Posted on 05/02/2003 1:58:28 PM PDT by Mini-14
I seriously doubt there is some great conspriacy either by large companies or individual programmers to design flaws into their systems so as to secure future work. I wouldn't deny that there are some coders that will knowly protect information about how a system works for that purpose, but that's no different than any other engrained employee protecting "their" business processes, contact lists, or whatever in the name of job security. That's just mediocrity.
When you think about it, you'd have to be really smart to purposely build in flaws in a plausible way. I'm sure more of these overly complex systems support overly complex business processes that no one ever documented. That's not necessarily the programmer's fault. Plus, I'd bet most systems evolve over time.
Think about what would happen if you built a house one room at a time and lived in it as you went along.
Your advice could prove invaluabe if you would please elaborate. How exactly does one survive with "less" -- less then what? Less than a job? Less than a future? Versatile as in . . . dumpster dining?
I had a similar experience during the recession of 1979-82. My IT consulting firm went down in 1981 and I applied for jobs in various industries our in which our firm had expertise. In ten months I amassed 1500 rejection letters, had two interviews scheduled (both of which were canceled) and was almost on the street before getting hired by a consumer products manufacturing company.
Since then, I've been through nine leveraged buyouts, been laid off four times (the fifth will be the end of this month), and I don't know how I've made it this far.
Don't think I'll survive this one, however. There is no domestic IT profession anymore.
"Let's see. We can modify our insane civil tort system to prevent the sort of outrageous lawsuit abuse we presently have; we can lower taxes across the board; we can demand that the insane government regulations that provide zero (or less) benefit to anyone in return for inflicting massive costs on the business..."
YEAH BABY!!!
I'm never sure who is more idiotic. The person who would train someone to take their job or the person who would ask them to do it.
IT workers are plumbers, and carpenters and architects, and about everything else. You have to draw the whole thing up in your head and then create through keyboard and mouse. Piece work will always be around. It's the factories that come and go.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I can attest to everything this guy/gal has written, because I live and breathe it everyday. I am not sure what the L-1 program is, but the acronym H-1B is so common that most people simply refer to it as "H" in my hallways.
I work for one of the largest software companies in the world and, as a Caucasian woman, my group comprises less than 12% of the workforce. To put it into a more understandable perspective, people of Indian and Mid-Eastern descent occupy approximately 50%. The rest is comprised of 20% Latino that we relocated from several country locations in South America, and 30% are Americans (white, black, hispanic).
Now, while that seems outrageous on its own, this is the demographic makeup of real live people at a 2,400 U.S. support site in the United States (similar to what the poster's article referred to.) If we factor in the entire 25,000 man total company job force, including our Development employees, the Indian/MidEast ratio goes up to about 62% and that includes all of Sales, Marketing, and Consulting.
I can only speak for my company's Support organization at this point, but what the poster alludes to, and what is more devastating for us, is the fact that the Big IT's have very quietly replaced attritioned U.S. jobs at their sites in India.
Here's how that works: When someone leaves voluntarily (i.e., found a better job, decided to stay home with new baby, died, just plain quit) from one of our U.S. sites, the managers have known for over two years that they can't replace the "head count". The "head count" moves over to our Support Center in Hyderabad, India. So while the "head count" numbers look the same to the public, or shareholders, the profit margin skyrockets.
Here's the tradeoff:
1. U.S. customers are getting very ticked off because of language difficulties, but more so because the support they are receiving is in a time zone that is at least 12 hours different.
2. U.S. Support employees are getting very ticked off because they start their day "picking up the pieces" from angered customers because of #1 above.
3. Morale is at an all time low for U.S. IT Support employees because they know their companies are pushing for their replacements in India.
4. The U.S. public perception of the need for local IT workers is horribly skewed.
5. Support costs for U.S. customers is at an all time low -- BIG PLUS. Information Technology Operations (IT) is an outrageously competitive industry and decisions for all kinds of things must be executed immediately without time for evaluation. (Think IBM and their failure to do this.)
