in Des Moines, Iowa.
After well-publicized issues with the reporting of results, Iowa's Democratic caucuses are a virtual tie, with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., collecting 26.2% of estimated delegates and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders getting 26.1%.
The caucuses' State Delegate Equivalents determine the winner, but Iowa Democrats also released two other data points: raw vote totals from the first caucus alignment, and totals from the second and final alignment.
[Here's much more on how the caucus process works]
By providing a breakdown of the vote totals from both rounds, we're able to see which candidates picked up support from caucusgoers, and which candidates lost votes.
Below, you can see these shifts. Buttigieg added the most support, though Sanders kept his vote total lead from the first to second alignment. Former Vice President Joe Biden lost support from the first alignment to the second.
Don't see the graphic above? Click here.
Here's another way of looking at the shifts:
Elena Moore
Elena Moore is a production assistant for the NPR Politics Podcast. She also fills in as a reporter for the NewsDesk. Moore previously worked as a production assistant for Morning Edition. During the 2020 presidential campaign, she worked for the Washington Desk as an editorial assistant, doing both research and reporting. Before coming to NPR, Moore worked at NBC News. She is a graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and is originally and proudly from Brooklyn, N.Y.
See stories by Elena Moore


My partner and I operate a community printshop, gallery, & publishing business in Pilsen. Artists we have worked with include John Himmelfarb, Nicole Marroquin, and Aaron Coleman, among others. A number of prints we have editioned are a part of the Prints & Drawings Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, and others have been displayed at the Chicago Cultural Center and National Museum of Mexican Art.
Cleaning and reframing fire-damaged artworks. Experience creating an inventory of hundreds of works of art, including originals by Frank Stella and Sally Mann. Operation of a Wizard 8000 CNC machine.
I operated an M&R Saturn Automated Screen Press to produce large silkscreened editions.
Responsibilities included scheduling and managing a group of volunteer studio monitors and executing screenprinted editions by hand from start to finish for Spudnik's contract clients.


text:
using System;

//Problem 12.* Randomize the Numbers 1…N
//• Write a program that enters in integer  n  and prints the numbers
//1, 2, …, n  in random order.

//Examples:
//n       randomized numbers 1…n
//3       2 1 3
//10      3 4 8 2 6 7 9 1 10 5

//Note: The above output is just an example. Due to randomness,
//your program most probably will produce different results.
//You might need to use arrays.

class Randomize_the_Numbers_1_N
{
    static void Main()
    {

    }
}


text:
Il primo bacio (First Love) è un film del 1939, diretto da Henry Koster. È ispirato alla fiaba Cenerentola di Charles Perrault, pubblicata ne I racconti di Mamma Oca a Parigi nel 1697.

Produzione
Le riprese del film, prodotto dall'Universal Pictures, durarono dal 27 giugno a metà ottobre 1939.

Distribuzione
Il copyright del film, richiesto dalla Universal Pictures Co., fu registrato il 9 novembre 1939 con il numero LP9215.

Note

Bibliografia

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

Film commedia musicale
Film diretti da Henry Koster

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Speed Rally Pro 2 on jatko-osa Speed Rally Pro. Both are astonishing unity 3d racing games. In Speed Rally Pro 2, you can choose a car from 14 super cars (BMW, Lamborghini Murcielago, Porsche, etc.) and then the only thing you have to do is to win all races. Myös, you can customise your car for an unique look. Pitää hauskaa.
Pelata Speed Rally Pro 2, voit käyttää nuolinäppäimiä ajaa, F key to toggle fullscreen, V-näppäintä muuttaa kameran näkymän, O key to open option menu, M key to choose a car and X key to restart the race.


