Reply to: PermieBobs

[minestrone]

The bobs are educationally inferior on all levels, I can take the argument that they are cheap but they really step up to the plate when it comes to stupidity. "you have really fecked up today guys, the site is not working" head bobs "who is going to fix it?" head bobs.

I can accept failure, it happens all the time in software, what you do not want to see when the tulip hits the fan is bobbing heads, failure to hold the hand up and say "I ficked up, my fault, I will put in a shift to get you guys out the problem I created" Accepting the blame is half as good as fixing the problem.

[Freamon]

(although he is still at the shaking the head side to side while saying yes stage which makes you doubletake)

It is pretty impressive how many of them already know how to nod western-style when they first come over. It must be a large element of their training over there.

[conned tractor]

Regarding the bob paradigm, tractorbob1 was recently let go from current clientco after working there the best part of two years on a peice of equipment. He developed the equipment and clientco went to start using it. Turned out it was a pile of poo and unusable. They had to spend more than a few man weeks/months to get it to a state they were happy. They questioned him about it at the time and asked why it happened, and apparantly when asked he had a certain skill in developing such equipment he said yes, but he had only had experience in repeating parrot fashion what somebody had told him in his previous role.

Tractorbob2, a recent starter is very good technically, but most definately a yes man. Can bob do it, course he can (although he is still at the shaking the head side to side while saying yes stage which makes you doubletake). Although he takes twice as long and as far as I see it clientco make very little saving by taking him on. In fact it gives the other tractors a bit of breathing space to think that you are, by far, not the slowest.

Permiebob3, a recent grad, tries to keep up with the other when drinking and pukes up, which is endearing as he is trying. He thinks that a British higher degree is not at the level of an Indian first degree. Therefore good at talking up his game, although I don't work with him directly so can't necessarily comment on his work.

[conned tractor]

What sort of work permit are they on?

I had a call back from a role today which I had applied for a few weeks ago, whereby they had taken the bob option. It turned out that bobs visa wasn't a visa after all, and now the client are sponsoring his "somethingorother", but the agent said that other things tend to be also not in place when things like this happen and wanted to keep touch as he expects it to go tits up any time shortly.

[2BIT]

I'm noticing the opposite, that a number of off-shore peeps have been getting replaced with on-shore peeps, the off-shore guys just aren't cutting it

[hyperD]

I like the way the British work...

"oi, fannny baws, you broke the feckin build"

Bob: "Is there a problem? I see no problem"

Me: "fusk, I'm fixing it right now, ps -ef, we are going to have this probelm sorted in 5 minutes"

I take the Gordon Brown™ approach: "It wisnae me, it restarted in America, no more build and bust"

[minestrone]

I like the way the British work...

"oi, fannny baws, you broke the feckin build"

Bob: "Is there a problem? I see no problem"

Me: "fusk, I'm fixing it right now, ps -ef, we are going to have this probelm sorted in 5 minutes"

[DimPrawn]

Partly why I posted. The guys I work with are well educated, intelligent, articulate, proactive, resourceful people, very unlike the Bobs of old I know.

And all about 10 years younger than me.

What sort of work permit are they on?

[moorfield]

moorfield - how do your new Bob friends compare to my observations?

Partly why I posted. The guys I work with are well educated, intelligent, articulate, proactive, resourceful people, very unlike the Bobs of old I know.

And all about 10 years younger than me.

[swamp]

Hiring cheap permies is just part of the business blame cycle. They'll outsource it to an onshore consultancy when the permies turn out to be crap. Then they'll hire contractors.

It's a winning situation in the end.

[DimPrawn]

You missed out the fact they don't understand you and instead of asking you to repeat yourself (like an Eastern European or other person who speaks English as another language does) they just nod.

WHS.

[SueEllen]

I find that most will lack

Initiative - sometimes to the point that you have to give documented instruction manuals for bloody every scenario
Communication skills - OK they can speak comprehensible English but half the time Bob will sound like a a walking Babelfish
Haste - never seems to be any sense of urgency, or atleast, ability to detect that it is needed

WHS

You missed out the fact they don't understand you and instead of asking you to repeat yourself (like an Eastern European or other person who speaks English as another language does) they just nod.

[MrRobin]

Whilst it's a worrying trend to hear about, whenever I meet and have to work with Bobs, my fears that it will happen to ALL of us are nearly always allayed because said Bob, although generally intelligent, educated and skillful in the specific role he is in, just doesn't have the same all round skills or business acumen to adequately replace a professional western contractor / employee

I find that most will lack

Initiative - sometimes to the point that you have to give documented instruction manuals for bloody every scenario
Communication skills - OK they can speak comprehensible English but half the time Bob will sound like a a walking Babelfish
Haste - never seems to be any sense of urgency, or atleast, ability to detect that it is needed


moorfield - how do your new Bob friends compare to my observations?

[AtW]

I know you were not but my post counters your argument.

[minestrone]

I was not referring to your post.

£18k is poor salary for anybody but a student who just starts up at really bad economy time.

I know you were not but my post counters your argument.

Rates are lower in Scotland but I would still be expecting 350 to 450 a day. When a company goes out to hire a whole dev team and chooses 10 permiebobs and 4 Poles and has to hire in 2 local contractors when the tulip hits the fan something is wrong.