Outsourced Odyssey

A tech veteran explores the human impact of a bout with outsourcing.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Outsourcing ingenuity

Another update from my old database area. Although many people had been affected by the outsourcing we went through earlier, one area was inviolate: the Database Administrators or DBAs. These technical specialists are the experts on the inner workings of the database. To do this, they are entrusted with "God IDs" that have security rights to do anything, including deleting entire databases. Because of information security policy, these positions have to be held by employees and can't be outsourced.

At least I thought so until today. I was chatting with a friend in the hall, and she was complaining about her "pseudo DBA" - someone that performed DBA-like functions for her, but wasn't a "real DBA".

In fact, her pseudo DBA was an Indian contractor. The powers that be have figured out that you can't outsource real DBAs, but all jobs don't require DBA high security authority. Therefore many DBA tasks can be outsourced, reducing the number of DBAs needed. Ingenious!

One minor nitpicking point: the pseudo DBAs are somewhat less than proficient in DBA expertise. In fact, my friend had to spoon feed them the coding instructions for setting up her tables. And she had to point out to them that they had included redundant data items that weren't needed (database design is a core DBA expertise).

But this must be a good deal. Expenses are down - numbers don't lie.

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Education in head banging

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have developed a job-related web site on the side to use as an R&D exercise. I'm trying to see what works and what doesn't in creating an income-producing web site.

So far, I'm getting a great education in the "what doesn't work" part. Decent Web traffic from these ultra-competitive search terms - jobs, resume, careers, etc. - is not going to happen. After several months of effort, and links from over 100 other sites, I'm still not on the radar screen in Google or Yahoo for the bread-and-butter searches.

Instead of continuing to bang my head against the wall, I'm shifting gears. Within the job search category, perhaps there are lesser-known niches where my site could be found. After all, my site is certainly out there in Google: if I search on certain terms on my homepage my site comes up as the #1 result.

My hope is a collection of tiny niches might add up to something worthwhile. Learning to identify, assess and exploit search terms that the big boys are ignoring seems the only way to go.

Are "Micro Niches" worthwhile? That's the $64 question, of course.

I will do my best to find out.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Wife's job OK? Think again

Another twist in my wife's working situation.

When we last left her, she had found a relatively calm way station working in a small accounting firm, after narrowly escaping the workaholic Iranian dentist who had taken over the bankrupt practice of her former employer. (got that?)

It looked like her working perils were behind her for a while. She rapidly got up to speed with long-forgotten accounting terminology and principles, studying on her own time. The hours were flexible, the location convenient, and the people seemed nice - enough was good that she could overlook the Super Micro-Manager tendencies of her supervisor. They mapped out for her an education plan to train her in most aspects of the business.

However, as time has gone on, for whatever reason she has not been given a set of ongoing responsibilities. Instead, her boss only spoons out tasks that are one to two days long. If she runs into problems, the boss solves them "because it's faster", instead of providing a little training so my wife can handle it the next time. It's a very frustrating way to work for someone that's used to taking the ball and running with it.

Additionally, the working hours are sporadic: no more than 20 hours a week. For example, one week she was told not to come in because they needed her desk for a visiting CPA.

She had a talk with the head of the business Monday. He recognizes her capabilities, and also is frustrated that they are not able to utilize her better. However, it's a very small two-person practice, and most of the work requires an accounting degree-type of background. Without extensive accounting schooling, she can't take on the higher level of work. And what's left is not all that interesting.

That's a long way of saying she needs to look for another job - yet again. But probably better to cut her losses early than be unhappy for a long time. And although the hours are somewhat limited, she still has a job for now while she looks.

This time perhaps she'll find something that has a little less peril...and a little more reward.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

More from the former team

Another update regarding my former team.

My former boss, P., had been given her walking papers last spring. In spite of a big push, she was not able to find another position, and is no longer at the company.

Her replacement, D., had been the team leader, and so could get up to speed rapidly. She knew all the issues and played a major role during the transition of the service center to India resources. However, she could see many problems, which she escalated to her management, hoping for resolution and a more streamlined operation.

Her reward? She was told she was being "too emotional" - no additional resources or needed changes would be forthcoming.

And now she also has been relieved of her duties and must find another position. The transition for outsourcing continues to be rocky; she was a convenient "fall guy".

Another co-worker recently returned from maternity leave, the only way she had avoided getting laid off earlier. All through the summer she tried to get an answer to the big question: would she have a job when she returned? No answers from management, despite repeated inquiries. Finally, she assumed she had a job, paid a nonrefundable one month's deposit for the corporate day care, and returned.

And the first day back she's laid off, like all the others. Only now she has to forfeit the month's daycare expense as well. Cute.

Meanwhile, what about the managers that instituted all this outsourcing? They are doing just fine, thank you. In fact, they will probably get nice bonuses for the good work.

That's life in Corporate America.

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