Posted on 07/18/2003 3:52:41 PM PDT by FoxPro
Why I Outsource Offshore
Friday, July 18, 2003
When the planes hit the World Trade Center, I was sitting in my cozy sunroom home office. Living in Fairfax County Virginia, we actually heard the plane that hit the Pentagon fly very low overhead. We knew something else was going to get hit. Then we actually heard and felt the explosion. The next minute my son and I were outside in the street looking up into the sky. We didn’t know what to expect.
I didn’t know that my life had radically changed that day; I knew the country had, that was quite apparent. But the downward spiral I was about to take wasn’t going to be pretty.
I remember telling my sons pre 9/11 about the phone calls I would get from headhunters, at least once a day. I would tell my kids’ that was real job security, having skills that were readily needed in the marketplace. I actually made $16,000 in about a day, tracking down a bug in a major government computer system. I remember working on another system on my laptop aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean (the cruise ships had just gotten email capabilities, and my client had no idea where I was, and didn’t care). Talk about working from home! We all probably all have many great memories of the good times.
The week after 9/11, nobody returned my phone calls. I had a couple of contracts with a very large city government. We couldn’t even get into the building. Of course I later found out that the city was much more interested in detecting anthrax and acquiring and placing cement barriers than the work I was doing for them, tracking the maintenance of the cities trees and processing abandon vehicles left on the city streets. I was instantly unemployed. It was the end of an era.
It was time to send out some resumes, nothing, time to get out the Rolodex and tap into my “old boy network”, nothing. A month goes by, then two. I remember going to the local shoe retailer, because they had a sign posted looking for a store manager. I showed the current manager my resume, and he told me not to bother applying, they knew I would be gone the instant I got another tech job. Time to send out thousands of resumes, all over the world, nothing. Several months pass. I tap into my homes equity to pay the mortgage, sort of like chewing your own arm off. All my friends are doing likewise. We talk with each other, it deadens the boredom and pain, misery loves company.
Ok, so I am going to re-tool, so I buy some on-line coursework to learn Oracle 9i. I start digging in 8 hours a day, going through the coursework; I hate every second of it.
I actually started reading articles about offshore outsourcing here on freerepublic.com. I was upset by this as most people were. I had lost my wife by then, and it is apparent that the house that I had planned to play with my grandkids in will be gone soon also. I am at my low point.
Just through dumb luck, a complete stranger calls me up one day, and tells me he ran into my resume, and was impressed with my background. He tells me that over the last year, he has cobbled together a team of programmers in Moscow that can write computer systems in just about any language. He tells me they are quite good, and I believe him because I have worked with Russian programmers before. The he told me one thing that would change my career goals forever. The Russians will write computer systems, Including Oracle systems for as little as $15 per hour. In other words, I am beating my brains out to learn a computer database system that can be done elsewhere in the world for about the same price as is paid to a cahier at the local grocery store. This changes everything. I rewrite my rather lengthy resume.
I cobble together a list of email addresses of headhunters and other companies from several job boards. The title I put on my resume is “Offshore Outsourcing Project Manager”. In my resume under the skills section I put the rather lengthy list of technical skills the Russians posses. The list includes just about every major computer system I have ever come across. It is the ultimate resume. I mail out a few hundred. I don’t have to wait for long.
The next day, the phone rings. Another telemarketing call, I am thinking. The man on the other end of the line tells me he is looking at my resume. He starts explaining a project he needs accomplished, actually two projects. I have no idea what he is talking about. And I can tell he is getting frustrated. He tells me that he is going to email me his address, and I should show up the next day at 1 PM. I am excited yet confused. I don’t sleep well that night.
I am ushered into a boardroom a little after one the next day. I didn’t eat lunch, partially because I really don’t have much money, and I am a little dizzy (lost 30 pounds through the last 12 months). They start explaining the projects to me, three guys, a marker board and me for 3 hours. The last hour I am just sitting there with my mouth hanging open. I am starting to get what they want, two computer systems for arguably the largest retail chain in the world. They are massive undertakings using cutting edge technology, and it is obvious it will take dozens of programmers and other specialists (maybe more). Then they tell me how much they want to pay for all of this, and it isn’t much. But it beats the heck out of what I made in the last 6 months, which was nothing. At this point I am only thinking that I want to just get something going, anything. I just want something to do, any form of cash flow, to make some contacts and get the hell out of my house once in a while.
I instant messaged the Russians the next morning. They couldn’t believe whom the project was for or the massive scope of the undertaking. I had my Visio thing going most of the night, and I had some pretty dead on flow charts of what was explained to me, which I emailed to them. They started sending over some very impressive examples of XML scripts based on my previous nights work and the hours of conversations we had. The client liked it all. They were impressed. I could not believe what I was getting into.
We all signed the clients NDA’s, and wrangled over some small details in our various contracts. We put together a scope of work, and set a timeline with invoiceable milestones in MS Project (the Russians are very good at this also). My project leads wife had a baby, and we all send each other pictures of our kids. Weeks pass in preparation. I am starting to get to know these guys, and they work together as a precise seamless team (woman are not allowed in there office building). They work late into the night (5 PM EST is 1 AM Moscow time). The client is happy, we are busy and I can’t provide any further details for legal reasons. Suffice it to say your mother/sister/wife will probably use this system at a store near you within the next few months. And I get to point to it and say, “I did that”. I didn’t make much money off of it, but it sure beat sitting at home all day playing computer games.