text:
Tawana Services Development and Cultural Organization موسسه خدمات انکشافی و فرهنگی توانا
Promotion of Human rights
Disaster Risk Reduction and Mitigation
Early Recover, and Resilience building of shock affected families
Emergency Response Sector
Home|About
Tawana Services Development & Cultural Organization which is hereinafter referred as (TSDCO) is a uniliteral, non-political, impartial national organization based in Herat, operates in western region provinces of Afghanistan. The TSDCO has established at the beginning of 2007 by a number of social activists in Qala-e-Naw city, Badghis province Afghanistan to help the Afghan needy and deprived people in western region provinces. The TSDCO was officially registered in Ministry of Economics of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 18/07/2012 with the registration number of 2680. TSDCO aims to contribute in socio-economic development of the country and well-being of Afghan nationals through provision of live-saving emergency assistance, recovery, development and resilience building initiatives and activities. TSDCO aligns its strategy and performance in accordance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Afghan government is fully committed to achieve them particularly in SDG #1 (No poverty), SDG #2 (Zero hunger), SDG #4 (Education), SDG #5 (Gender equality) and SDG #6 (Clean water). TSDCO has established strong communication and coordination mechanism at community, district, province and regional level to make sure that the hard to reach areas are accessible and most vulnerable and in need families are targeted and their basic and urgent needs are addressed through timely and adequately response and assistance. TSDCO values the volunteerism and TSDCO has already shared its resources during emergencies in western region and the organization is fully prepared to share it resources including human resources, vehicles and offices to any emergency situation to save the life of Afghans and reduce their suffers.
Since the establishment in 2007 till 2012, TSDCO performances/achievements relied on only volunteerism in Badghis province and the organization was providing services such awareness raising, community dialogues on women's rights, gender based violence (GBV), community mobilization to keep the school, homes and villages clean, conflict resolution and peace building through providing atmosphere for negotiation, discussion and finding resolution of conflict-creating issues. Meantime TSDCO celebrated the International and national days such March the 8th, Nov the 25th, 10th Dec, 28 Asad (Afghanistan Independence Day) in Badghis. In addition, the TSDCO conducted competition in schools among the students and the top winners were awarded. TSDCO also was mobilizing the private sectors entities, merchants and anchors to contribute financially in TSDCO voluntarily activists. TSDCO was also providing hygiene kits for prisoners in Badghis Jail within national and religious days and private sector entities and merchants were providing free-in charge hygiene kits for TSDCO to distribute to prisoners.
After officially registration of the organization in Ministry of Economics of the GoIRA, TSDCO has been collaborating International and national donating agencies in western region of Afghanistan in accordance with the organization strategic plan and donors' requirements.
TSDCO is fully prepared to support our current donors and those who are interested to support local NGO such TSDCO as partner in remote districts and provinces. Volunteerism is our the most important value and we prude on our value which enables us to contribute in saving the life of our Afghan national including male and female who are in need and seek assistance
Developed, poverty and violence free Afghanistan where all Afghans regardless of their race, religion, tribe and gender live with dignity through fair and adequate access to fundamental rights and services
Improving socio-economic well-being of Afghan people including women, men, children, person with disabilities, elderly and other marginalized groups through providing adequate life saving emergency assistance, recovery services and contribute in development and resilience building of Afghan families and communities in an appropriate and sustainable manner.
TSDCO Values
Transparency and accountability to affected population
Respect to human rights, women rights, rights of children and other vulnerable groups rights
Vulnerable people focused
TSDCO Objectives
Elaborate livelihood and income generation of Afghan people including returnees, IDPs and most vulnerable host community members through providing skill development and micro business support in west region provinces (in line with SDG# 1)
Contribute in life-saving food security of conflict and natural disaster affected families in western region of Afghanistan through providing adequate and timely food assistance for most vulnerable food insecure families in displacement and place of origins areas (in line with SDG# 2)
Enhancing the access to education for children as the one of the fundamental rights for children at the age of the school and those who have been deprived school due to conflict and displacement through establishment of community-based schools and adults learning courses in western region provinces (in line with SDG #4)
Increasing respect to human rights, women rights and prevention and response to gender-based violence in western region provinces through provision of awareness raising activities, community dialogue and enhancing responsiveness on gender-based violence and gender equality (in line with SDG #5)
Improving access to safe drinking water, sanitation services and hygiene practices and clean community through mobilization of citizens in according to community based total sanitation (CLTS) in western region provinces (in line with SDG # 6)
Contribution in development and resilience building of Afghan families and communities through durable solution initiatives such prominent shelter, WASH facilities, DRR and mitigation initiatives in western region province in next 5 years
TSDCO coverage areas
World Food Program (WFP)
International Organization of Migration (IOM)
Coordination of Rehabilitation and Development Services for Afghanistan (CRDSA)
US Embassy Kabul
ASGP – US
Organization Codes of Conduct
Treat Afghan people including male, female and children regardless of race, gender, language, religion, ethnic or social origin, disability.
Preserving impartiality, neutrality and independently identity of TSDCO.
Respect humanity, morality, accountability and rules of law and follow their norms.
Provide safe and secure work place atmosphere where all beneficiaries including TSDCO staff feel safe and comfort.
Respect dignity of Afghan families who benefiting from TSDCO project in the field in terms of respect their traditions, privacy, confidentiality.
Execute ZERO tolerance policy against any SEA (Sexual Exploitation and Abuse) particularly on contracted staff members.
Not use language or behavior toward male, female and children that is inappropriate, harassing, abusive, sexually provocative and demeaning or culturally inappropriate.
No engage children under 18 in any form of sexual activities including paying for sexual services or acts.
As a women own NGO, respecting women and protecting their rights is the top priority of the TSDCO.
Respect the community culture and people positive traditions.
Inclusive planning and execution of TSDCO program and performances to make sure the women, men, children, PWDs, minorities, isolated populations and elderly are included in TSDCO program and performances.
Mainstreaming gender in all TSDCO activities and targeting toward gender equality.
Including beneficiaries in proper planning and execution to address the needs of vulnerable people appropriately.
Comply with all relevant legislation, including labor law in relation with child labor.
Report immediately concerns or allegation of child and women exploitation and abuse in according to appropriate procedures.
Disclose immediately all changes, convictions, and other outcomes of an offence, occurred before or occurs during my association with the Direct Aid Program that relate to child and women's exploitation and abuse.
Tawana Services Development & Cultural Organization which is hereinafter referred as …
Early Recover, and Resilience building of …
Copyright By@ ZarvanServices - 2022


