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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.