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Working with some splendid gents from the Indian sub-continent

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    Working with some splendid gents from the Indian sub-continent

    I've been in my current gig for a couple of months, and it's been four years since I've worked on an I.T. project. We're just exiting testing at the moment and the supplier (which is pretty shoddy in many ways) has supplied a couple of testers to work alongside our testers. They are two guys from the Indian sub-continent, not long over here, I would guess. They really are very impressive, not just in their commitment and ability in testing. What amazes me is their insight into really quite specialist areas of business process (I work in healthcare). They're able to see well beyond the test scripts to identify issues that would slip by lesser professionals.

    So in the interest of balance, well done, guys!

    #2
    I've worked with loads of good offshore resource and some crap ones. I've also worked with crap contractors. Which means I must have worked with the OP at some point.
    What happens in General, stays in General.
    You know what they say about assumptions!

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      #3
      Originally posted by MarillionFan View Post
      I've worked with loads of good offshore resource and some crap ones. I've also worked with crap contractors. Which means I must have worked with the OP at some point.
      Logic was never your strong point.

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        #4
        The bobs are definetly getting better...

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          #5
          On one project I was in charge of selection of the off-shore (and to be on-shored) resources from a couple of large Indian bodyshops. Initially, we rejected every person they proposed, explaining why. Eventually we got quality candidates through. Even at that point, we still rejected 50% of proposals.

          Part of the reason why subcontinental resources have a bad name, is because they client doesn't do proper selection - somehow assuming that one-size fits all.

          On the SAP forums, it doesn't take long to spot that a signficant number of people have managed to land jobs for which they have no experience and little knowledge. They've lied, faked their CVs and practised interview questions to get their positions. This seems to be coupled with ineptitude of a high order.

          Oh, and when we use one of the large consultancies for resource (couldn't use off-shore because of French language requirement), we still rejected a fair proportion of candidates - forcing the consultancy to resort to... CONTRACTORS!
          Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

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            #6
            Originally posted by BrilloPad View Post
            The bobs are definetly getting better...
            Not from where I am sat. Nearly every bob written project I go near, the hardware costs sky rocket!

            The reason that bobs boomed in the first place was that they really were well trained and good at turning round quality code cheaply. The issue came when the world came knocking and they said yes to everyone.

            Have been at an outsourced client most of this year. They had a Sap application that ran on 16 quad core intel servers. I tech refreshed them onto xeon 12 core servers and going by like for like performance, should have reduced the count down to 4 maybe 6 servers at the most... One upgrade later and some new code from uncle bob and they now own 26 x3850's to do roughly the same job...



            Still, the gold award remains with the offshore cognos team that managed to write something so turgid, that they could consistently lay a top end HP superdome flat out on it's back for 30 minutes on just 16 users.

            That takes a skill very few have mastered

            In my current gig, out of a team of 16 UK professionals, most of whom, I hired. I would take no more that 4 of them to my next role, I would sack the 2 permies on the spot, and I am only giving refernces for two of the contractors, so that I can actively warn new employers of the calamity they bring with them!

            It hard to rally against bobs when so much of the home grown talent is totally tulipe!

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              #7
              I had a bobbins Bob experience yesterday. Jaw dropping

              I couldnt connect to my bt home hub wirelessly, so I inserted the help disk and it told me to go to my hub and adjust the security settings.
              There was no apparent way to do this and no instructions so I rang the support number. Fifteen minutes later I was talking to some bloke in India who wanted to take control of my machine.
              It took five minutes to explain that he couldnt do this as I had no connection.
              It took a further five minutes to explain that I did NOT want my wireless key changing, I just wanted to know how to change the hub security, or indeed if it was possible at all (I suspected duff info on the CD help).
              Then he had me entering ips into my explorer. I could imagine him wobbling his head as he couldnt understand why I couldnt see the hub setup in my browser.


              I had a bad day yesterday




              (\__/)
              (>'.'<)
              ("")("") Born to Drink. Forced to Work

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by EternalOptimist View Post
                I couldnt connect to my bt home hub wirelessly

                The easiest way may have been to forget calling 'support' and use a wired connection (assuming the hub offers non-wireless connections) to get on the net and find the solution.

                Times like this you find the single point of failure of the internet being inaccessible is a right pain in the ass.

                I'm tempted to get a 3g internet dongle as emergency backup, though don't want to be trapped into regular payments so only worthwhile if there's PAYG that doesn't expire if not used.
                Feist - 1234. One camera, one take, no editing. Superb. How they did it
                Feist - I Feel It All
                Feist - The Bad In Each Other (Later With Jools Holland)

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by PAH View Post
                  The easiest way may have been to forget calling 'support' and use a wired connection (assuming the hub offers non-wireless connections) to get on the net and find the solution.

                  Times like this you find the single point of failure of the internet being inaccessible is a right pain in the ass.

                  I'm tempted to get a 3g internet dongle as emergency backup, though don't want to be trapped into regular payments so only worthwhile if there's PAYG that doesn't expire if not used.
                  3g dongle = crap and slow, expensive.

                  Would be ok like you said if you could just buy a Gb or whatever for £10 and then use it only in emergencies. Trouble is they expire after 30 days. Dont think theres anyone that does a non-expiring one so you end up having to pay EVERY 30 days if you want to keep it.
                  Rhyddid i lofnod psychocandy!!!!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by PAH View Post
                    The easiest way may have been to forget calling 'support' and use a wired connection (assuming the hub offers non-wireless connections) to get on the net and find the solution.

                    Times like this you find the single point of failure of the internet being inaccessible is a right pain in the ass.

                    I'm tempted to get a 3g internet dongle as emergency backup, though don't want to be trapped into regular payments so only worthwhile if there's PAYG that doesn't expire if not used.
                    OT orange do a capped PAYG sim for Ipads. it bills up to a max of £25 per month in data fees. no use no fee... I tend to take it out the pad until I want to use it just to make sure.

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