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https://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Connecticut-founder-fellow-Puritans-less-11323036.php
Connecticut founder, fellow Puritans less priggish than portrayed, scholar says
Published 9:19 am EDT, Friday, October 21, 2016
In this Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016, photo a 19th century bronze statue of Puritan John Winthrop, by sculptor Richard Saltonstall Greenough, stands outside the First Church in Boston, in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood. The famously straight-laced 17th-century sectarians who helped settle America weren't nearly as priggish as you might think, says leading Puritan scholar Francis Bremer, who points to a love letter that Winthrop wrote in 1618 to his wife Margaret as an example of Puritan passion. less
In this Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016, photo a 19th century bronze statue of Puritan John Winthrop, by sculptor Richard Saltonstall Greenough, stands outside the First Church in Boston, in Boston's Back Bay ... more
Photo: AP Photo/Steven Senne
BOSTON >> "Fifty Shades of Grey," Puritan edition?
The famously strait-laced 17th-century sectarians who helped settle America weren't nearly as priggish as you might think, a leading Puritan scholar says.
Letters penned by Puritan forefathers including Colonial Gov. John Winthrop evoke more passion than prudishness, said Francis Bremer, a professor emeritus of history at Pennsylvania's Millersville University.
Bremer is presenting his latest research next week at Boston's Old South Meeting House, at an event dubbed "Ravishing Affection: Myths and Realities about Puritans and Sex."
"The Puritans believed that everything God created was naturally good — including intercourse," he said. "They weren't hostile to sexuality. They saw sex and love as important factors to help a man and a woman form a passionate relationship and strengthen it."
He points to a love letter that Winthrop wrote in 1618 to his wife, Margaret Tyndall, as an example of Puritan passion.
In the letter, Winthrop — one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony — speaks of "being filled with the joy of thy love, and wanting opportunity of more familiar connection with thee, which my heart fervently desires."
Thomas Hooker, a Puritan who founded what would become Connecticut, was even more explicit.
"The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves, he dreams of her in the night, hath her in his eye an apprehension when he awakes, museth on her as he sits at table, walks with her when he travels, and parlies with her in each place where he comes. ... She lies in his bosom, and his heart trusts in her, which forceth all to confess, that the stream of his affection, like a mighty current, runs with full tide and strength."
Not that New England's Puritans were swingers. Scholars agree they clung to decidedly conservative Calvinist beliefs about love and marriage. H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
Lisa Wade, a sociologist at Occidental College in Los Angeles and an expert on sexual culture and gender, says the Puritans viewed marriage — always monogamous and never same-sex — primarily as a means of producing children.
It wasn't until two centuries later, at the twilight of the Victorian era, that the notion of romantic love as a key reason to pair off took hold.
Even so, Bremer — who has written 16 books about Puritanism — says letters and sermons suggest the Puritans were eager and attentive lovers.
The Puritans got their name from their desire to "purify" the Church of England, which they thought was corrupt. Yet they openly discussed sexuality and freely expressed passionate longings toward their spouses, and their sermons likened an intense and affectionate marriage relationship to Christ's love for the church.
"One thing that surprises the heck out of everyone is that people were charged — both in church and civil cases — with NOT engaging in sex with their spouse," Bremer said.
If the average Puritan had posted a relationship status, it surely would be: "It's complicated." But Bremer hopes his research will help dispel enduring myths.
"It becomes very easy to say, 'Oh, well, they didn't like sex at all,'" he said. "The myths lead people to say these are individuals we don't want to know anything more about. But the Puritans have a lot to teach us."


