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Collateral Damage posted:Inertia. More like licensing costs.
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Jul 7, 2016 14:07
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Arsten posted:I have done all of this so many times that it seems pointless. Every consultant can find someone, somewhere to tell you that it was like hot joy pumped into their rectum. I think you're confusing consultants with contractors. I dunno, I definitely worked with far more idiots when I was in operations. At the same time, the few consultants I've worked with from other companies have been unimpressive. At the end of the day, there's only three reasons to hire a consultant: it's a new product you don't know how to use, you don't have the resources to do it yourself, or your own people are too loving incompetent to get it done. Otherwise you're going to end up in this thread complaining about how they were reading the manufacturer's documentation because you apparently had plenty of time to pay someone thousands of dollars to do something and then sit around watching them instead of doing it yourself. Everyone reads documentation. Nobody knows everything. e: Also regulatory requirements for outside auditors/reviewers, I guess. psydude fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jul 7, 2016 14:18
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psydude posted:e: Also regulatory requirements for outside auditors/reviewers, I guess. It seems that utilizing consultants and contracting from outside companies is a way to spread liability around, at least that's what it seems like to me with some of our clients that fall into the PCI/HIPAA categories.
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Jul 7, 2016 14:32
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At the state agency I work for they are 'required' to bid out work like that. We have a long term contracting company developing software here, like, they will probably be here over a decade. They have offices in the bottom floor of our building. They basically hire the cheapest people from Bangalore or recent college grads. It's basically a revolving door and they are never stable. They had two guys showing us "how to install Websphere Portal" who couldn't use a command line.
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Jul 7, 2016 14:42
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psydude posted:I think you're confusing consultants with contractors. You need to get into more C-Level meetings. Consultants are brought in as a CYA far more than all three of those reasons combined.  Basically, they use them as a "I didn't decide to give a giant middle finger to the board of directors, it was the consultants who recommended it!" get-out-of-jail-free card. They tend to be given a blank check and told to "Take on this general project idea." and when I say 'General' I mean something like "Make purchasing more efficient." And then the idea is brought before the executive committee. If a 100% up vote isn't gain, the consultant is paid and a new one brought on. I've seen this at so many companies that it's down right depressing. MF_James posted:It seems that utilizing consultants and contracting from outside companies is a way to spread liability around, at least that's what it seems like to me with some of our clients that fall into the PCI/HIPAA categories. None of what I do currently falls into those (thankfully!). Most our our regulatory needs are federal, state, local, and municipal filings (usually all of them for each project). Since 80% or so of the filings are identical, it would be nice to have a flow from estimating to the initial document filings to operating and filing progress documents to the final project configuration documents without needing to re-enter the details every other week into an Acrobat form. But, sorry. It's Industry Accepted Practice to have an old lady in a closet somewhere doing it! 
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Jul 7, 2016 15:02
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alg posted:At the state agency I work for they are 'required' to bid out work like that. Required bid is the lowest bid that can meet the requirements. You can still vet the people.
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Jul 7, 2016 15:05
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Arsten posted:I have done all of this so many times that it seems pointless. Every consultant can find someone, somewhere to tell you that it was like hot joy pumped into their rectum. When I said ask for a reference, I meant a reference around the specific product or solution. That way you can hopefully avoid the "guy shows up and has never touched thing x before." You ask questions and get a feel for how the solution was proposed and implemented, not just "were they the best ever, check yes or no." Our more thorough customers will ask for a reference or two around a specific project, examples of sanitized design documentation and implementation plans, an hour to quiz the consultant and gauge their experience level, etc... I've personally found smaller consultancies to have better people than larger ones. Less room to hide if you're bad. YOLOsubmarine fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jul 7, 2016 |
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Jul 7, 2016 15:30
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Arsten posted:You need to get into more C-Level meetings. Consultants are brought in as a CYA far more than all three of those reasons combined. Yep, this is definitely true. I've been caught in it before and it's not fun because I typically have to deal with angry middle managers and network engineers who weren't given any heads up as to my being there, or what we were really doing.
