Tech jobs leaving home

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Tuesday, July 15, 2003 | Rachel Konrad - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Willie Green]

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Peter Kerrigan encouraged friends to move to Silicon Valley throughout the 1980s and '90s, wooing them with tales of lucrative jobs in a burgeoning industry.

But he lost his network engineering job at a major telecommunications company in August 2001 and remains unemployed. Now 43, the veteran programmer is urging his 18-year-old nephew to stay in suburban Chicago and is discouraging him from pursuing degrees in computer science or engineering.

[FoxPro]

I have 20 programmers in Russia. Since I can’t get a “real” job in IT, I am their salesman now, and it is working quite well.

They do the following for between $10 and $20 per hour:

People Soft, Oracle 7-8-8i-9i, MS SQL Server, Windows NT/2000, C++, UNIX, .NET, J2EE, Java, C#, HTML, DHTML, XML, WML, _JavaScript, Perl, PHP, PL/SQL, _VBScript (WSH, ASP), Win32 API, COM+, OLE/ActiveX, TCP/IP, DirectX, .NET, Framework, ASP, ASP.NET, EJB, JSP, JDBC, JFC, SOAP, UNIX (Sun Solaris), Linux, MS SQL, MySQL, FoxPro and many others.

We just inked a deal for 2 massive projects for one of the arguably largest retailers in the world. This was done for a fraction of the cost of doing it here. My customer commented that if they did these projects here, they would probably end up paying $100,000 for smoke breaks alone. The Russians learned English studying American computer documentation, so their technical communication skills are excellent, and they never bitch about anything (and the don’t allow woman in their office building).

It is all about relationships and understanding each other’s humanity. If you don’t understand the lives of the people you are outsourcing too, it probably isn’t going to work. It took us over a year to put together our team, most of which are former nuclear and rocket scientists for the crumbling defense industries. Nobody codes like Russians, who are very accurate and attentive.

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 don’t think so.

[bvw]

I meant that it's a good idea to print to a paper and ink that have a 30+ year lifetime at room temp and humidity.

[Poohbah]

Naw, just turn it into that COMPUTE! Commodore Gazette magazine hexadecimal format and pay somebody to 16-key it in.

READY.

LOAD "*", 8, 1

READY.

RUN

[bvw]

You got it! Those listings with the check code at the end -- pretty ingenious.

[Poohbah]

Of course, then you'd have to config-manage the source code for the program to enter in the hexadecimal stuff...

[bvw]

Right, Ever toggle in the boot leader at a front panel?

[Myrddin]

I've experienced the nightmare of backup tapes that can not be read. Ditto for archiving the whole system. I watched a disaster in progress as a group with a project in Florida approached the delivery date. Two days before they were scheduled to deliver, the customer "upgraded" from SunOS 4 to the first release of Solaris. They had no terms and conditions in the contract to prevent the customer from switching the OS on the production machines prior to the delivery. I had a pending contract with the same customer. My contract locked down every single item of hardware, OS, patches, compiler releases, database release, database schema, networking. The customer bitched about being "constrained". We delivered a tested product on the morning of July 4th. Fully functional. Written exactly to spec. My manager gave them the option of paying the bill or handing over all backup media and removing all copies of the software. We got paid and made it home in time for fireworks that evening.

[Joe Bonforte]

"You are MORE full of it than I first thought... in fact, it is pouring out of your eyes! You can't see the truth because YOU ARE SO FULL OF ___p."

Let's see... insulting and demonizing your opponent in replies 43 and 88, resorting to touchy-feely anecdotes to arouse sympathy in reply 46... refusing to support your position with any semblence of logic...

You must have studied at the Liberal/Leftist School of Debate and Demagoguery.

[Myrddin]

Right, Ever toggle in the boot leader at a front panel?

I have. The first satellite navigation systems that I put on tuna boats used an HP2100 computer. It had core memory. The boot code was about 200 lines of instructions in octal. It was 21 bits across, so you popped in a set of 7 3-bit groups. It took a couple minutes to key it in. A tape drive mounted on the user terminal held a cassette tape with the real program software. We mounted the 2100 down a couple decks to keep the RF inteference from wiping out the high seas SSB radios.