I've always been a summer girl and dreaded the colder months. I think its because I really feel the cold and I just always preferred the hotter months. But as I've got older, my outlook has changed. Whilst I do still love the warmer months, I can't handle the heat as much as I did. And I've also embraced the colder months more.
There is nothing better than feeling snug and warm in a nice jumper and going for a winter walk. I was recently contacted by Simply Be and asked if I would like some winter clothes and boots to keep me warm this winter. Simply Be isn't a site that I've used before and when I was browsing, I was amazed at how many wonderful clothes they had.
They also have concession brands and when I spotted this Monsoon Syke Star Patch Jumper I just knew I had to have it. I mean who doesn't love a star jumper? I always like to size up in my jumpers, as I like them to be baggy. But in hindsight this one probably would've been better a bit more fitted.
I just love all the stars and moon patches over it and it's a lovely navy blue.
With the temperatures taking a drop this week, its definitely time to get those wooly hats out. I love this rainbow stripe hat from Accessorize, its nice to add a bit of colour.
Holly loves rainbows and has her own rainbow hat and now she thinks we are twinning, but she definitely looks a lot cuter in hers!
During these colder months I live in boots and after my black boots falling apart last winter, I've been in need of some new ones. I'm quite particular about my boots and I like them to have some detail on them. When I saw these strap and buckle ankle boots, they were exactly what I look for.
They are really comfortable to wear and my Mum who is the same size feet as me, was eyeing them up!
Whilst I may need to work on my modelling skills, I just feel so awkward in front of the camera. Especially with no child to hide behind. I am now prepared for these colder months and I can't wait to have more winter walks with the girls. Our favourite part is coming home afterwards and snuggling up with a hot chocolate.
Disclosure: I was kindly sent my items from Simply Be to feature in this post. All views, opinions and photos are my own.
Some really great items of clothing here! I especially like that jumper you know with all the stars on it!
I love your star jumper, it is beautiful. I am with you, I love Summer and hate being cold in the Winter.
I always like my knitwear to be that bit larger than I would normally buy and that star jumper looks lovely!
You look ready for the season. I love the jumper a lot.


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Temp. 15,6°
Hum. 54%
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A 7-hectare garden with 6,000 species of trees and plants
SANTA FE AV. 3951
The jardín botánico is a place to walk, relax and discover a range of plants and trees native to Argentina, and other regions.
Occupying seven hectares, the garden has a collection of some 6,000 tree and plant species, a botanical library, Roman, French and oriental gardens, a herbarium, and five greenhouses, including an art nouveau structure that won an award at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900.
Many of the plants and trees are grouped into regions, including a collection of native Argentine flora featuring species such as the tipa (tipuana tipu), cedro salteño, ibirá-puitá (peltophorum dubium), and quebracho colorado (schinopsis).
The grounds also contain a large collection of sculptures and an English-style house used to host temporary art exhibitions and workshops. The city government's gardening school also functions on the site, which was founded by French landscaper Charles Thays, who designed many of the city's parks and squares, and was inaugurated in 1898.
Tuesday - Friday, 8.00am - 6.45pm. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, 9.30am - 6.45pm.
Closed on Mondays.
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Cool Cat Catmint has masses of beautiful spikes of lightly-scented lavender trumpet-shaped flowers with blue overtones rising above the foliage from early to mid summer, which are most effective when planted in groupings. Its attractive fragrant pointy leaves remain dark green in color throughout the season. The fruit is not ornamentally significant.
Cool Cat Catmint is a dense herbaceous perennial with a mounded form. Its relatively fine texture sets it apart from other garden plants with less refined foliage.
Cool Cat Catmint will grow to be about 24 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 3 feet. Its foliage tends to remain dense right to the ground, not requiring facer plants in front. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years.
Cool Cat Catmint is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It can be used either as 'filler' or as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, depending on the height and form of the other plants used in the container planting. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.


