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Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

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  • #31
    Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

    "I lost count quite a few posts back". In this shop two lost their job. One was drawing a manager's salary, the other more than what Dave mentioned. Together they produced in one year what management was not able to use. Then they hired a contractor on half the pay who did that in one month.

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    • #32
      Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

      Hassan, Was the poor performance due to them being poor programmers or technologists? Or, was it their attitude? I've run across some really bad attitudes among some long-time iSeries developers. The attitudes include: 1. "I've been here so long, I'm indespensible". 2. "The iSeries is the best platform and I'm not going to learn anything different". 3. "I've been in this game for thirty years. I've programmed in Assembler, PL/I, COBOL, FORTRAN, and RPG. I've only got a few years until retirement and collecting my pension. I've earned the right to not work so hard, anymore". This was from a 62 yr old who was far behind his colleagues in performance. The company worked really hard to determine if his problems were related to health. He refused to see a doctor and was utlimately fired when he refused to learn Java. This was last year. He is suing the company for age discrimination. I'm seeing these attitudes more often as iSeries programmers age. It may be just an old age attitude. Is there an unwritten rule that says individuals 60+ can reduce their performance? I don't know. But, it makes outsourcing look much better. A company can completely outsource I.T. then can fire their entire staff, young and old, without being accused of age discrimination. Tom.

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      • #33
        Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

        I asked the question rhetorically, because I didn't want to get into very specific issues. In your case, there may have been incompetents, but that was not my point. Many good people, competent people, some even brilliant people who worked hard and long to achieve a goal of a decent wage have had their goals dashed upon the shoals replaced by anyone willing to undercut the norm. Leave no doubt that there are many who will work for less, that are not only incompetent, but also blatantly unqualified. Their sole qualification being a low rate. I was earning $50. per hour in the mid eighties, and doing a damn good job. The tax reform act of 1986 (specifically section 1706) kept my rates at the same level until the mid nineties. Only then was I able to obtain higher rates. My last five clients have been repeaters. That is I had worked for them before, and they have asked me to return. Yet I have experienced instances where I have been turned down for a spot because of my rate requirement. In the case of H1-B this is actually illegal. In two cases I ended up getting the same assingment months later with the additional task of cleaning up the mess left behind by the cheaper worker. I wanted to avoid these types of specifics, and just raise the issue of worker replacement. Dave

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        • #34
          Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

          You said "Part of this is our own fault because we refuse to understand and integrate with the businesses we support which makes us relatively more expendable than say accounting or finance departments (not to say that they are forever protected)." What goes around comes around. Many companies are outsourcing their accounting functions. Ford's Accounts Payable function for its European Operations is out of Chennai, India for the last several years.

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          • #35
            Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

            Tom. I think among the many angry people here, you are able to see the other side. The examples you quoted are not rhetoric, I see them all the time, everywhere. The problem is basically attitude. It is both the unwillingness to work extra and the unwillingness to learn on their own. 1. "I have a life, I have a family, and job is secondory to them". 2. "It is the job of my company to train me, in company time and expense". 3. "I am a man of God and I have other commitments that are superior to worldly commitments, you cant stop me from that". I would understand this attitude in socialist countries but in the USA? The heartland of capitalism? My manager who got fired last month, was mostly surfing dating websites or seeking legal advice over phone in fixing his ex ... second ex. At one release, he was in jail on contempt of court and on the other release he was vacationing with his son and refused to return calls. The company business stopped incurring millions of dollars of loss. When he got fired his excuse was, "The company fired me to save cost as they feel Hassan is enough for them". Well Hassan was enough for the company for past one year. If he had just returned the call, maybe he would have continued another year of free loading. My family had come all the way from Canada only to see me work on long weekend 14 hours a day. He was the latest guy with this attitude but not the first one I saw. This is a story everywhere. I saw that in India, in Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia, and in Canada. These guys work like labor union mafia. Wont let anyone in and hog their legacy shop with their RPGIII code, their 10,000 line "One program does it all" programs, their overpatched processes, and the undocumented functionality of the system. Then comes a time the management gets sick of this blackmail. Outsourcing is definitely better than dumping the AS/400 and moving to Oracle or Sap.

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            • #36
              Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

              David, I also earned $50++/hr which was big in Canada and in those days ... until the Chinamen swarmed the west coast. They were able to undercut me because they were able to do what I did, at a lesser quality but also at a far lesser rate. If only I had not refused to learn Java, they would not have undercutted me. For some reason we think it is our life time right to have a good income based on what we once learned. In our business, the key to survival is continous learning the upcoming technologies. As soon as the technology gets a little old, the FOB from India and China WILL kick our ass. If I had learned ten years ago, what I know now, I would have been earning much more than this pathetic $50--/hr. Only and only my attitute is to be blamed.

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              • #37
                Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

                Whew - that's a relief. Now we can all get back to work. ;-) Article here. Some interesting figures in that article.

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                • #38
                  Study: Outsourcing Boom Is Over

                  Hassan.Farooqi wrote: For some reason we think it is our life time right to have a good income based on what we once learned. While I agree with a bit of your post, I disagree with this statement. My own feeling is (and I would never say "we") that a good income is based not upon what we have learned, but rather what we can do. An individual can learn JAVA, and become expert at syntax, but that doesn't make that individual a good analyst, or even a good programmer. Some of the best people I have worked with in this business could not code at all. But...they were great problem solvers. Dave

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