Another offshoring success story

[Ananda22]

It was high time someone took a stand. I would add one thing: Yes, you leave on the spot but you leave a real email address and telephone numbers. I have been in that situation myself and they were forced to bring me back. I demanded a higher rate and I got it.

[pm4hire]

the previous PM had a kickoff meeting but has no notes,
agendas, and meeting minutes to transition to me.  I
was handed the project Friday morning and told to come
up with a schedule by Monday.  

I started the job on Thursday and have no phone or even
access to share drives that I need.  The manager claims
his organization is certified CMM Level 3, yet he has no
written processes, just a diagram, and from what I've seen
so far, their system has lots of pot holes.

The offshore team is doing the analysis, design, development
and test.  I told the manager last Friday that the analysis
and test should be done locally if you want a quality product.

This project started March 2007 and has very little to show
for the last 2 months effort.

This is a fine example how cheap trumps logic and quality.

Developing...

Keep you posted.

[TRexx]

Just to be clear, it wasn't me. It was a guy who supports another app that is part of my my "Global Application Portfolio"

Friday the app owners had a  "Come to Jesus" meeting with the IT staffing manager it. From what we've heard it was not a pleasant experience.

This was just another case where the IT folks took action without asking or even telling the business owners.  Some have been  total disasters.  In one case IT saved $100,000 by reducing headcount but one outage cost the company at least $2,000,000 in revenue. Of course it's easy to measure cost savings but hard to prove that the revenue was really lost.

[pm4hire]

replacing PMs with people from Brazil also.  In your case,
IT management misplayed their hand like they always do.

The most abusive people I've ever worked for.

[Jeremy Singer]

An earlier response noted that your training efforts need not be effective.
Sadly, management rarely can tell the difference.
When the project or company tanks, they rarely know or will admit the true cause.

[ITWhore]

I have never been (and really never want to be) in a long term, maintenance situation.  I have always done project work.  On projects that were ubruptly cut short, I have never been asked to train someone else - only instructed to clean out my desk ASAP.  On projects in which I was released because my part of the project had been completed, I have always been instructed to compose a suitable set of notes for whoever would be taking over; I have always considered this to be proper and professional.

I suppose if I were ever in that position (and I will never EVER be a FTE again, so I don't think that it would happen to me), I would have to consider the expected benefits of unemployment (which I always consider to be a golden handcuff - at least on some level ) and remaining time billingat the good rate vs. any "pride" I would have.

Maybe it's because I consider myself to be a prostitute that I figure that as long as the clock is running, I'll do what the client wants.  I would expect no less from the labor that would similarly "service" me.   Of course similarly, I would stretch out the time to maximize revenues.

[AccuracyIT]

That's a nice story because it's such a rarity.  

But sadly most stories are closer to the one at Lake Mary Florida where Siemens was replacing American contractors with H-1Bs from Tata Consulting.  Americans were told they could either train the H-1Bs or IMMEDIATELY be terminated.  

The only one I know of that refused to train a replacement, and then left, was Mike Emmons.  He's the owner of the website "OutsourceCongress.org".