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Aunt Beth posted:When IBM bought SoftLayer the joke was that they only bought the servers and none of the automation or stack, so in typical thrifty IBM fashion every time you hit OK to spin up a new instance it just sent a message to a room full of people India who immediately began frantically clicking around in a VMWare console. You're not far off from the actual truth.
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Jun 4, 2018 05:43
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I used to like softlayer 
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Jun 4, 2018 08:12
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Tab8715 posted:Is anyone able to explain outsourcing? And explain it well? With the caveat that I'm not a management expert, I see three main reasons to do it: 1. The thing you're outsourcing is simple and it's cheaper to hire someone else to do it. This is the one organizations usually screw up: the task isn't that simple, or they cheap out so much that they don't have competent people doing that work. Outsourced phone support is the classic example. I've also seen absolutely terrible outsourced internal helpdesks, where end user support is handled by an outside firm even though everything else is in-house. 2. The organization is too small to have full-time staff doing the thing you're outsourcing. An old friend works for a small family accounting firm. They outsource any IT more complicated than "install a printer" or "add a user," which is just done by one specific employee who also has other duties, because they don't need much and they can't really afford dedicated IT staff. 3. You need subject matter expertise in a specific thing, quickly, and no one in-house has it, and you don't expect to need the expertise going forward. We brought in a consulting engineer to design our VoIP system from the ground up, because no one on staff had the expertise to do it. The engineer is fantastic, but after roll-out completion, they're off to their next project. I agree that usually it's a terrible decision done as a cost-savings measure. The outsourced staff don't have any investment in the mission of the organization, their management will make them do the bare minimum to satisfy the contract because it means more money in their pocket personally, and because you don't control them directly, making changes or fixing problems becomes a pain in the rear end. Outsourcing also often winds up being more expensive overall, not less.
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Jun 4, 2018 11:05
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Tab8715 posted:Is anyone able to explain outsourcing? And explain it well? I lived through the early 2000's outsourcing rage and that sucked balls. Now it seems they're making it more purpose-built instead of just for saving a few cents. Like my last job used India for overnight QA testing and my current gig just puts only certain departments over there along with the overnight shifts. It makes it more economical to run a 24/7 operation. Most of our call centers are based out of the U.S. One thing my manager noted is that conference calls with India can be really weird. Like they'll be talking to a conference room full of people asking questions and no one answers. They finally figured out there's a declination for people to just speak up in a group setting because of residual caste norms. I have no idea if that's true or not, though.
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Jun 4, 2018 12:32
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Aunt Beth posted:When IBM bought SoftLayer the joke was that they only bought the servers and none of the automation or stack, so in typical thrifty IBM fashion every time you faxed in a request to spin up a new instance it just sent a message to a room full of people India who immediately began frantically clicking around in a VMWare console. Ftfy
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Jun 4, 2018 13:11
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First thing I did this Monday morning was send out an email formalizing our change request process for our ERP. Can't wait for people to get mad about this one 
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Jun 4, 2018 13:17
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Kashuno posted:First thing I did this Monday morning was send out an email formalizing our change request process for our ERP. "Why does IT have to make things so difficult! THIS IS AFFECTING OUR ABILITY TO REACT!!!!"
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Jun 4, 2018 13:27
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Krispy Wafer posted:One thing my manager noted is that conference calls with India can be really weird. Like they'll be talking to a conference room full of people asking questions and no one answers. They finally figured out there's a declination for people to just speak up in a group setting because of residual caste norms. I have no idea if that's true or not, though.
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Jun 4, 2018 13:55
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Vulture Culture posted:In remote meetings in general, you tend to need to call on people directly, because nobody can perceive each other's body language well even with high-resolution video. True, but Indians in general don’t speak up easily due to cultural differences. I worked with an (amazing, friendly and intelligent) Indian who lived abroad for a bit short of a decade. He got accustomed to people expecting him to speak up and that he was allowed to say “no”, but it took him several years to really become comfortable doing that.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:03
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Krispy Wafer posted:One thing my manager noted is that conference calls with India can be really weird. Like they'll be talking to a conference room full of people asking questions and no one answers. They finally figured out there's a declination for people to just speak up in a group setting because of residual caste norms. I have no idea if that's true or not, though. There were probably some cultural/language barriers at play. When I worked with our Latin American branch, we altered our training strategy slightly to work around a reluctance to clarify or ask questions.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:05
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The US team were working on a few things with regards to cleaning up their servers I had already scripted some of the tasks they were planning to do so I shared my scripts with them and told them via slack were it could be found, and if they had any questions they can contact me. My boss deleted my slack message before the US woke up and told me "we only help them when they ask for it" ???????
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Jun 4, 2018 14:10
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Your boss sounds like a class act.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:12
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Changed my schedule to 7 - 3:30 and I already feel better about work. I get in, phones don't even turn on until 8, and I can actually get some work done and prepped for the day. My commute isn't bad at that time either.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:19
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That's a good time. Feels good to leave the office in the mid afternoon
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Jun 4, 2018 14:21
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Vulture Culture posted:In remote meetings in general, you tend to need to call on people directly, because nobody can perceive each other's body language well even with high-resolution video. Sure, there's always an inclination to let someone else answer the question but usually there are just enough people who enjoy hearing themselves speak to overcome those dead silences. There are definitely cultural differences. I think Westerners are more receptive to customers, since we've been living in this 'customer is always right' hellscape for decades now. Back when I worked in Portal Services at AT&T I had the odd experience of having all of my bosses and my bosses' bosses be Indian and they cared even less for the user experience than AT&T normally does. One time we started getting alerts about customer anti-virus software alarms on our homepage and it took weeks for me to get anyone to look at it and when a developer finally acknowledged there was a virus in the advertising feed, he passed if off as a not dangerous virus so we didn't need to do anything. And so we didn't. We just let users be exposed to a virus that this one developer said was harmless.  That was a miserable job. I'd be getting close to 'decent pension' time had I stayed and I don't regret leaving at all.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:26
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For as big as they are, AT&T certainly has the worst service. We had a revolving door of business class reps at my last job. Of course I burned them for $50 prime rib every time they took us out to "touch base".