When the first IT company opened up shop in Hyderabad, the rest followed. Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Oracle, Gateway, Intel, HP and more all have profitable new operations in gorgeous new buildings in southern India.
The irony of the situation is that there were several IT Consulting companies already based in India when this revolution occurred. These companies are now claiming that the U.S. influence is boistering the price per hour of their workforce and they are now going to be forced to go to China for IT employees to stay competitive with their Indian customers!
As far as I'm concerned, the biggest travesty to this mess was the call "we" (the U.S.) put out to future graduates 10 years ago and told them all to get trained in IT-related fields. As the poster learned, we are so saturated with Computer Science grads with no place to go, but like he first encountered, it's not because of their lack of "job experience" that they aren't getting hired. They are not getting hired because there is someone halfway around the world that is willing to do the same job for $.60 an hour.
H-1Bs and L-1s visas for foreign workers are no longer an obstacle. The companies were tired of those limits so just moved their whole operations out of the country. Only time will tell if that was the right decision.
I agree, there's no conspiracy and no programmer sets out to insert bugs. What I mean is that software companies that sell crap are the ones that stay in business. If they do their job too well there are no consulting, training, upgrade dollars and the company goes out of business. The software companies that market really well but sell poorly designed systems written by near talentless programmers often end up number one in market share, not only because of repeat business to fix their shortcomings but also because their labor costs are lower. The proven formula for success in the proprietary software business is to do a hack job but sell it well.
Something interesting though is happening because of the internet: open source software is taking market share from actively managed software companies. In many cases the quality is exceptional, written by programmers with talent and craftsmanship. There is no marketing department to junk up the design. Bill Gates can beat anyone at the traditional game but is threatened by open source that has no advertising campaign, no active management, no payroll, no stockholders to answer to, just programmers that love to program and are good at it.
FYI . . .
Heard is was sent to everyone in the Building 1 this
morning. It makes for interesting reading.
-----Original Message-----
From: Emmons, Michael T.
[mailto:usaworker@hannatroup.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 5:41 AM
To: Shepardson, Bob; Nolen, George C;
president@whitehouse.gov; vice.president@whitehouse.gov; bernie@mail.house.gov
Cc: Newsroom Boca Raton News; Delray Editor Boca
Raton News; Greetings Boca Raton News; Letters Editor Boca
Raton News; Photography Boca Raton News; Society Boca Raton News; Sports Boca Raton News; Advertising Boca
Raton News; Classified Boca Raton News; Governor Jeb Bush; Senator Lee Constantine
Subject: For Bob Shepardson IT Director Siemens ICN
Lake Mary,FL - regarding your "American worker replacement program"
Bob,
As you now know, I have been quite vocal over the past 5 months, vocal against your "American worker replacement program". Actually, I looked forward to the day you found out about my efforts so I could go public and let America know of your injustice to your American employees. I am so against your program that replaces your staff with foreigners, specifically Indians from India in OUR country on L-1 "intra-company transfer" visas; the infamous L-1 visa, your "American Worker Replacement Visa".
That is, Intra-company transfer from Tata Consulting India to Tata Consulting USA. These Indians are then sold off as "consultants" to American businesses. Siemens ICN in this case. I spoke to Representative John L. Mica(FL) and he told me the intent of the L-1 visa is to NOT REPLACE American workers. But, you chose to go against the intent of the law and use this work visa to dispose of your staff.
My goal, to make sure that Siemens ICN and as many Americans as possible know how you USED your staff, the staff that worked for your department from 3 to 32 years. You used the Americans to TRAIN these Indians to do their jobs so YOU could lay them off in OUR Country.
Under the L-1 "intra-company transfer" visa Foreigners 1. can come into our country 2. to take our jobs(while management mandates we train them) 3. and send their kids to our schools 4. while we are sent to the unemployment line 5. and our Congress created this visa flawed law
Yes, under the L-1 visa they can bring their families to our country and send their kids to our schools. I have seen documents on Siemens shared drives that list the children of our replacements. And some of those children are of school age.