A little information on the team:
They don’t speak English, but they read and write it well. In the late 80s the Russian defense industries essentially imploded, and a lot of very intelligent people were left jobless (sounds familiar). It was at about this time the Internet came into its own (well email initially). They started getting possession of US computer systems documentation. Many of them learned English by mastering these systems. It took them several years to do this. Thousands of hours of hard work and study. They are very good technical writers and write proposals and documentation like no others that I have seen. They are very productive, and are slowly getting rich (by there standards). I have never met any of them personally, but look forward to doing so someday. I do enjoy working with them. They are slowly becoming good friends.
In conclusion:
Am I taking jobs from Americans, yes, do I feel bad about this, yes, do I have any other choice other than waiting tables, no.
Should I mop floors to keep an American in a cubicle, I will let you decide.
Even if American is twice the price? No thanks.
Those theoreticians who believe they are buying the same quality stuff at cheaper prices are fooling themselves.
Says who? You? People can decide on their own what the want to buy, and at what price.
If you want to spend more for stuff I buy at half the price, go right ahead.
Trust me this is nothing new to me. We can't all be offshoring managers and the product buying power of China/India isn't enough to support a small business. It's also important to note that our spending habits are not the spending habits of third world countries. We are deluding ourselves if we think they will be able to afford our "products" whatever those may be.
You need to evolve more agile business methods. Take a look at the agilealliance.com, or read Ken Schwaber's book on Scrum.
Bottom line: if you do things differently, you don't need to outsource, because you'll get the same result with less time and $ here.
Todays engineering populace is more educated than any before, only there are no new jobs oening up because the factories are moving overseas!
The same goes with IT, the brains are going overseas.
We all went to school, played the game, paid our dues, and then the people who had to power to make the decisions yanked the rug from under us!
We are NOT competing against capitalist countries on the whole, we are competing against socialist/Fascist countries that use government funding to support, create, and provide for the companies that they take from us. These are NOT private individuals starting up machine shops in China, it is the Chinese government!
These are not companies spending their own money to develop and design and trouble shoot the machines to make the product, these are countries that have purchased the materials and machines to make all products from scratch, run them by slavves, LITERALLY, and then have the government supply all monies to keep them from going under.
Good God!! That is NOT free market, that is NOT capitalism, that is NOT free Trade, it is SOCIALISM!! It is a form of Fascism!! And we are not doing anything to stop it or defend our own countries ability to produce or provide for our own selves!!
They are literally using slave labor to run the high tech machines and we cannot compete against that using our Free Market Capitalist ideals!
The cat is out of the bag. People are all human and all capable of thinking. Now that we gave away the technology to make these products, and educated their new leaders, and then gave them the machines to do it and through all this provided the profits to buy more machines and materials, we have signed the manufacturing death warrant for our nation!!
Why in God's name is this so hard to see for some people??
Thanks, I couldnt have said it any better. It was the whole point of the post (your comments). I am not a powerful person.
Right. It is the responsibility of the American consumer to make up for American manufacturing's failure to compete.
What you are really saying is that you believe in affirmative action.
You don't get to make that determination, pal. You are free to pay whatever you want for stuff.
We're late to the game on this, but I suspect we'll do it for them.
Race, it's not hard to see. Of course it is no fun to see our previously high-wage jobs made obsolete. But the fact of the matter is that they ARE obsolete. Either we figure out how to compete with the rest of the world or we will die. I for one think that we can.
Communist China does...you dont seem to have a problem with that. You know that the "Free trade" is just a title right? It isnt free and it isnt fair. We are opening ourselves up to govt's that should make an American vomit if he could only pull his head out of his ass and look at it.
They had better be. It's not like there is another choice, is there?
Their decision to create the new software was already made.
To offshore or to use domestic was the real choice.
We can argue about whether to create the new software or remain behind the curve in marketing or whatever, but once they gave the go ahead to make the new software, they still had 2 choices! Domestic or Foreign!!
And those traitors chose foreign.
Their profits will increase through the use of the new software, and I am sure they saved a bundle, but they disallowed the brain power of this nation to be used, and instead used foreign power. Giving away the technology, the brain eduucation, the resume enhancement of this foreign company, the new methods and techniques that this foreign company will use in it's NEXT project which is only BAD in that it gives them an edge over our own programmers...
Doesnt everyone see this? Each time we allow technological jobs to leave our shore we strengthen our economic enemies? We GIVE jobs away? We hand the means to defeat ourselves to the very people we want to defend ourselves from??
Good God, this country has gone insane!! We are giving away the means to ruin our country and we are calling it FREE TRADE!!
Next thin you know, one of our Armed Forces branches will be using foreign aircraft that can just as easily be produced here! Oh, Yeah, I forgot, the COAST GUARD ALREADY DOES THAT!!
So we should do what they do? Is that the answer?
Maybe another answer is to find a place to compete in the world and win? Wouldn't that be better than merely making consumers here pay more for stuff?
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