When I worked for the mob
Posted to www.marxmail.org on
Like others, I occasionally use google
to find out what old classmates, comrades, etc. are up to. Recently I found myself
wondering whatever happened to some of the people I used to work for as a
consultant, which in the programming business is just a fancy word for day
labor. In 1987, shortly after returning from a couple of weeks in
"This is the dirty little secret of the IT business! If you examine message 60 of this forum on the 1706 issue. I will most definitely attest that mob connections present in some of the large technical services firms some of which have been IBM vendor's for professional services! Talk with owners of Sharp Decisions, Aetea former owner of Spectrum Concepts about Frank Viggiano former head of the Manhattan Data Processing Mgt Assoc, or inquire with Senior Members of the New York City ICCA www.icca.org. I myself have been offered cement shoes just to provide consulting services Feel free to have IBM examine all the messages presented here!"
http://www.h1bvisasucks.com/H1BDiscussions_issue_job.htm
"I gave them the phone number of Asbach
Consulting 599 Broadway NYC. This was run by Frank Viggiano
Pres of the NYC DPMA Chapter who lobbied Sen. Monihan
to sponsor 1706. The NYC ICCA told me [he] is a GAMBINO Solider who leaned on
30 IT shops to not use Consultants like Spectrum Concepts and Sharp Decisions.
I saw Karen Ross after a mtg
from Viggiano giving her an offer of cement shoes on
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R28F21D3D
This comes as no surprise at all. Back in 1987, all of the
consultants at Goldman used to wonder if Viggiano was
some kind of gangster since he looked the part. With his oily hair, trenchcoat and frequent outbursts of profanity, he came
across much more as a character from "The Sopranos" than the
corporate world. Before Asbach placed me at Goldman,
I went out to be presented to AT&T in
Back in the 1970s and 80s, computer consulting was a highly profitable and expanding business in NYC and other large cities. This was when mainframe systems were still being developed at brokerage houses, insurance companies, banks, etc. The demand for experienced programmers far exceeded the supply, especially to fill projects that were temporary in nature. Why add permanent workers when you could bring in a consulting company? A good programmer could make up to $750 a day and specialists over a thousand. The broker who supplied the worker could get paid the same amount everyday the programmer was on billing. If you had 300 programmers, like Asbach did, the profits could be enormous especially since the overhead was negligible.
Asbach Consulting is long gone, as
are most of the outfits that used to flourish in NYC. Nowadays, consulting
tends to be handled by mega-firms like Accenture that
operates at
I first ran into Arthur Anderson when I was at Goldman-Sachs. They had been brought in by the Vice President of Information Systems, who used to work for them. Whether there was some kind of nepotism going on, I couldn't say. Arthur Anderson advised Goldman to get rid of all the relatively well-paid veterans like myself and replace them with younger and cheaper trainees. Some things have evidently not changed:
"There were a
high percentage of people with gray hair," said Walstrom,
who's 57. "It was a lot of us. I didn't really realize what had happened
until you look around and say, 'What's wrong with this picture?' "
Walstrom was one of 44 former Best Buy IT workers
who filed a class-action lawsuit last Wednesday claiming that the Richfield,
Minn.-based electronics retailer engaged in a pattern of age discrimination in
terminating their jobs. The plaintiffs range from 40 to 71 years old, and their
average age is 51, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in
The charges relate to layoffs that were announced in April, when Best Buy said it planned to outsource its IT operations to Accenture Ltd. , and to a smaller round of cuts that took place in October 2003.
Over the past couple of years, Accenture
has been widely viewed as pushing through the same kinds of changes at Columbia
that were seen at Goldman and Best Buy. After fleeing Goldman in 1989 before
the axe would fall, the last thing I anticipated after working for
Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd":
If you'll gather 'round me, children,
A story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw,
It was in the town of
A Saturday afternoon,
His wife beside him in his wagon
As into town they rode.
There a deputy sheriff approached him
In a manner rather rude,
Vulgar words of anger,
An' his wife she overheard.
Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain,
And the deputy grabbed his gun;
In the fight that followed
He laid that deputy down.
Then he took to the trees and timber
To live a life of shame;
Every crime in
Was added to his name.
But a many a starving farmer
The same old story told
How the outlaw paid their mortgage
And saved their little homes.
Others tell you 'bout a stranger
That come to beg a meal,
Underneath his napkin
Left a thousand dollar bill.
It was in Oklahoma City,
It was on a Christmas Day,
There was a whole car load of groceries
Come with a note to say:
Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.