Under this visa, Our PROPERTY TAXES pay to send the children of our replacements to our schools while we are sent to the unemployment line! Downright amazing that our Congress would do something so stupid as this. But this poorly written visa law allowed Mr. Shepardson the ability to replace his staff of Americans.
Here are some comments from our Indian replacements. The project leader Sunil Kumbhare said "We have to get our money before the Chinese do". I guess he feels he had better take advantage of our Country while he has a chance. When I asked Amarpreet Singh and Swayambikash Panda if they were paying taxes the answer was "I don't know". Now how do you not know if you are paying taxes? Because they are probably not. My bet is they get their Indian salary plus travel expenses to be in our country. ...and their kids are free to go to our schools.
On the Siemens shared drive(\\lmyr2aaa\Data\TCS-Project Management ) there are hundreds of documents that describe how Mr. Shepardson chose to displace his American workers. There are also the "infamous" Knowledge transition documents. Knowledge transfer from Americans to Indians that document dates, times, attendees and discussions of how mandated Americans trained these foreigners how to do their jobs before they were laid off.
For those with knowledge of the situation, the only reason Tata Consulting has any Americans contracted at Siemens is because we raised such a stink with Representative John L. Mica(407-657-8080), Senator Bob Graham(866-418-9569) and Senator Bill Nelson(407-872-7161) and they somehow were able to stem the tide. Not well enough, IMO, since most of the Americans have been displaced and the Siemens Lake Mary, FL IT staff is composed of predominately Indians from India.
To the Siemens employees, watch your back. In my 5 months of battling for the rights of Americans to work in OUR country I have been contacted by many displaced citizens, displaced like us via the H-1b and L-1 visa programs. Individuals contacted me from Infineon San Jose, CA, and they contacted me from Siemens Automotive & Energy Atlanta, GA. And I cannot forget the deceit at Siemens Shared Services Lake Mary, FL where they used the L-1 visa program to import Indians and mandated the Americans in Accounts Payable to train the Indians. Then the Americans were laid off. The Siemens way is not an American way.
Watch your back, it is not just an Information Technology issue. Every American worker should be concerned.
To all other Americans, I urge you to contact your representatives and voice your opinion. http://www.congress.org , http://www.house.gov, http://www.senate.gov
To Bob Shepardson: I hope, for the rest of your life, when you lay down for bed each night that you remember how you treated YOUR own employees. You threw them out on the streets so you could import cheaper foreign labor that you hope will give you better financial numbers. And when you wake in the morning, hopefully you have those same thoughts. ...FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Can you live with that? And, you might wonder why I fought so hard. As a contractor at Siemens for 6 years I really have nothing to gain by standing up to this corporate corruption. Luckily, I landed a new job but I feel for all those Americans/Siemens employees you put out on the streets so you could import cheap foreign labor, right here in Lake Mary, FL USA. Maybe it is just in my blood, to fight for what is right in our country
I am a grandson of 3 star General Troup Miller JR Air Force, graduate of West Point I am a great-grandson of General Troup Miller Sr, Army, graduate of West Point I am a nephew of 4 star Admiral Means Johnston, graduate of Navy. My uncle commanded the entire Mediterranean during WWII
I am an ancestor of George Michael Troup, former Governor of Georgia 1823, Troup County Georgia is named after him. My brother is a pilot in the Air Force and a graduate of the Air Force Academy. He flew A-10's over Iraq. I guess my destiny in our heritage is to fight the corporate and congressional greed that this country has come to know.
I thank Lisa Vaas at eWeek magazine for reporting our story in the Jan 6, 2003 issue, page 46. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,809079,00.asp
You can read my documents at http://www.hannatroup.com:81/USA/tata/MyStory_20020918.html We will have much more information regarding Mr. Shepardson's "American Worker Replacement Program" in the future.
Michael Troup Emmons
usaworker@hannatroup.com
http://www.hannatroup.com:81/USA/tata/
http://www.hannatroup.com:81/
http://www.geocities.com/troup/
Rob, Please post this on the H-1b Hall of Shame http://zazona.com/ShameH1B/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.