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Jul 7, 2016 16:05
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NippleFloss posted:I've personally found smaller consultancies to have better people than larger ones. Less room to hide if you're bad.
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Jul 7, 2016 16:40
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Methanar posted:So you beat him with a router on a stick right? This joke didn't get enough love.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:10
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Docjowles posted:At any given time, our QA lead's desk is a graveyard of like 12 empty Dr. Pepper cans. And at a past job, one of my coworkers would start every single day with two giant Mountain Dews. Somehow they're both in great shape outwardly, although I can't speak to the condition of their hearts. This is since January, so it's not that bad. They're all glued together. I'm making a pyramid. 
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Jul 7, 2016 18:28
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I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, I figured it was a bit industry-specific for BF&C: I work for an ISP in the UK. How kosher is it to mention the names of customers for whom I've served as tech lead on their projects? I guess I'm interested in the answer both for my CV and for LinkedIn. I honestly don't know whether this is appropriate or not - on the one hand I generally tend to not namedrop, but I am struggling to see any specifics reasons it would be bad, especially on my CV which would be relatively private.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:42
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Anjow posted:I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, I figured it was a bit industry-specific for BF&C: Are they listed on the company website or anything? I realized I was using general terms to describe clients that were prominently featured on the website for the MSP I used to work for so I figured I would just namedrop them in interviews since clearly it wasn't secret or anything.
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Jul 7, 2016 18:44
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Anjow posted:I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, I figured it was a bit industry-specific for BF&C: Don't mention the names, describe them however they describe themselves. "FTSE 100 construction firm" or whatever. You can talk in more detail about them at interview.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:12
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As a consultant I list my clients on LinkedIn and CV, never had any complaints or even remarks about it. As long as you actually have worked for them directly I don't see why you couldn't do that.
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Jul 7, 2016 19:20
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Update to yesterday, I spoke to my "boss" and he said he won't allow them to put me in the NOC and he will give me his cube and sit somewhere else if they try. That was nice but I ended up scheduling a meeting with backup job anyway since it's a week out and this whole cube drama should be sorted out by the time I meet them. They still want to get me involved in presales despite the COO drawing out a plan that involves me only doing post sales support so I'm not sure how that's going to pan out. I can't even tell if I'm just being an entitled crybaby or not :/
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Jul 7, 2016 22:09
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Sepist posted:Update to yesterday, I spoke to my "boss" and he said he won't allow them to put me in the NOC and he will give me his cube and sit somewhere else if they try. That was nice but I ended up scheduling a meeting with backup job anyway since it's a week out and this whole cube drama should be sorted out by the time I meet them. They still want to get me involved in presales despite the COO drawing out a plan that involves me only doing post sales support so I'm not sure how that's going to pan out. There is nothing wrong with being an entitles crybaby at all. Expecting to at least to have your own cubicle at this type of salary level is probably not entitled at all.
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Jul 7, 2016 22:14
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Sepist posted:Update to yesterday, I spoke to my "boss" and he said he won't allow them to put me in the NOC and he will give me his cube and sit somewhere else if they try. That was nice but I ended up scheduling a meeting with backup job anyway since it's a week out and this whole cube drama should be sorted out by the time I meet them. They still want to get me involved in presales despite the COO drawing out a plan that involves me only doing post sales support so I'm not sure how that's going to pan out. You need to take that other job, your current one is not going to offer you what you want as they've shown you their ethos by straight up lying to you about your duties.
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Jul 7, 2016 22:40
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Steakandchips posted:You need to take that other job, your current one is not going to offer you what you want as they've shown you their ethos by straight up lying to you about your duties. Honesty, his supervisor is awesome. I'd consider sticking around with someone like that.
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Jul 7, 2016 22:53
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Yea he's been pretty boss (no pun intended). Not that I told him I was considering leaving but he said if I was I should really consider staying because the sales guys are gonna make a move if this COO starts loving poo poo up and they really like what I've done here so far and would want to take me with them.
