Ouch, yuck, poo, but no surprise.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Nov 26, 2006 4:53 AM EDT |
This does not surprise me in the least, as I was already surprised several years back. I began my career in the world of mainframes and large service providers. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, I quit my career just as it was really revving up and went to law school. Sigh. Bad lawyer. When I returned to IT after more than 5 years away, I moved over into Unix and much smaller operations. I was stunned to find levels of beaurocracy and inefficiency far beyond anything I had seen before. The current model, it seems, is designed to make development a commodity item that can be package up for shipping off-shore. Project management is now a career path and skill set all its own, designed, it would seem, to keep developers from making any meaningful contribution to the company's bottom line. I'll be Fred Brooks does somersaults every day, practicing for the day he dies and has to turn over in his grave. |
| tuxchick Nov 26, 2006 5:15 PM EDT |
Ouch, yuck, poo?? LOL! Truly this story has affected you profoundly! |
| jimf Nov 26, 2006 5:25 PM EDT |
When I first saw the title tuxchick , I was sure it was yours. :) |
| Abe Nov 26, 2006 5:36 PM EDT |
Quoting:Project management is now a career path and skill set all its own, designed, it would seem, to keep developers from making any meaningful contribution to the company's bottom line.Couldn't agree more. At my company we call them CA (Contract Administrator) who don't know much about IT or application development for that matter. That is the result of Out Sourcing. They thought it will reduce cost but on the contrary, it turns out to be more costly, longer turnaround, and almost never what was required or desired. Out sourcing has one benefit, the feeling that some one will be there for support in the future if the key people leave. Other than that, out sourcing is for the birds. It is too much hassle. |
| jdixon Nov 26, 2006 6:18 PM EDT |
> When I first saw the title tuxchick , I was sure it was yours. :) So was I. :) |
| dinotrac Nov 26, 2006 6:22 PM EDT |
> When I first saw the title tuxchick , I was sure it was yours. :) Wow!! Here I set up a brilliantly -- BRILLIANTLY -- conceived thread, and you wish to attribute it to some young chicken with a thing for formalwear? The nerve. |
| jimf Nov 26, 2006 6:59 PM EDT |
> The nerve. Come on dino, time to own up to the fact that you're just a hack, riding on the coat tails of genius :D |
| helios Nov 27, 2006 1:47 AM EDT |
"...you're just a hack, riding on the coat tails of genius :D" There seems to be a common thread in this thread...attributing to others what is rightfully possessed by another. I will take back the above-mentioned attribute thank you very much. I worked hard to develop that skillset. h |
| number6x Nov 27, 2006 6:11 AM EDT |
The push to more levels of bureaucracy has been made to try to keep projects on tme, on track, and within budget. The effect is the exact opposite. The project I'm working on now is so over-managed its ridiculous. The delivery dates, goals and assignments change at a whim from any of the non-technical leads. All of our targets seem to change directions faster that a squirrel trying to cross the road. It is amazing we get anything done. Of course the way we on the technical side are getting it done is by working extremely long hours, weekends and holidays, until we hobble something together that works. We usually end up ignoring the most outrageous requests and try to do and end run around the management and get requests straight from the business users. This has led to a string of development team leads being let go, even though the true customer is getting their needs met. I am probably the next team lead in the crosshairs. I'll probably get a pink slip just in time for Christmas. Ho Ho Ho! |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 8:39 AM EDT |
Such mistrust of the people who are actually doing the work. This is so typical of business, at least in the US. One of the main reasons I stick to freelancing is most corporations are run by the stupid, who are too stupid to know just how stupid they really are. They try to hire good employees who presumably know what they're doing, then undermine them at every turn. Or maybe it's a human thing. People hire me to clean up the messes left by the last MCSE du jour, then whine about how much it costs and question my qualifications even as everything is humming quietly doing its job, and users are not complaining, and they hired me in the first place because I was the greatest thing since microbrews. But then in the course of casual chit chat, they'll seek my advice on everything from health care to investing. Because their doctors are quacks and their financial advisers are scammers, but by gosh this here random computer geek is the one to listen to. Ouch, now I have a headache. **edit** I just remembered when I worked at Tektronix, one of my many managers came up to me all excited because he had bought into the "Linux IPO." I was all puzzled- eh? I asked did he know that Linux was free of cost, came in many flavors, and did he mean some Linux company? Of course he had zero knowledge of what it was, he just got caught up in the buzz. Yes, this was Red Hat's IPO, which made it a double-dumb whammy- IPO prices are usually inflated. It peaked around $52 and has never come close to that since. Headache worsens... |
| jdixon Nov 27, 2006 10:04 AM EDT |
