I noticed that bad habit in the videos too. I suppose it might a S.V. thing. I dont live there and never have visited there - but the videos, those I've seen and man is that annoying! Guess that strikes out a bunch of folks looking at jobs which request "good written and verbal communications skills". Imagine interviewing someone and there every reply begins with "So, " ? Holy cow. No way. Sounds very flaky.

Whats the deal with people beginning sentences with the word "So". I hear people being interviewed on television programs who, throughout the entire interview, reply to each question with "So, ". Its sounds absurd.

Precisely! I was reading about global warming and how everyone's so concerned because scientists are so positive its happening that they're mainly all in agreement. Then I found some web sites which throw a bit of logic at that theory and now I dont know what to believe. I think I believe that in 50 years or so scientists will probably have reversed their opinions several times. A lot of good reading on that if you're interested: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/ http://www.discussglobalwarming.com/blog/ http://gamoonbat.blogspot.com/ to name just a few. So, yea - I believe that they've changed their minds on blackholes.

"However, I've never met a "non-exempt" software engineer" Sure you have. They're called "self-employed" software engineers. And they will usually work even more than 48 hours per week. However, they're working for themselves, not someone else's wallet which definitely helps in the moral department. When I first began writing code for a living 25 years ago, I was non-exempt. A large project on the drawing board required a LOT of OT from everyone. The team was a mix of exempt and non-exempt coders with the non-exempt being primarily very young, single folks with small outside commitments (i.e. no wife/husband, kids, their own parents were younger and didnt need assistance from them, etc). As this project went on, the OT went up naturally and after it was implemented the non-exempt (myself included) were giving "promotions" to exempt status. Why? Well, not only were we decent coders but management no longer HAD TO pay us that OT. I know that I earned nearly 80K that first year of work - most of it was OT since my starting salary was 26K. My boss was actually pissed because it was well more than he was earning. I learned, immediately, via that experience AND from discussing it with a contractor in another department that I either go into contracting or die in the company. Contracting COULD lead to self-employment (back then). Today one can become self-employeed much via much simpler means. I took his advice. I will never, ever, ever work in a cube-farm, 8-6, with idiot managers who know 1/2 of what I know but get paid 2x what I do because they screwed up somewhere else in the company and were shuffled around, the re-orgs, the politics, the as*-kissing, the nuances of cubical living and having to fit my creativity within certain hours only AND having to sign agreements that anything I create or even think of is property of some other entity. Sorry. Get out if you can folks. 48 hours a week is nothing when you work for yourself but you enjoy every second of it! :) A horrible day being self-employed is far better than the best day at captive employment!