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The consumer's always wrong
Why else would visitors to consumer rating sites like Deja.com rank Rolling Rock the second-best beer and Alan Keyes the top presidential candidate?
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[11/06/99]

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"CPU Central," "ChipTek" and "Mira" are, of course, pseudonyms -- Lessard and Baldwin have changed the names of people and companies to protect identities (the introduction also explains that "in a few instances, we've created character composites"). But anyone who has spent some time immersed in this industry will identify some of the stories and real companies behind weak disguises like "CPU Central" (CNET), "Aggro Software" (Microsoft) and "Fibre Magazine" (take a wild guess). One particularly obvious tale is that of Jane, a production grunt who took the heat from "Hedge-Downs" after the Web site accidentally posted the wrong O.J. verdict on its front page. Think way back, and you'll recall this was a Time-Warner Pathfinder blunder.

The prose in "NetSlaves" is nothing notable, stuffed as it is with homilies, metaphors, and groan-worthy lines (Kellner doesn't have sex, he "takes his pleasure" with Mira); the book also makes few pretensions about epiphanies or thoughtful analysis. Still, it's worth picking up for the evil vindictive thrill you might feel when you see companies (anonymously) "outed" for their nastiness. And anyone who has spent time in the lower levels of the Net industry -- and there are hordes of us -- will appreciate and recognize at least a few of the stories here.

Though the stories might provide an insider-ish chuckle for industry veterans, and a sigh of sympathy from others in similar positions, after a while it's hard not to view the subjects of the book's collected profiles as a pathetic bunch of sorry losers. Lessard and Baldwin's biases fall too hard on the side of the downtrodden, diluting those genuinely interesting stories with generic stereotypes about the upper echelons of NetSlave hierarchies. Personally, I find it hard to swallow a sentence that describes the favorite offline activities of "Cowboys and Card Sharks" (i.e., technology consultants) as "pretending to know the difference between an overpriced cigar made in Cuba and another made in the Dominican Republic; bitching about their stock portfolio; bragging about their 'great time out on the links last Saturday' with fellow Cowboys and Card Sharks."

NetSlaves: True Tales of Working on the Web By Bill Lessard and Steve Baldwin McGraw-Hill 246 pages Buy NetSlaves

After all, while it's fine and dandy to champion the rights of the working underclass, there are also questions of personal culpability. The Net industry sure stinks sometimes -- I've personally experienced some of the horrors of insane deadline pressure, long hours, bad management and lousy pay -- but doesn't every industry? After a while, you just want to slap some of these people and demand that they stop whining and pull it together, man. The person who stays at a miserable night-shift job patrolling chat rooms in an industry that currently boasts a cornucopia of job opportunities is at least partially responsible for his own situation. You may not make a fortune, but there's got to be a better job out there somewhere.

Lessard and Baldwin do recognize this in their afterword, noting that "NetSlaves are partially responsible for the hells they've put themselves in," thanks in part to lackluster screening of potential employers. And, to their credit, their book seems to be motivated less by animosity toward the Net -- after all, the authors now make their living by writing for Web sites -- than by a desire to deflate the Internet hype balloon that has ignorant kids rushing towards potentially disappointing careers in high-tech. Any book that informs people that, gosh, the Net might not make you into the next Marc Andreessen is worthy of the shelf space awaiting it in the Canon of Net Literature.

But perhaps the finest, and truest, moment of the book comes in the final page, where Lessard and Baldwin let their bitter black colors fly high. It's been a long time since I read such a disillusioned rant as this in print: "Technology has changed, but human nature hasn't. Whether it's the Gold Rush of 1848 or the Web Rush of 1999, people are people. More often than not, they're miserable, nasty, selfish creatures, driven by vanity and greed, doing whatever they can to get ahead, even if it means stepping on the person next to them, crushing the weak, and destroying themselves in the process."

That's right. Now -- crack! -- back to your desks, boys.
salon.com | Nov. 11, 1999

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