Reply to: leaving and permie taking over

[nomadd]

My favourite one was being given 1 weeks notice by the agency as end client thought it was 2 weeks.

The amount of fun I had watching everyone fix the mistake (there was work I had to do on the second week) made everything very entertaining.

Oh, I can beat that - on my very last contract in fact..

I turned up Monday in their offices as usual (I had been working for the client for quite a long time) and was asked "What are you doing here?" Apparently the client had been taken over, and the new owners policy was "no contractors".

I was told I'd been "let go" the week before - it was just that no one mentioned it to me, my agent, or the rest of the team I was working with. You can imagine how the next four weeks went as I insisted on serving out my notice.

[eek]

Best one I had was being told late on a Friday, "We don't like contractors on our team, so we've found a permie and he starts Monday". I was given one week's notice. I was the third contractor in the role in under six months; the others had left of their own accord.

The new permie quit after two weeks.

My favourite one was being given 1 weeks notice by the agency as end client thought it was 2 weeks.

The amount of fun I had watching everyone fix the mistake (there was work I had to do on the second week) made everything very entertaining.

[Old Greg]

Go on, which side of the handover were you on?

The winning side.

[nomadd]

I was once informed my time was coming to an end and they expected me to train up some Indian team to cover my work once I had gone. Sadly telling me it was coming meant I found another contract pretty sharpish and gave my weeks notice and left after giving the worst crash course possible crammed into a couple of days by the time they were set up to get the info.

Heard from some colleagues it didnt go too well until some other contractor was drafted in to bail them out. By then I was long gone.

Best one I had was being told late on a Friday, "We don't like contractors on our team, so we've found a permie and he starts Monday". I was given one week's notice. I was the third contractor in the role in under six months; the others had left of their own accord.

The new permie quit after two weeks.

[jimjamuk]

I was once informed my time was coming to an end and they expected me to train up some Indian team to cover my work once I had gone. Sadly telling me it was coming meant I found another contract pretty sharpish and gave my weeks notice and left after giving the worst crash course possible crammed into a couple of days by the time they were set up to get the info.

Heard from some colleagues it didnt go too well until some other contractor was drafted in to bail them out. By then I was long gone.

[nomadd]

Accenture have taken my work away.

No, they haven't.

Try to think it through.

[LondonManc]

this...


It amazes me when they can get good resource cheap they always provide crap resource even cheaper.

I had an argument with an SI once who provided a SAP consultant for £150 a day. We only needed 3/4 hours working but it was time critical and we had a migration that was dependant on its success. The client would have paid £5,000 a day it was that important but that was the only way the SI would do it.
Suffice to say he f**ked it up
That was Crap Gemini.

Same battle with TCS. We want quality for a good price, not just the best price.

Make your mind up, I thought you wanted quality

At the time it was predominately India being outsourced to and I think the problem was they tried to integrate technical staff into European projects and the cultural gap was too big. Around this time quite a few Indian contractors made their own way over and as a rule were very good.

Outsourcing to Eastern Europeans came along a bit later.

I was having a couple of pints with an Indian lad when I was last working in CW. He warned us against outsourcing to India because that's no longer a big thing for them. They're now on a new focus of upgrading their country's infrastructure, so you're getting ex-call centre staff in IT jobshops instead. As he put it, all the good ones are in London, Silicon Valley, New York or in one of the big tech giants (MS, Google, etc.) in India.

Managers who should know better seem to think you can put what you do in a box for someone else to pick up.

What, you mean you can't hand over 9 months of work comprehensively in three and a half days?

Handovers are important as they give the new person the opportunity to blame the outgoing person for everything and create a low baseline against which to perform.

Go on, which side of the handover were you on?

[Old Greg]

Accenture have taken my work away. It's not the the managers at client don't want me to do the work, but they've got written into their targets "must use accenture". So I'm doing a handover. At least, that's what is supposed to be happening. I've kicked off the process, and handed over to accenture to actually manage it. The guy in charge of the handover was supposed to come back to me Monday last week. I'm still waiting...

But I'm polite and helpful. It's not the accenture people's fault personally.

Mind you, handovers are usually a waste of time. But they make managers feel better. "Oh no, he's leaving and taking all the experience and knowledge with him, we must do something. Ooo. A handover. That's something. Let's do it!"

