Outsourcing!!!
Outsourcing - good or bad?. Well I've worked at the company I'm currently at on and off for about 5+ years as a contractor. I've written about this place in a couple of my posts already, so feel free to check those out to have an idea of what goes on and where I'm going with this. One being the Big Suck and Swallow in IT and another Here we go again, well actually why don't you just read all my posts from beginning to end??? LOL.
Well Outsourcing has since come to this company and was finalized on November 1st as far as all transitioning of full time and contract employees over to the outsource company, they've taken over their whole IT department from Network Team, Desktop Team, Server Team, Applications you name it, if it's IT it's now Outsourced.
Personally this really isn't any different to me only because I've been a contractor for this company for so long and nothing is really changing except who is paying our contract companies, this really has only hurt those that were FULL TIMERS and actually for those that didn't jump ship before the hammer fell and hung in there to see what might happen, these few have luckily been kept on, but are now no longer Full Time Employees, but contractors as well, but through the company that had taken over.
Now the problem with this approach is they kept all that they truly should have gotten rid of (Refer to my other posts)... They've transitioned all these people straight across the board over to their company - BAD MOVE!!! Now since I'm still just a contractor and the minority within this company these transitioned employees are still more or less FULL TIMERS, at least they haven't changed the way they work, they still do absolutely NOTHING and can get away with it while the contract employees going about 30 strong in an IT department of about 500+ are the ones doing most of the work to cover for those not doing any.
I think if the Outsource company would have just done a clean slate things would be so much better for them, because this would have gotten rid of all the politics that surround this IT department at this company but instead they've kept all their chiefs which then in turn keeps those no good Indians under those chiefs - there had to have been tons of protected people with this routine for years. An example within the departments I deal with daily is that out of say 60 full time employees they transitioned, only 10 at most were worth a transition. All of the upper management should have simply been replaced by their own management within the outsource company.
I actually feel sorry for this outsource company because they truly don't have a clue as to what they've gotten here. I like to use this analogy - Here is a company that makes some of the best apple pie (Outsource Company) and they order a huge shipment of Granny Smith apples and these apples have since been shipped and the company is just waiting for them to arrive so they can start producing this fantastic pie. The boxes take a few months to arrive and during this time the company is losing tons of money just waiting but knows they will get everything back and then some once they arrive. Finally after a 4-6 month wait the boxes of apples arrive, everyone is so excited, everyone comes together to unload these boxes from the many trucks that have arrived and everyone is standing around and they are about to crack open one of the boxes to see these most magnificent of apples they've ordered. Soon as the first box is opened to everyone's surprise is they are YELLOW, but wait not rotten YELLOW but LEMONS!!! Yes the company has just received a huge shipment of frigging LEMONS upon opening of every box they are all LEMONS...
Not sure about you the reader but I've never seen apple pie made with lemons? LOL.
This is what this outsource company is going to realize when they see what these transitioned employees they have try doing what is asked of them with their newly found responsibilities with the outsource company. Most of these people are lucky to even have a job in IT let alone the money they make and to have the few contract employees that have been covering for them over all of these years. I'd love to just have someone overlook each employees job in this place to see what really gets done and who really is doing the work without those people know they are doing it.
I had taken on a new position within the original company still as a contractor back in late July because a FULL TIME employee had jumped ship due to all the outsource rumors and they replaced this position with a contractor and I back filled the other contractors position. I was in their Support Center (Which is being totally outsourced to India come April 1st 2006) no joke here either - what an April Fools, but without the laughter. Luckily I took on this new position, possibly keeping a position longer with the new outsource company if it were to ever happen, which at the time was still just rumor and no definitive answer as to if it would ever happen.
The problem with accepting this new responsibility was 3 times as much work (Physically) for me and 3 times as much more responsibility and deadlines. I jumped in full guns only because the person in this position before me was at about a 10 dollar more an hour than what I had been making within their Support Center, anyway the new position was as their Server Specialist. I simply build all the companies servers, put an OS on them, troubleshoot any hardware or software specific problems, then I have to install or rack them within their Data Center, a far cry from being in their Support Center where I did my job without any thought what so ever - a no brainer for me anyway.
I also have to maintain all the racks within the Data Center as far as KVM switches, PSU connections, and all hardware within these racks as far as moving, installing etc.