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Jun 4, 2018 14:32
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Really big companies provide lovely service, really small companies provide lovely service. When you finally find a good mid-size company with good service they will get bought up by a big company.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:40
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So Microsoft owns github now https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/
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Jun 4, 2018 14:58
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Sefal posted:So Microsoft owns github now Countdown to GitHub being a component of Officet 365 Business Premium and above
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Jun 4, 2018 15:13
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The hyperbole over this is hilarious
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Jun 4, 2018 15:21
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That's a lot of money
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Jun 4, 2018 15:23
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Has Microsoft bought anything that didn't whither and die within two years? LinkedIn doesn't count because it hasn't been two years yet. But Nokia is definitely included in that list.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:26
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Krispy Wafer posted:Has Microsoft bought anything that didn't whither and die within two years? Hotmail? Flight Simulator? Bungie? Or are you talking this century?
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Jun 4, 2018 15:28
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Bob Morales posted:Flight Simulator? 
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Jun 4, 2018 15:30
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Krispy Wafer posted:Has Microsoft bought anything that didn't whither and die within two years? Buying Nokia was a terrible decision. If we’re looking at the history as a whole Microsoft bought out Dynamics and Forethought which became PowerPoint.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:34
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Yeah, Flight Simulator is probably not a good example of Microsoft's stable stewardship, but I will acknowledge Microsoft has had success with gaming. Maybe it's just this last decade, but it seems like MS see's 'good thing', buys it, and then proceeds to strip everything good from it without any real net benefit to consumers. I'm still real sore about their buying and shutting down good apps and Nokia in general.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:36
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Krispy Wafer posted:Has Microsoft bought anything that didn't whither and die within two years? Skype and Yammer? They are just using the tech to build MS Teams now so they can have a late to the game half-assed Slack/Hipchat clone.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:41
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The only thing I hope Microsoft brings back is Ballmer going crazy on stage.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:42
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Minecraft?
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Jun 4, 2018 15:44
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JHVH-1 posted:Skype and Yammer? They are just using the tech to build MS Teams now so they can have a late to the game half-assed Slack/Hipchat clone. Skype was never good. Now it just comes pre-installed and force installed at random.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:19
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The Fool posted:Assume I have nothing but the hard drives. A little late to the party but have a look at the NetStor-48 48 hard disks in 5u https://youtu.be/n6N-IVW_TH4
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Jun 4, 2018 16:20
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Every midlevel Technology position and up were notified today that their foodsby meals are free from now on for up to 12 bucks from now on. Of course someone had to ask if this counted on the weekend because yes, please ask for more. Still no free beer at work yet.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:23
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Sickening posted:Every midlevel Technology position and up were notified today that their foodsby meals are free from now on for up to 12 bucks from now on. Of course someone had to ask if this counted on the weekend because yes, please ask for more. Theres always that one guy. Cisco used to take us to lunch for free every day. One guy complained that too many people would get invited and it didn't feel like a boys club anymore. So our boss cancelled free lunches
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Jun 4, 2018 16:28
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Teams is good.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:32
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Sepist posted:Theres always that one guy. Cisco used to take us to lunch for free every day. One guy complained that too many people would get invited and it didn't feel like a boys club anymore. So our boss cancelled free lunches I'd have thrown that guy off the roof.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:33
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CLAM DOWN posted:Teams is good. Doesn't that still have the "view new message" button? If so, its indeed NOT good.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:33
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Sepist posted:Theres always that one guy. Cisco used to take us to lunch for free every day. One guy complained that too many people would get invited and it didn't feel like a boys club anymore. So our boss cancelled free lunches WTF? I worked in a lab environment where vendors were always taking us out to fancy lunches and Cisco would only spring for a free meal in the cafeteria. They were the cheapest people out there. I never got a single piece of swag. I'd get a $50 meal out of some second tier load balancer company and maybe $10 from the Cisco rep.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:40
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Krispy Wafer posted:Has Microsoft bought anything that didn't whither and die within two years? H110Hawk posted:Skype was never good. Now it just comes pre-installed and force installed at random.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:44
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Krispy Wafer posted:WTF? I worked in a lab environment where vendors were always taking us out to fancy lunches and Cisco would only spring for a free meal in the cafeteria. They were the cheapest people out there. I never got a single piece of swag. We were giving them 250 million a year in hardware as a company and our group gave them 4 million a year to have 3 multi-CCIE holders onsite all year so they kind of owed us
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Jun 4, 2018 16:46
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Sepist posted:Theres always that one guy. Cisco used to take us to lunch for free every day. One guy complained that too many people would get invited and it didn't feel like a boys club anymore. So our boss cancelled free lunches Aside from throwing that guy off the roof, i'd also maybe have a quick chat with the boss about how maybe its not a great idea to gently caress with team morale over one rear end in a top hat. Then again i've always been bluntly honest with my bosses since my first one screwed me.
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Jun 4, 2018 16:50
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