EDS was/is one of the few computer firms that required a *strict*
dress code, most existing computer firms (outside of IBM and their
infamous blue-suiters) shy away from strict dress codes.
"For example, discussing salaries has been an immediate firing offense
from the first days at EDS, Perot's company. The company dress code,
up into the 1970s, required white shirts only for men (he considered
blue shirts effeminate), no pants or flats for women, and no "mod
looks," as the contract put it. But the intrusion went much further."
"EDS tapped phones and used detectives to investigate its own
employees, according to Posner. He traced license plate numbers in the
parking lot to see who came late or left early, just as Nader
telephones employees at home on sunny weekends to test how long they
work. And in "particularly heated" fights for contracts, employees on
the bid team would be physically searched to ensure they did not
remove any paperwork that could assist the opposition. (Posner,
p94-5)"
From the EDS site I can a few - oh the humanity! - blue shirts so
maybe things have changed.
Roger
On 12/2/05, Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Peter Cudmore wrote:
>
> >Thanks Ken
> >
> >With EDS's history of expensively fouled-up ICT projects for the British
> >Government, there's something apt about a bunch of cowboys who don't know
> >what a cow looks like...
> >
> >Cheers
> >Peter
> >
> Don't start me. <pause> Too late, you did. H. Ross Perot founded EDS
> after he left IBM, where he was the top salesman in their history and a
> champion sales director: no mean trick. He knew how to herd cats but he
> was a mad dog while doing so. That may give you a hint of the kind of
> ship he ran when he was operating EDS, a consulting firm. Back in
> '85-86 I was a contract analyst and procedures writers at AT&T during
> its effort do create its own billing system. I worked for a then-small
> (now very large) shop in central Jersey. A lot of consultants on the
> billing project were EDS people. They invariable overdressed. They
> were the easiest people to find even though the had instructions never
> to share information, even if we were on the same project. They were at
> their desks all the time because they had to sign out to get a bathroom
> break.
>
> They also had to live in community. It was like sicko religious order.
> EDS would lease whole buildings in the area and warehouse their
> employees. All of them were young, first job, highly paid, and made
> quickly miserable. Stories filtered down about what happened in the
> Perot-owned buildings from Friday night through Sunday: drunkenness and
> at-will sex orgies where the only qualification to sleep with someone
> was that you also worked for Ross Perot's 3-piece-suit concentration camps.
>
> I don't know if the EDS people knew any more about what they were doing
> than the guys who worked for smaller local shops. I know that the
> turnover at EDS was fabulously high and fast. Even a lot of weekend sex
> didn't compensate for a horrible job where the boss was a goon who
> reported to a fink who reported to a member of the Texas Cheka.
>
> EDS was the main reason I thanked God for Bill Clinton in 1992 when
> there was that three-way race for President. If Bill hadn't been there
> I'd have to have voted for Bush Senior rather than that little Dallas
> bootclicker.
>
> Ken
>
> --
> Kenneth Wolman
> Proposal Development Department
> Room SW334
> Sarnoff Corporation
> 609-734-2538
>
> I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
> -Douglas Adams
>
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