Now this was August and at this point I expected to receive my much bigger pay check. Well somewhere along the line the Chiefs didn't just put me into the original persons position at his rate??? Now I was told my contract was up in August and they now needed to extend this contract, to hold off and they'd see what they could do about my rate, then the time arrived and I asked about it and it was like "Well with all this outsourcing stuff going on". I was like "WHAT???" wait a minute I just filled into a position to do this company a favor saving them the aggravation of finding someone to do it and at a rate even with the 10 plus dollars an hour would be much cheaper than anyone from the street would do with the knowledge or for what the job description would be and they've moved the other contractor over to his position (by the way where he is happy) which was no longer under this chiefs budget which means it had nothing to do about cost savings?
Of course I've been getting the run around now for some 4 months about outsourcing and this was their huge excuse as to why I haven't seen anything and as of November 1st the outsource company has taken over. Well to finish this off I'm in a holding pattern now waiting to see if my contract company can get me this additional money that the original company screwed me out of and now the outsource company will have to eat if I'm granted it. Now the best part about this is the 2 people involved (Chiefs) by not just moving me into this persons spot at his rate are now employees of the outsource company and if you think about it, they've screwed their new employer by not doing so... LOL. (MORONS!!!)
Well as far as outsourcing good or bad? For me it's now become BAD for the reason I had just mentioned I'm currently doing a job someone else before me was doing but for FAR less money and have to wait to see if the outsource company will step up and put me where I belong? Only time will tell, it's now a waiting game. I won't be seeing 4 months of back pay either I'm sure of that. I'll keep you all posted if this ever comes to fruition.
I'm sure most that read my posts are like boy this guy just likes to whine a lot or bitch but just read my posts and put yourself in my shoes. If I didn't have BAD LUCK I wouldn't have any luck at all. I'm just asking for what is rightfully mine and where I should be for what my job title currently is.
Outsourcing can be a good thing if handled properly and for this company, I think they've gone about it the wrong way. So in my opinion all outsource companies should head this and ask those that are contractors already at a company about what REALLY goes on and get the REAL scoop before doing any kind of transitioning of these FULL TIME employees. I wish our new outsource company would pull each and every contractor aside to get their opinions and I can promise you this post would be everything you hear from them as well. A true picture of what goes on in IT.
Well thank you for sticking through another one of my many rants and long posts hope you enjoyed it and stop back when hopefully my luck will change. Thanks for stopping.
Well Outsourcing has since come to this company and was finalized on November 1st as far as all transitioning of full time and contract employees over to the outsource company, they've taken over their whole IT department from Network Team, Desktop Team, Server Team, Applications you name it, if it's IT it's now Outsourced.
Personally this really isn't any different to me only because I've been a contractor for this company for so long and nothing is really changing except who is paying our contract companies, this really has only hurt those that were FULL TIMERS and actually for those that didn't jump ship before the hammer fell and hung in there to see what might happen, these few have luckily been kept on, but are now no longer Full Time Employees, but contractors as well, but through the company that had taken over.
Now the problem with this approach is they kept all that they truly should have gotten rid of (Refer to my other posts)... They've transitioned all these people straight across the board over to their company - BAD MOVE!!! Now since I'm still just a contractor and the minority within this company these transitioned employees are still more or less FULL TIMERS, at least they haven't changed the way they work, they still do absolutely NOTHING and can get away with it while the contract employees going about 30 strong in an IT department of about 500+ are the ones doing most of the work to cover for those not doing any.
I think if the Outsource company would have just done a clean slate things would be so much better for them, because this would have gotten rid of all the politics that surround this IT department at this company but instead they've kept all their chiefs which then in turn keeps those no good Indians under those chiefs - there had to have been tons of protected people with this routine for years. An example within the departments I deal with daily is that out of say 60 full time employees they transitioned, only 10 at most were worth a transition. All of the upper management should have simply been replaced by their own management within the outsource company.
I actually feel sorry for this outsource company because they truly don't have a clue as to what they've gotten here. I like to use this analogy - Here is a company that makes some of the best apple pie (Outsource Company) and they order a huge shipment of Granny Smith apples and these apples have since been shipped and the company is just waiting for them to arrive so they can start producing this fantastic pie. The boxes take a few months to arrive and during this time the company is losing tons of money just waiting but knows they will get everything back and then some once they arrive. Finally after a 4-6 month wait the boxes of apples arrive, everyone is so excited, everyone comes together to unload these boxes from the many trucks that have arrived and everyone is standing around and they are about to crack open one of the boxes to see these most magnificent of apples they've ordered. Soon as the first box is opened to everyone's surprise is they are YELLOW, but wait not rotten YELLOW but LEMONS!!! Yes the company has just received a huge shipment of frigging LEMONS upon opening of every box they are all LEMONS...
