Mods - feel free to bin if deemed offensive …
As much as I have tried to avoid it - you have actually identified a major factor in my rant.
I have worked on and off as a consultant for many firms and in many countries. I left IBM as I was tasked to train up ‘BO’ teams in the US and SA for them to take the maintenance and basic development back to India. Which i did as the US consultants refused, but after a few months decided that it’s not the correct approach.
Anyone from India reading this please understand that I have lived amongst india communities back home in SA and am fully aware of the cut throat competition you guys face back home.
I am now an individual consultant operating in the ME, and support BO teams from competing Indian agencies.
Both firms throw generic IT skilled staff onto BO by taking the locally developed applications and databases back to their headquarters to help fast track staff into BO, and then send over to join the team.
That’s a pretty effective method of increasing headcount and revenue and it certainly works - to a point.
The management of these resources is by - FEAR - the disparity in their local wages and the fact that there are 100’s of replacements for anyone back home, has these companies able to treat their staff on levels that most other people would not abide by.
This in turn has created a generation of peopel who constantly feel threatened by each other and everyone else.
Take this a step further and you will have people that have no qualms about distorting experiences and skillsets and that will also not feel the same community spirit of knowledge sharing that formed the basis of many of these forums.
At first, many forums accepetd the interactions of this new tide of developers as nothing more than a difference in background and cultures.
Sure - I’m generalising to a large extent, but the fact is that I reached a point recently where I was tired of the ‘take and lie’ mentality that I hit almost daily.
When you see developers from the same country constantly undermine each other as they are from different consulting firms and see each other as a threat, then there is something vastly wrong with the direction that this industry is expanding into.
I can suppose that it is not only this industry that’s being affected - we face the same on an industrial front by China. Any country that has such a large population operates by a different set of principles and etiquettes, so we’re bound to have this clash of work cultures.
In their shoes I wonder if I would be the same - I like to think not but if you have families and dependants depending on your income, would one then not resort to anything to ensure that your income flow is never threatened?
As stated - this is not a rant against India par se, but unfortunately the majority of the issues I have been facing re this thread / forums / consulting has been through my interaction with the newer teams from that country.
A case in point is me seeing one of my own BOBJ downloads being presented to a company as another agencies work, and they invoiced the org for the “full time” to create the plan.
Most of the tasks were left as is that’s how I knew it was mine lol.
I hope I have not offended anone here, but I am sure that most have noticed a lack of restraint re the older forum members in providing assistance as I’m sure they, as I, have shaken their heads at many questions that are posted that could obviously have been anwered by reading the manual or searching BOBJ.
And then seeing minimal return from helping them.
Sorry all - this has been building up and had to be said …
MikeD (BOB member since 2002-06-18)