When we come to designing and writing software, we should make handling change one of our main concerns. We all pretty much do it, even if we don't usually call it that.
In this talk we'll discuss the principles of Change Driven Design. We'll also explore some software architecture methodologies that position handling change as a core concept and design principle.


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Shearer domination leads to win
Deanna Stevens
A dominating game by Lindsay Shearer, improving offensively in the second half and equally discriminating jumpshooting, led Kent State to a 77-61 victory over Montana State on Saturday.
The senior forward topped the Flashes (4-1) with 28 points and seven rebounds in her 30 minutes of play. Six of her 28 came consecutively with 13 minutes left in the second half when Montana State came within four points. She converted on back-to-back, 3-point plays to build the lead back to 10. From that point on, the Flashes lead never fell below double digits.
"Lindsay (Shearer) is used to making big shots in games," Kent State coach Bob Lindsay said. "She's not someone who will wilt under pressure, and we have to continue to give her the ball in these situations."
Shearer's 28 points moved her to 12th place on the Kent State all-time leading scoring list. It also is the 21st game with 20 points or more.
The Flashes' 77-point final was a season high, even though the team only shot 39 percent for the game.
Outside shooting was a struggle for both teams. Montana State (0-5) only shot 38 percent. Yet, dominant post play – especially in the second half by the Flashes – was too much for the Bobcats.
According to Shearer, the post players took advantage of their athleticism a lot more in the second period.
"We improved in the second half," Shearer said. " We took advantage of (the post game) a lot more. In the first half, we were impatient on offense, and we just kept taking threes."
Taking control down low was a key factor for the Flashes, Lindsay said.
"Overall, one of the things we tried to do was dominate the inside game," Lindsay said. "Tiffany (LaFleur) and Lindsay (Shearer) had excellent games. I think our inside presence was the difference in the game."
Just like the rest of her fellow Flashes, junior center Tiffany LaFleur did most of her damage in the second half as well, 10 of her 12 points came after halftime. She went on a six-point run of her own late in the second half. However, LaFleur earned two of her points from the free throw line, and two put-back layups with five minutes left in the game.
LaFleur tied her career high, which she earned against Ball State last February.
"Tiffany should be a first-team All-Conference player," Lindsay said.
However, Lindsay added that it was up to LaFleur to capitalize her full-ability.
Also in the second half, the Flashes began to utilize on the high-low game between junior forward La'kia Stewart and Shearer.
Shearer added that the Bobcats were collapsing on Stewart at the top of the key, so they were able to recognize that and she was able to convert down low.
Stewart added nine points and seven rebounds to the Flashes' cause.
Along with Shearer and LaFleur's career achievements, point guard Malika Willoughby moved to sixth on the all-time assist list. Willoughby had added eight points, seven assists, and three steals to the effort.
Even with the win, Lindsay and the players agree they have a few things to address. According to Lindsay, the Flashes defensive pressure was not the main reason the Bobcats were held to under 40 percent shooting. Communication and more pressure on the perimeter are a few things the Flashes want to work on.
The Flashes head to St. Bonaventure at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
Contact women's basketball reporter Deanna Stevens at [email protected].


