true story

I'm not making this up.

In the summer of 2005, the company I was working for announced the closure of their office in California (Santa Clara). In kind, they signed a contract with a outsourcing consulting company to move many of those jobs overseas. I was asked to go and train many of these people. So I famously went to India for 3 weeks. After that time I was in regular contact with the people hired in India.

My opinions on outsourcing have nothing to do with politics or economics. My experience, in this instance and in others, in my personal experience and those I have talked to, is that computer programmers overseas lack the problem solving skills and initiative to work well on projects. This is a kind way of saying it. But this is a public forum.

Anyway, I've been at a new job for about 5 and a half weeks now. The company I work for closed an office in California (San Diego). They were moving part of the programming to Durham and part overseas. It was known when I got hired that there would be 2 people based in the States and 2 people offshore on the team they were building. Where offshore was a question. India was a possibility but allegedly they had bad luck with the company there. Costa Rica was another possibility.

Today was a status meeting on our project. Our manager announced that we were going with a place in India. Four candidates will be presented and hopefully we can find 2 good ones in that group.

I innocently asked what company and what city.

Yes, you guessed correctly. The exact same consulting company and the exact same city. Hopefully not the same exact people. Did I mention the sour taste in my mouth from A) dealing with them and B) having my job outsourced? Mostly A, frankly.

I heard a rumor in the halls that my company already had a contract with these folks. And I heard another rumor that we are trying to cancel the contract as we are unhappy with them.

The 2 people we hire will be coming here for 6-8 weeks (!) of training apparently.

All names have been removed to protect the guilty.

And no I am not going to India again.

I am having a pity party next week. Details to come.