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Jul 7, 2016 23:00
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There's nothing entitled whatsoever about knowing what you do and don't want out of a job and making career decisions that reflect that.
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Jul 7, 2016 23:04
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Sickening posted:There is nothing wrong with being an entitles crybaby at all. Expecting to at least to have your own cubicle at this type of salary level is probably not entitled at all. Hell I assume the pay is at least close to what he turned down. At that pay I'd expect an office.
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Jul 8, 2016 00:04
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It doesn't even need to be a status thing - paying someone that sort of salary to be distracted constantly in an open-plan office and having to book out meeting spaces whenever they need to make a phone call is a horrific waste of money.
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Jul 8, 2016 00:05
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Someone is LOUDLY snoring on a conference call. They've asked people to mute if they're not talking a few times and tried to figure out who it is so they're all just rolling with it.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:23
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I'm trying to update my linked in profile and can't for the life of me think of what to write in my summary. I've been doing MSP-type small business support for over 10 years, but am having a hard time conveying that experience in a couple paragraphs. Any advice?
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Jul 8, 2016 01:49
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Just copy whatever the thread title is.
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Jul 8, 2016 02:01
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Someone is LOUDLY snoring on a conference call. They've asked people to mute if they're not talking a few times and tried to figure out who it is so they're all just rolling with it.
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Jul 8, 2016 02:09
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Vulture Culture posted:If I ever own a company, you can be goddamn sure our PBX will randomly inject snoring sounds into our conference lines. You could set your music on hold source to a recording of someone with sleep apnea. Join call, put call on hold.
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Jul 8, 2016 03:00
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Someone is LOUDLY snoring on a conference call. They've asked people to mute if they're not talking a few times and tried to figure out who it is so they're all just rolling with it. Conference Calls are the bane of humanity. I have no idea how anyone's survived the 90s. What's worse is those who prefer landlines over VoIP.
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Jul 8, 2016 07:42
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Tab8715 posted:Conference Calls are the bane of humanity. I have no idea how anyone's survived the 90s. What's worse is those who prefer landlines over VoIP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMOOG7rWTPg
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Jul 8, 2016 07:58
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14 years ago the agency bought a java reporting tool and was too cheap to buy the headless version, so the system running it has been hooked up to various machines running X11 since just to get some fonts. Of course a recent Red Hat 6 patch broke our X config on that one machine and jobs failed for 2 weeks 
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Jul 8, 2016 14:15
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The Fool posted:I'm trying to update my linked in profile and can't for the life of me think of what to write in my summary. I've been doing MSP-type small business support for over 10 years, but am having a hard time conveying that experience in a couple paragraphs. Any advice? I don't really have one, sometimes it makes me feel bad but 
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Jul 8, 2016 14:28
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What was the name of that recording that was an old british senile guy that people would play back to phone scammers and what not? He'd be perfect to put on a conference call.
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Jul 8, 2016 15:29
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I never understood the appeal of IT people keeping energy drink cans on their desk like some kind of trophy kill. Are they just trying to be as repulsive as possible?
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Jul 8, 2016 15:59
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ZetsurinPower posted:I never understood the appeal of IT people keeping energy drink cans on their desk like some kind of trophy kill. Are they just trying to be as repulsive as possible? There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:01
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Sickening posted:There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans. Good post/username combo right here.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:03
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Sickening posted:There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans. What the gently caress 
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Jul 8, 2016 16:05
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Sickening posted:There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans. Nobody noticed the stink? Also loving  at everything else about the story, too.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:06
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Sickening posted:There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans. The IT worker stereotype is well-earned.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:11
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Sickening posted:There was once a guy at my work who would eat vienna sausages for lunch every day and then drink the water from the can. He would then place the can in his desk and nobody noticed until their was ants and every drawer was filled to the brim with the empty cans. Never post stories against gently caress.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:11
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