Was Gene, Gene The Dancing Machine outsourced too?
Posted on 09/16/2005 11:18:32 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
The reason that outsourcing looks so attractive to senior management is that it’s so difficult to quantify lost productivity that results from the outsourcing. Suddenly, it takes longer to do any project because of needing to negotiate/translate the request with the outsourcer.
Additionally, senior management is typically too isolated in the "ivory tower" to really understand the true impact of outsourcing. I recall working for a company about seven years ago that had outsourced all of their infrastructure support to a large vendor. I joined the company as a senior consultant and had to wait two and a half weeks just to get a network login ID (because of some "process issues"). I found out that was a pretty common experience with new employees. How much "savings" was spent paying me to sit around with largely no ability to work?
In industry today any perceived financial gain obliterates the concept of company loyalty to employees. Workers are no longer trained by the company for the job and no longer valued for prior service. For their part workers have bought into the mercenary cycle too, jumping ship whenever they posssess the hot skill that will pay a dollar more. This viscious circle benefits no one.
Did an Indian replace her on The Gong Show?
Truer words were never spoken. I was part of a group that proposed to implement a system for a large company that shall not be named, well screw it why not - McKesson. We would have built this for their in house IT Dept. in less than a year for around $900,000. They outsourced it and after 3 years and $7 million had nothing to show for it and canceled it. Heh, but then the saloon are full of people with "war stories" like this.
And then the upper management will moan about the lack of loyalty in the world.
So many of my friends have been victims of this crap from AT&T. Some are lucky and can go back to do the same job as a contractor, but most aren't.
"This viscious circle benefits no one."
On the contrary, it benefits the worker. Was there ever a time that a company valued the worker other than as someone to do the best work at the cheapest wage? Not in my life time. Some have made attempts, such as when Henry Ford paid his workers more than the other auto manufacturers, but usually those decisions were made with hopes of profitting from it.
The individual worker has always been a self-employed worker, whether he works for a company or is a contractor.
The benefit is that people now realize the truth that they are only as valuable as they make a company money.
Was Gene, Gene The Dancing Machine outsourced too?
I now do contract IT work.
I have had clients who mis-treated me and in response, I raised my fees.
One client I initially charged $35 per hour because they were church based. Then, the CIO blamed the failure of a project I was working on, on me, when in actuality it was his inability to make a decision. His inability has only been rivalled by the recent inaction of Nagin and Blanco.
So, I told him, "If I am to take the hit for your ineptitude, you will pay for it." I then charged $55 per hour.
Then, a few weeks later, he once again blamed me for his inability. I was let go. No problem.
I took off a week to relax. I got hired back a week later. But, then I charged $75 per hour.
I had no problems after that up through the completion of the project.
There is more to it than meets the eye: look at the final paragraph for details.
Full Disclosure: CMM - level 5 just means managers know how to administer a process, it does NOT protect you from poor IT infrastructure, design flaws, or spaghetti code "under the hood" of an application or system.
Cheers!
"The reason that outsourcing looks so attractive to senior management is that it’s so difficult to quantify lost productivity that results from the outsourcing."
Where I work, when network is down, the project you are working absorbs the downtime. We've asked to have downtime tracked separately, but the refuse because it makes some people look bad. So yes, the true cost of productivity losses is impossible to quantify and it adds time to the project that you're working on.
Or perhaps this approach to life is simply very common, and not just in the business world.
At some point, we as a society will have to ask ourselves what trade policies result in NET benefit to everyone.
Lets face it folks, people are going to BENEFIT and be HURT by outsourcing. Those who gain jobs ( like Indians and Filipinos ) are going to be happy, and those who lose their jobs ( like the technicians in the above article ) are going to be angry and hurt.
When Henry Ford invented the Model T, thousands of people lost their jobs in the horse and buggy business and many more in the pony express, not to mention those who worked in the railroads. However, millions more were re-trained to work in the automobile industry.
Same principle applies with switchboard operators, slide-rule makers, etc. Those who do not adopt, get hurt.
OUTSOURCING is the same principle. Millions will be hurt, but millions of others will benefit.
The poor in thr 3rd world get to lift up their lot in life because of outsourcing, but the richer workers whose jobs are affected will be devastated.
AS for individuals companies like JP Morgan or IBM, whether it benefits their bottom line and stock holders or not is a decision only THEY can make AFTER they do all the profit/loss calculations.
In the end, whether outsourcing results in NET GOOD for everyone in this country and the world at large can only be answered in HINDSIGHT. WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE NET EFFECTS WILL BE AT THIS POINT IN TIME.
"My observation was that the in-house IT people were all tied up with "management intitiatives", diversity training, charity events, reorganizations, and meetings upon meetings upon meetings."
Oh man, you hit the nail on the head with that comment.
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took off a week to relax. I got hired back a week later. But, then I charged $75 per hour.
I had no problems after that up through the completion of the project.
>>>>
You must possess some special skill that is hard to find and higly valued. Wanna share with us what it is ?
I'm currently working for a an energy co. here in Houston and we're literally in the process of outsourcing most of our IT dept. overseas. I'm expecting to be outta here around the end of the year, but with a severance package...
Yes, I am a decent VB programmer and I have the incredible skill of knowing how to sell myself as God's gift to computer technology.
Actually, my skill is that I can easily translate common speak into computer code. Most programmers have no ability to think outside of codespeak.
Throw is SAS70, Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO and it's amazing any project ever gets done in my shop.
I'm not familiar with SAS70, but am very familiar with Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO along with a myriad of other standards orgs.
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