Not sure about you the reader but I've never seen apple pie made with lemons? LOL.
This is what this outsource company is going to realize when they see what these transitioned employees they have try doing what is asked of them with their newly found responsibilities with the outsource company. Most of these people are lucky to even have a job in IT let alone the money they make and to have the few contract employees that have been covering for them over all of these years. I'd love to just have someone overlook each employees job in this place to see what really gets done and who really is doing the work without those people know they are doing it.
I had taken on a new position within the original company still as a contractor back in late July because a FULL TIME employee had jumped ship due to all the outsource rumors and they replaced this position with a contractor and I back filled the other contractors position. I was in their Support Center (Which is being totally outsourced to India come April 1st 2006) no joke here either - what an April Fools, but without the laughter. Luckily I took on this new position, possibly keeping a position longer with the new outsource company if it were to ever happen, which at the time was still just rumor and no definitive answer as to if it would ever happen.
The problem with accepting this new responsibility was 3 times as much work (Physically) for me and 3 times as much more responsibility and deadlines. I jumped in full guns only because the person in this position before me was at about a 10 dollar more an hour than what I had been making within their Support Center, anyway the new position was as their Server Specialist. I simply build all the companies servers, put an OS on them, troubleshoot any hardware or software specific problems, then I have to install or rack them within their Data Center, a far cry from being in their Support Center where I did my job without any thought what so ever - a no brainer for me anyway.
I also have to maintain all the racks within the Data Center as far as KVM switches, PSU connections, and all hardware within these racks as far as moving, installing etc.
Now this was August and at this point I expected to receive my much bigger pay check. Well somewhere along the line the Chiefs didn't just put me into the original persons position at his rate??? Now I was told my contract was up in August and they now needed to extend this contract, to hold off and they'd see what they could do about my rate, then the time arrived and I asked about it and it was like "Well with all this outsourcing stuff going on". I was like "WHAT???" wait a minute I just filled into a position to do this company a favor saving them the aggravation of finding someone to do it and at a rate even with the 10 plus dollars an hour would be much cheaper than anyone from the street would do with the knowledge or for what the job description would be and they've moved the other contractor over to his position (by the way where he is happy) which was no longer under this chiefs budget which means it had nothing to do about cost savings?
Of course I've been getting the run around now for some 4 months about outsourcing and this was their huge excuse as to why I haven't seen anything and as of November 1st the outsource company has taken over. Well to finish this off I'm in a holding pattern now waiting to see if my contract company can get me this additional money that the original company screwed me out of and now the outsource company will have to eat if I'm granted it. Now the best part about this is the 2 people involved (Chiefs) by not just moving me into this persons spot at his rate are now employees of the outsource company and if you think about it, they've screwed their new employer by not doing so... LOL. (MORONS!!!)
Well as far as outsourcing good or bad? For me it's now become BAD for the reason I had just mentioned I'm currently doing a job someone else before me was doing but for FAR less money and have to wait to see if the outsource company will step up and put me where I belong? Only time will tell, it's now a waiting game. I won't be seeing 4 months of back pay either I'm sure of that. I'll keep you all posted if this ever comes to fruition.
I'm sure most that read my posts are like boy this guy just likes to whine a lot or bitch but just read my posts and put yourself in my shoes. If I didn't have BAD LUCK I wouldn't have any luck at all. I'm just asking for what is rightfully mine and where I should be for what my job title currently is.
Outsourcing can be a good thing if handled properly and for this company, I think they've gone about it the wrong way. So in my opinion all outsource companies should head this and ask those that are contractors already at a company about what REALLY goes on and get the REAL scoop before doing any kind of transitioning of these FULL TIME employees. I wish our new outsource company would pull each and every contractor aside to get their opinions and I can promise you this post would be everything you hear from them as well. A true picture of what goes on in IT.
Well thank you for sticking through another one of my many rants and long posts hope you enjoyed it and stop back when hopefully my luck will change. Thanks for stopping.
posted by Cellar Dweller at 9:54 PM
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