Outsourcing sucks. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again.
About 14 months ago, my company – a large corporation of some 90000+ employees – started to outsource tasks in the IT department (where I work, naturally) to a city in Eastern Europe. The guys who were hired there are nice, and we all get along well with them and like them. They are also of some help now and then. But some of their work methods really leave a lot to desire.
Case in point: On Friday, they were supposed to add a configuration to an internal SMTP Relay server. Simple stuff really. They had asked for a change window for 16:00 – 17:00. Fine.
Today, a co worker relates what all went wrong.
They started at 15:30. From 15:35 to 16:15, the server was basically down because they forgot to run postmap over the new hash list, and postfix began to refuse starting smtpd processes. Fortunately, it was noticed “quickly”, and wasn’t down the whole weekend. Postfix dumped dozens of warnings and errors into the logfile, why didn’t they just check it? Why didn’t they do a manual test after adding the new configuration?
And on top of it all, the change window was not even approved.
I mean, isn’t that what every geek learns from years of fiddling? Check the log. Test your config. No matter how sure you are you did everything correctly, you will have a typo somewhere.
So the end result is I have 30 minutes or more of calls and emails and trying to reconstruct what actually happened, instead of doing the change in 5 minutes myself.
Outsourcing, the greatest idiocy IT companies ever came up with.
10 comments
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December 30th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Chris
You hate outsourcing because you’re a racist!
December 30th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
secretgeek
Great way to disqualify yourself, you moron. Did you even read the post, or were you just incapable to actually comprehend any of what I have written in there?
I hate outsourcing because I hate incompetence. If these guys actually did their job, then I would be very glad to have people that will take some of the work-load off of me.
January 1st, 2008 at 3:31 am
secretspeak
Why on God’s(heh no offense) green earth did you answer that ass. Remember they only post because we answer back.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:21 am
secretgeek
I don’t like censorship.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
secretspeak
Don’t censor him just dont answer him. It will be like “The Death of Eric Cartman”.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
Rover
The problem is not with outsourcing per se. As long as it’s understood that outsourcing can not be a replacement for the localized expert technicians, everything should be fine.
Of course when the proportion becomes unbalanced, anything can happen…
January 5th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Robert Dayton
I was afraid to outsource, too. I have a software company that specializes in legal software. First I outsourced my website and that began a wonderful relationship and partnership with a company called ISPG (DevelopmentGuruji.com) – I have 1 .NET full time guy with them, 1 PHP programmer full time, and VPA (Virtual Personal Assistant). My business has grown and I had to teach them some things because I ordered the lowest tier of their three tier pricing plan, but people are people and they learned them well. Very well in fact. These people are developing skills greater than mine – you just have to be patient in the beginning. You are dealing with college grads who are enthusiastic and ambitious and dying to learn and help you. Some of them are unbelievably creative.
Now in my extra time I act as their US Sales Rep. Funny how it comes full circle. –I’ll tell you something I really like about working with this company — They Keep Their Word.
My point here is that not all companies that you outsource to are faceless mills of incompetence. Excellence can be had out there.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:58 am
secretgeek
Sure, Robert. Competent outsourcing is like military intelligence – an oxymoron. Besides, your comment is borderline spam.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Robert Dayton
You may call it what you wish, but it is the unadulterated truth and a brief account of my experiences firsthand.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
CEE
Hi, Companies from the “western” countries outsource things in Eastern Europe, and in Europe in generally in return for a big amount of state money, that’s what is all about. Countries like Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovakia etc. pay for companies to create some jobs there – stupid, isn’t it? profit is only produced from these actions if they pay less to the staff employed in Eastern Europe – which implicates lower quality work force. so, yes, competent outsourcing is an oxymoron.