> It peaked around $52 and has never come close to that since. A check of Red Hat's chart shows that it hit a peak somewhere north of $120 back in early 2000, It split on 1/10/2000, so it would have actually been something like $240+ then. It was downhill from there. By July it was under $20 a share and has only been over that twice since then. Of course, being cheap, I bought my first 5 shares at $16/share and my remaining 10 shares at $8/share, so I'm well ahead on those shares at this point. Unfortunately, I also bought another 25 shares back when it dropped to $20, and I'm still under on that. Buy low, sell high still remains true. Deciding when is the right time to buy and sell always separates the winners from the losers in the stock market. Which is why I largely stick to index funds. |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 10:14 AM EDT |
heh, then my one-of-many-managers might have done all right after all. If he ever figured out the actual company name he bought stock in. :) |
| jdixon Nov 27, 2006 10:20 AM EDT |
TC: As long as it was Red Hat he bought and not VA Software. That one's still underwater for most investors, me included. |
| number6x Nov 27, 2006 11:57 AM EDT |
Tuxchick, I was hired to clean up a mess created by the previous consulting firm. The client had hired a large well known firm and paid almost $17M US to complete a project to convert their old data from mainframe VSAM files into DB2 for use in a new Java based app. The project was outsourced and after 10 months the client began large scale system testing. After 4 months of testing the original plan was scratched. I was hired on June 12th, 2006 and was able to bring in two other full time programmers. I was able to use 2 full time employees on my re-write for the first two months. We started coding on July 1st. We have delivered 3 iterations to the beta test sights and are finishing up our production ready release for delivery mid December. The original conversion project too the largest test client 3 1/2 weeks to convert and load their VSAM files into DB2 and get their new system up and running. 4.6 billion records in the VSAM files, into about 3.4 billion rows spread across 42 tables. Our re-write does the same in less than 24 hours. I am not claiming any great hacking ability, just that the old product was so poorly written. We still have 14 open defect tickets we are working on. We cut a lot of corners, and focused on the bare functionality. We had to make users give up the hope of getting a lot of bells and whistles, but after the original flop this was not too hard to do. I did not get payed 17 Million dollars. When I first started this contract, I could not imagine how a product could be so poorly designed in the first place. After working here for a few montyhs, it may be that the outsourced team had no way to do and end run around the non-technical project management team and was actually doing what was requested, as opposed to listening to the actual business users and doing their own analisys. This has been the second most frustrating project I have worked on in my 10 short years as a consultant. I think stepped over the limit of PM whose orders I have refused to follow early last week. I told my team to take thanksgiving weekend off, and to turn off their blackberries. I will probably be looking for work in December, and that is always a bad prospect. |
| Abe Nov 27, 2006 12:24 PM EDT |
number6x: When the client has messed up requirements, most out source show excitement to do what the client wants; when the client has things right, they nitpick to mess it up. It's pretty clever strategy, don't you think! A true story I read some where: two talented friends, one in development and the other in marketing joined resources and established a company. The developer was doing such a great job they became famous and getting many new clients. After a while, they started having less and less clients. the marketing guy split and started his own consulting. Eventually, the developer had no new or support projects. He did such a good job on his projects that everything worked great and clients didn't need him any more. the marketer did such a bad job, clients had to have support contracts for everything. By the end, the developer had to work for his marketing friend. And that is how some companies stay alive and become rich. No wonder why so many software outfits love MS. |
| dcparris Nov 27, 2006 12:54 PM EDT |
Well, that is where I feel the biggest resistance to FOSS lies - the resistance of those who feel they have so much to lose by supporting Linux. |
| number6x Nov 27, 2006 1:09 PM EDT |
They do generate a lot of business for others to clean up. I have two labrador/german shepard mutts at home. They're both 90+ pounds. They generate a lot of business for me to clean up too! If they weren't so darn cute I'd replace'em with penguins. -Sean |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 1:29 PM EDT |
It is partly true that continually poop-scooping generates a nice revenue flow. One year I calculated that nearly 20% of my Windows service billings were security-related- both setting up protections for stupid windows boxes, and cleaning up after the inevitable infestations. (Anyone who claims Windows is secure-able is lying or ignorant- it just ain't so.) Every aspect of Windows administration was more expensive- installations and new deployments, management, hardware requirements, ongoing administration, you name it. Add in the costs of license tracking, licenses, and the mounds of add-on anti-malware applications and my poor customers were lucky have two leftover nickels to rub together. My post-migration Linux billings were always a lot lower. But I got no job satisfaction from riding herd on 'tard windows boxes, it was just so much pointless babysitting. The upside of migrating to nice reliable Linux boxes was being to move ahead and add refinements, capacity, and new efficiencies, instead of being trapped on a treadmill of continuously fixing the same stupid generational windows defects over and over. While I'm calling people liars, let me add the lamers who claim Windows TCO is lower and ROI is higher. Pah. Liar liar pants on fire. |