Handovers are important as they give the new person the opportunity to blame the outgoing person for everything and create a low baseline against which to perform.

[SussexSeagull]

Accenture have taken my work away. It's not the the managers at client don't want me to do the work, but they've got written into their targets "must use accenture". So I'm doing a handover. At least, that's what is supposed to be happening. I've kicked off the process, and handed over to accenture to actually manage it. The guy in charge of the handover was supposed to come back to me Monday last week. I'm still waiting...

But I'm polite and helpful. It's not the accenture people's fault personally.

Mind you, handovers are usually a waste of time. But they make managers feel better. "Oh no, he's leaving and taking all the experience and knowledge with him, we must do something. Ooo. A handover. That's something. Let's do it!"

Managers who should know better seem to think you can put what you do in a box for someone else to pick up.

[NotAllThere]

Accenture have taken my work away. It's not the the managers at client don't want me to do the work, but they've got written into their targets "must use accenture". So I'm doing a handover. At least, that's what is supposed to be happening. I've kicked off the process, and handed over to accenture to actually manage it. The guy in charge of the handover was supposed to come back to me Monday last week. I'm still waiting...

But I'm polite and helpful. It's not the accenture people's fault personally.

Mind you, handovers are usually a waste of time. But they make managers feel better. "Oh no, he's leaving and taking all the experience and knowledge with him, we must do something. Ooo. A handover. That's something. Let's do it!"

[SussexSeagull]

I’ve seen very mixed results. Partly from expectations being high but partly because you’re replacing experienced people over here with cheap green’n’keen graduates offshore. Depends very much what you want to achieve and “something successful quickly” sits firmly in the onshore camp.

At the time it was predominately India being outsourced to and I think the problem was they tried to integrate technical staff into European projects and the cultural gap was too big. Around this time quite a few Indian contractors made their own way over and as a rule were very good.

Outsourcing to Eastern Europeans came along a bit later.

[Lance]

I’ve seen very mixed results. Partly from expectations being high but partly because you’re replacing experienced people over here with cheap green’n’keen graduates offshore. Depends very much what you want to achieve and “something successful quickly” sits firmly in the onshore camp.

this...


It amazes me when they can get good resource cheap they always provide crap resource even cheaper.

I had an argument with an SI once who provided a SAP consultant for £150 a day. We only needed 3/4 hours working but it was time critical and we had a migration that was dependant on its success. The client would have paid £5,000 a day it was that important but that was the only way the SI would do it.
Suffice to say he f**ked it up
That was Crap Gemini.

Same battle with TCS. We want quality for a good price, not just the best price.

[LondonManc]

For the last 6 years every gig I've been involved with has had some form of offshore resource and on the whole they have been great. Plus I'm seeing more and more Eastern European agencies popping up.

Was having a discussion with a couple of perms I know and they wouldn't accept that an outsource partner could deliver anything complicated when they were based in India.

I did mention that India have a space agency and have put several rockets into space and that was probably more complicated than their website!

I’ve seen very mixed results. Partly from expectations being high but partly because you’re replacing experienced people over here with cheap green’n’keen graduates offshore. Depends very much what you want to achieve and “something successful quickly” sits firmly in the onshore camp.

[coolhandluke]

About 10 years ago I was working at a major company that used one of the smaller Indian outsourcers and to be honest they were fairly good, their onshore staff were very good. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 10 years as companies continue to come under cost pressure again post-Covid. It wouldn't surprise me to see another upturn of outsourcing to the likes of the Philippines and Vietnam.

For the last 6 years every gig I've been involved with has had some form of offshore resource and on the whole they have been great. Plus I'm seeing more and more Eastern European agencies popping up.

Was having a discussion with a couple of perms I know and they wouldn't accept that an outsource partner could deliver anything complicated when they were based in India.

I did mention that India have a space agency and have put several rockets into space and that was probably more complicated than their website!

[edison]

There was an era about ten years ago when it was de rigueur to outsource development to India regardless of the fact in most examples it was hugely ineffective. It really was emperor's new clothes territory for a while.

About 10 years ago I was working at a major company that used one of the smaller Indian outsourcers and to be honest they were fairly good, their onshore staff were very good. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 10 years as companies continue to come under cost pressure again post-Covid. It wouldn't surprise me to see another upturn of outsourcing to the likes of the Philippines and Vietnam.