← I miss my Dad today.
Okay, I'll admit I'm not the smartest tool in the shed, and I'm a bit late with gettin' on the information highway. I can email and do a minimal amount on a word processor and now that I have a blog, I know how to write and make a post, edit it, possibly add a photo or two but it takes me about an hour just to remember how to do it. Oh, and I can text like a pro, but haven't bothered with twitter. Seriously, who would want to follow me? I spend waaayyy too much time trying to figure out the rest of my life, I don't need anymore distractions with others'.
My issue lies with fixing snafus, glitches, blunders, problems with all the electronic crap in my life. If it's not the TV, it's the computer, or the Wii, or my phone or just recently, my ipod touch. Which I used to love, until it screwed me, or I screwed it or it just plain f*#ked up.
Back to the upgrade. I plugged it in, clicked yes on what I thought was the box for upgrading my ipod only to find nothing happened. In reality, all I managed to do was upgrade itunes, which I guess needed to be done too. Plugged it in again, because if in doubt unplug and re-plug as many times as you need to until it works. That's in a manual somewhere, don't cha know. Finally, after the third plugging incident, I get a box that says, "Upgrade to the new 4.0 version?" Yes, please. "It might take up to an hour, is that okay?" Yes, please. "It will wipe out all your apps, is that okay?" Yes please. "And screw with your calendar, is that okay?" Yes, please. "Oh and it will do funky things to your emails, is that okay? Yes, please.
I'm so co nditioned to click "Yes" on all 37 boxes that pop up when doing anything on my computer that it's not only annoying it sometimes gets me into trouble. Big trouble. Whoever said, "Go ahead, play around you can't hurt anything," should be shot. It's people like me that keep "Rent a Nerd" in business.
I've come to believe that some people are just gifted when it comes to figuring out technology. I'm gifted at crosswords and training my dog to do stupid tricks or writing backwards. Yes, I can write backwards, in cursive, so you have to put it up to a mirror to read it. So was my mom, it must be a genetic thing. But, I want to be the techno-saavy gifted person. Yes, I know what you are thinking, I should enroll in a computer class, read some "do it yourself" books, spend countless more hours trying on my own to "fix" my screw ups.
But, you know what? At the end of the day, I'm still going to call my son, my brother, my ex-husband, my daughter's boyfrien d or the 10-year old neighbor kid to do it for me. I will be too busy trying to make my dog run through a tunnel, walk a 4 inch plank and jump over a 3 foot moat.
You are miles ahead of me, I have a tiny Netbook laptop and a Samsung Blackjack. Oh, I have an mp3 player I take running with me but I think the most recent song on it is "Lose Yourself" by Eminem because I don't know how to upload new songs without losing what I already have.
And I'm a total "hit the yes button" technology user which has burned me far more times than it has helped me. My website developer has a very love/hate relationship with me!


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Individuals living in households, according to the Census in Municipalities
Resident population, according to the Census: total and by marital status in Municipalities
Single person households, according to the Census (%)
Single person private households (%)
Proportion - %
Data according to the 2013 version of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistical Purposes (NUTS). For data from the 2002 Version of NUTS III, updated to April 2015, see the Excel archive file available here.