| Sander_Marechal Nov 27, 2006 2:47 PM EDT |
> A true story I read some where The key to survining that story as the developer is 1) doing such a great job that your satisfied customers will bring you new customers by word-of-mouth 2) know when the market is saturated (fewer new clients) and find new markets to conquer It's almost always worth the extra work to push a good job into a great job. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 27, 2006 3:33 PM EDT |
>While I'm calling people liars, let me add the lamers who claim Windows TCO is lower and ROI is higher. No kidding. How is Free/free more expensive than $$$$$$$$$$? Does it take more skill to work on Linux? Perhaps, but once it's setup it doesn't need constant babysitting and pampering. Interesting take on your general idea. The company I work for is 99% 'Doze, and we make money when something breaks (which it inevitably does). We're moving towards a networking service agreement, where you would pay us $XXX per server a month to make sure everything runs smooth, and we'll do what we need to do to make things run smoothly. In that scenario, we make money when something doesn't break...and there's an eye being cast towards Linux because it's more likely to get by with less time spent on it. The goal is to approach no work done (at least as close as is really possible). We'll be like an insurance company, and try to collect money from people while not giving anything back except peace of mind. |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 3:58 PM EDT |
Needing more skills to run Linux (or any Unix) is paradoxically spun as a liability. Yeah, like you want barely-trained drones running your systems. Microsoft has been very skilled at twisting the cost debate into fifth-dimensional geometric forms: free-of-cost costs more than $$$. Windows admins cost less, but never mind the cost of repairing the damage they cause, or the inefficiencies they wreak. Don't forget the malware tax, which worldwide is in the tens of billions. And so on and on... There's been tremendous downward pressure on salaries and considerable anti-labor policies in all industries for a couple of decades now anyway. I can't think of anything more shortsighted than the practice of turning a business into a revolving-door low-wage sweatshop, but here we are. |
| Abe Nov 27, 2006 4:09 PM EDT |
I am at an advantage because I read and remember the whole article. I only cited a very brief summary, but here are more details. The developer was happy and content with the work he likes doing. But IT is very dynamic and changing; IT work is never done, there is always things to do better and there is always work in different areas to be done. His mistake was not to diversify. He didn't understand many of the IT managers mindset and politics. The reason his friend left him is because he refused to expand when the business slowed down. Other factors that played into the outcome is the way most IT manager conduct their business. You would think many would be happy when they save money, on the contrary, they like to spend more money because, a) They hate to reduce their big fat budget for next year, b) They look more important when they have a bigger budget, consequently make more money c) They look like they are doing more for their end users in front of upper management d) Their budgets are normally handed to them by consultants/out source so they don't have to do them. f) If there are problems, they show how much is being spent to take care of problems. Many who work in large enterprise see that, not all of them, but many of them. The marketer knew this and based his new business on this status quo. |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 4:17 PM EDT |
And now it's time for a little comic relief: Geek Squad. |
| tuxchick Nov 27, 2006 4:21 PM EDT |
Abe, you make the business world sound completely dysfunctional. Which I suppose for the most part is true. :) |
| Abe Nov 27, 2006 4:31 PM EDT |
To see something funny, go here http://www.guzer.com/videos/pees_pool.php I rate it PG. |
| rijelkentaurus Nov 27, 2006 4:40 PM EDT |
>Geek Squad. I used to work for the Geek Squad, it was my first ITish job, and while it sucked it helped me to get the one I've got now. Three months of torture. We sold Linspire and SuSE in the store, but we were not allowed to suggest that people buy it, and we were forbidden to even speak the "L" word to a customer. >Windows admins cost less, but never mind the cost of repairing the damage they cause, or the inefficiencies they wreak. To be fair, Windows is to blame as much as the admins. Even a good admin is only as good as the tools (s)he has to work with. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, "The turd was well presented, but in the end it was still a turd." |
| Abe Nov 27, 2006 4:40 PM EDT |
I am running Kubuntu 6.10 with FireFox 2.0 MPlayer plugin. It wouldn't open. I had to download it then launch Kaffeine and it played really nice and clear video and sound. |
| Abe Nov 27, 2006 4:47 PM EDT |
Quoting:you make the business world sound completely dysfunctional. Which I suppose for the most part is true. :) The business world in the US is dysfunctional, otherwise, we wouldn't be losing all the business to China, India and others. |
| jdixon Nov 28, 2006 3:11 AM EDT |
> (Anyone who claims Windows is secure-able is lying or ignorant- it just ain't so.) TC, I have yet to see a compromised Windows box when it wasn't turned on. Therefore, securing Windows is simple: remove the power from the machine and make sure it can't be restored. Now, getting anything done with a secured Windows box is another matter. :) > . While I'm calling people liars, let me add the lamers who claim Windows TCO is lower and ROI is higher. Pah. Liar liar pants on fire. Well, that I have to agree with. |
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