[Rockitz]

You get it.

Unfortunately Bush and his advisers have fallen into the misconception that they have even a modicom of control over the economy. Big mistake. Current government (Fed easing) intervention simply delays the inevitable crash coming due to the incredible amount of dept in the system that will need to be repaid at some point. Short of Jubilee, there is no poicy that will change this.

[Bush2000]

Unfortunately, our children and grandchildren are going to be the ones who inherit this mess. The current crop of politicians are too limp-wristed to face the challenge of putting this country's financial house back in order.

[Psycho_Runner]

What needs to be taught at college level (preferably community colleges) to help the IT industry rebound?

You really set yourself up with that question.
For starters lets start with simple concepts such as English. After we learn English then how about Math. After Math, how about Basic programing.

The problem, by the way, is not the USA. The problem is California. Our edukation system rivals Arkansas.

[Rockitz]

You get it.

Unfortunately Bush and his advisers have fallen into the misconception that they have even a modicom of control over the economy. Big mistake. Current government (Fed easing) intervention simply delays the inevitable crash coming due to the incredible amount of dept in the system that will need to be repaid at some point. Short of Jubilee, there is no poicy that will change this.

Yeowww!

1. modicom = modicum

2. dept = debt

3. poicy = policy

Apologies to all- my worst spelled post ever.

JimRob- How 'bout a spell check capability, big guy?

[dirtboy]

My posts, and those of many others too, are rife with typos, bad spelling, poor word choice, missing words, extra words, bad grammar.

I'm writing for speed here, not absolute grammatical accuracy and perfect spelling. If I'm writing a memo or a specification for work, or a letter to the editor, then I'm much more careful. And, on FR, I'm especially careful when editing a post that busts on someone else's poor grammar or spelling. :^)

[Admin Moderator]

Cool it.

[crazykatz]

And, too many so called, AMERICANS do not care about their fellow citizens losing their jobs, their homes and their lives due to this DRAIN of Technology jobs to hellhole countries all over the t-rd world!!

I believe that someday, the loss of those jobs WILL affect their families and close friends.... then... they can REGRET being free traitors.

Hilterary's election should also help the free traitors face reality as well.

Wonder where FR will be when HRC takes power?

[crazykatz]

BTTT

[Bush2000]

And, too many so called, AMERICANS do not care about their fellow citizens losing their jobs, their homes and their lives due to this DRAIN of Technology jobs to hellhole countries all over the t-rd world!!

You're confusing several issues. I think that Americans DO care about people losing their jobs. But there isn't a whole lot that we can do about it, other than encouraging state and federal governments to formulate tax and regulatory policy that promotes job creation. There's no such thing as flipping a switch and making this problem go away. You can't just mandate that corporations not hire foreign labor. They'll laugh at you, because it's incredibly easy to create a foreign subsidiary (either partially or completely independent) that is not beholden to state or federal governments. So what is your option? Forbid companies from working with foreign companies that employ foreign labor?!? If so, international trade would cease to exist. And while that might satisfy the isolationist crowd (like Pat Buchanan), it is a fact that countries with free trade policies are more prosperous than those without them.

[crazykatz]

Like I wrote.... hitlery is coming and I guarantee you she will make IT an issue... and pander to the UNEMPLOYED and UNDER-EMPLOYED AMERICAN WORKER and win. She will not really do anything except make more $OCIALIST program$... no jobs just programs.

So, how do you like that option??

Not, much ... right.

So WHAT are your options... what country are you looking to move to when she who "WILL BE OBEYED" takes over?

REAL conservative AMERICANS and so-called "isolationists" are RIGHT, Americans need protection from the "third way" folks.

When HRC comes on board, the USA will have a true "THIRD WAY" supporter in charge.

Then we, AMERICANS can not only kiss our jobs good-bye but we can kiss our freedoms ADIOUS as well.

BTW.... HRC doesn't mind at all, that the internationalist companies are sending AMERICAN jobs away.... in fact, she loves it. Gives her something use to use to get votes. Never mind THAT she supports H1B/L1 Visa programs.... just like so many freepers do.

I wonder if all those folks who post here in support of H1B/L1 and the JOB DRAIN, are really from the demo-rat underground????