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Member-Only Hub
(Photo Credit: Imperial Stock Ranch, Shaniko Wool Company)
How companies can source wool more sustainably
To celebrate the release of the Textile Exchange 2019 Material Change Index, GreenBiz has partnered with Textile Exchange to publish actionable insights for apparel and textile companies looking to source raw materials more sustainably. This article in the series focuses on wool.
Wool is a natural fiber made from animal hair that is twisted into yarn. Sheep's wool is most common, though wool can also come from goats, camels, alpacas and llamas. It has been seen as a valuable commodity throughout history; it is said that when British King Richard I was captured in 1192, part of the ransom that was demanded for his return was 50,000 sacks of wool.
Wool is biodegradable, water-retentive and fire-resistant, making it a useful material for making warm outdoor clothing. However, there are both environmental and animal welfare concerns related to producing wool. While well-managed grazing can have a positive impact on land, biodiversity and climate, grassland health can be negatively impacted by the way sheep are farmed, particularly in drought prone regions. If sheep are allowed to overgraze, they may degrade soil and cause erosion, which can be exacerbated by an increasingly warming climate. How sheep are raised and treated is another concern, with husbandry procedures and shearing as key animal welfare risk areas. An especially controversial practice is mulesing, a procedure commonly practiced in Australia, where skin around the sheep's buttocks is removed to prevent parasitic infections.
Textile Exchange supports the apparel and textiles sector in switching to preferable materials that have a more positive impact on people and the environment compared to conventional. Textile Exchange developed the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) to address both the welfare of sheep and the preservation of the land they graze on. The standard ensures supply chain traceability and requires certification at every stage. In addition to RWS-certified wool, Textile Exchange considers the following wool variations to be "preferred" options:
Organic wool certified to the Organic Content Standard (OCS) or Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)
Recycled wool certified to the Global Recycled Standard (GRS), Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) or SCS Recycled Content Certification
How can companies level up their wool sourcing strategy?
Every year, Textile Exchange publishes a Material Change Index that tracks the fashion industry's progress toward more sustainable materials sourcing, as well as alignment with global efforts like the Sustainable Development Goals and the transition to a circular economy. There are some key activities that top performers in the wool category have in common. These should serve as inspiration for companies who are looking to push their preferred wool programs to the next level. Textile Exchange will also be sharing a more detailed analysis of findings later in 2020.
Consider both environment and animals
The very best standards when it comes to preferred wool look at both animal welfare and land management. Brands that increased their use of preferred wool that is either better for animals or better for the environment should seek out even more progressive options — for example, RWS-certified wool — that drive improvement in both areas.
MATERIAL CHANGE IN ACTION: When IKEA committed to transforming its conventional wool supply chain to 100 percent responsibly sourced wool by 2025, it chose to go with Responsible Wool Standard (RWS)-certified as one of its core certifications. "It was comprehensive yet very simple and covered all aspects," said Sustainability Manager Rahul Ganju about RWS. "We also like that it was created by receiving feedback and inputs from various organizations through a multi-stakeholder engagement process." Implementing the standard required IKEA to identify new wool scouring and spinning units and work with suppliers to develop traceability mechanisms. The work is paying off. By the end of 2020, all of the wool the furniture retailer sources from New Zealand — which is approximately 20 percent of the wool IKEA uses overall — will be certified by RWS or the ZQ Accreditation program.
(Photo Credit: Deckers Brands)
Incentivize innovation
There can be lots of early-stage barriers when integrating a new product or material into a supply chain. It's therefore important to train internal teams so they understand the importance of using more sustainable fibers and are encouraged to source or develop better options. Setting specific uptake targets and making policies public can also incentivize employees to make more sustainable choices.
MATERIAL CHANGE IN ACTION: Footwear company Deckers Brands, which owns brands including UGG, Teva, HOKA ONE ONE, Sanuk and Koolaburra by UGG, observed that its suppliers were generating significant waste when trimming wool from sheepskin material to get a uniform length across the whole skin. Because the waste wool had the same softness and fineness as the rest of the premium sheepskin, they realized they could recreate the same comfort and wearing experience by engineering a new material using these waste fibers. There wasn't an existing manufacturing process that could incorporate repurposed fibers into a new material, so Deckers made significant investments in research and development to invent a manufacturing process that was later patented. The result is UGGpure, a woven wool material initiated by the brand. John Graebin, Senior Director of Materials at Deckers Brands, credited this innovation to Deckers employees. "Our amazing teams are dedicated to sustainable business practices and are always seeking more sustainable material alternatives," he said. For brands looking to do something similar, he advised, "Empower employees to pursue new solutions."
(Photo Credit: Icebreaker)
Work with farmers
Pushing the wool industry towards preferable practices requires multi-stakeholder efforts that engage and educate both farmers and brands. When possible, brands should work towards transparency to understand the risks and opportunities at both the regional and supplier levels, make long-term commitments to certified farms in order to build stronger relationships with them and work with farms to progress both the quality and quantity of preferred wool. The most progressive brands work even more closely with their suppliers by co-creating KPIs related to biodiversity, land management (at both the farm level and within the wider landscape context) and waste reduction (e.g. through recycled wool) at farms, and they actually track the progress and impacts made over time.
MATERIAL CHANGE IN ACTION: Outdoor clothing brand Icebreaker, owned by VF Corporation, has developed and deepened relationships with its grower families over the last 20 years. In 1997, it became the first company in the world to establish long-term contracts with key merino wool growers. More recently, they established the Icebreaker Growers Club, 10-year contracts with grower families on New Zealand's South Island that provide Icebreaker with a consistent supply of high-quality wool and enable growers to invest in their business, their land, their animals and their people. "The heritage and strength of our relationships and partnerships from farm to factory are essential," said Icebreaker's Global Materials & Sustainability Manager Meredith Dawson Lawry. "We would love to see more brands take a long term view to their raw material commitments regardless of the fiber type. This could enable more stability at the grower level and with that more investment in ethical, sustainable practices, which can only be achieved if growers are in a position to take a long term approach."
Liesl Truscott is the Director of European & Materials Strategy at Textile Exchange, a global non-profit that works to drive industry transformation in preferred fibers, integrity and standards and responsible supply networks. In this role, she oversees Textile Exchange's Material Change Index (MCI) and Corporate Fiber & Materials Benchmark (CFMB) program. By benchmarking the industry and providing actionable tools for improvement, Textile Exchange is pushing a race to the top. View the results of the 2019 Material Change Index and learn how you can participate here.
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