Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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The thing about the Howard-era outsourcing push is that it happened around the same time that all the different areas of government departments were beginning to network together and consolidate. I was working for the Department of Defence at the time, in a 5-guy IT section covering about 120 users in total. Ten years after I left, the entire department - thousands of users - were on the same network. And all that was done by outsourced IT workers.
 
arthwollipot said:
The thing about the Howard-era outsourcing push is that it happened around the same time that all the different areas of government departments were beginning to network together and consolidate. I was working for the Department of Defence at the time, in a 5-guy IT section covering about 120 users in total. Ten years after I left, the entire department - thousands of users - were on the same network. And all that was done by outsourced IT workers.
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It’s all about the balance sheet.
 
TragicMonkey said:
In my experience to date, there are two cycles that perpetually occur:

1. "Let's outsource to save money!" and "Let's do it in house to save money!"
2. "Let's centralize everything to boost efficiency!" and "Let's decentralize everything to boost efficiency!"
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That's just the joy of management, middle management especially, people at the head of systems that basically run themselves just changing something so they don't feel useless.

They've replaced 3 or 4 office managers at the sites I provide IT support and almost without fail the first thing the new person does is just change... stuff. Stuff that changes or accomplishes nothing. One of them staggered working hours by a half hour so people came in a 7:30, 8:00, and 8:30 instead of everyone coming in at 8. Another (and this seems to be the big one) just moved people around. Didn't change their jobs, just had them move desks, in some cases literally just swap desks with the person next to them.
 
JoeMorgue said:
That's just the joy of management, middle management especially, people at the head of systems that basically run themselves just changing something so they don't feel useless
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While I worked for state of Tennessee's IT department, we went through a dozen upper managers in 10 years. The worst of them randomly moved departments to different buildings throughout Nashville. I ended up working in the data center, where all the restrooms were inside the high security area, and we were housed in a converted conference room never meant to be used on a daily basis and weren't given badges with sufficient security clearance to get to the toilets. We all had to be buzzed in by security every time we needed to use the restroom.
 
At one IBM office on the outskirts of the village of Cosham someone got a cash reward for suggesting that they could save money by not buying newspapers for the reception area as there was a newsagent a short stroll away where people could buy a paper if they wanted. Nice.

A couple of weeks later someone got a cash reward for suggesting that if the company bought newspapers and left them in reception it would reduce the time staff spent away from their desks walking to the newsagent.
 
Wudang said:
At one IBM office on the outskirts of the village of Cosham someone got a cash reward for suggesting that they could save money by not buying newspapers for the reception area as there was a newsagent a short stroll away where people could buy a paper if they wanted. Nice.

A couple of weeks later someone got a cash reward for suggesting that if the company bought newspapers and left them in reception it would reduce the time staff spent away from their desks walking to the newsagent.
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Did they ever close the circle and suggest that they could save money by not giving out cash rewards?
 
Wudang said:
At one IBM office on the outskirts of the village of Cosham someone got a cash reward for suggesting that they could save money by not buying newspapers for the reception area as there was a newsagent a short stroll away where people could buy a paper if they wanted. Nice.

A couple of weeks later someone got a cash reward for suggesting that if the company bought newspapers and left them in reception it would reduce the time staff spent away from their desks walking to the newsagent.
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This sounds hilariously stupid. Do you happen to have a cite?
 
Darat said:
It’s all about the balance sheet.
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Not only. There were political motivations as well. Small government. Fewer government employees meant that they could say that they were supporting the private sector. IT outsourcing companies grew very very quickly. I worked for three different ones that basically don't exist any more.
 
Wudang said:
At one IBM office on the outskirts of the village of Cosham someone got a cash reward for suggesting that they could save money by not buying newspapers for the reception area as there was a newsagent a short stroll away where people could buy a paper if they wanted. Nice.

A couple of weeks later someone got a cash reward for suggesting that if the company bought newspapers and left them in reception it would reduce the time staff spent away from their desks walking to the newsagent.
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People still buy newspapers? Like, paper newspapers?
 
arthwollipot said:
Not only. There were political motivations as well. Small government. Fewer government employees meant that they could say that they were supporting the private sector. IT outsourcing companies grew very very quickly. I worked for three different ones that basically don't exist any more.
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Of course the claim from right wing governments is that it's to "save the taxpayers money". After all, every one knows that private entrepreneurs can do the work so much more cost effectively than those useless civil servant slackers. :hit:
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Of course the claim from right wing governments is that it's to "save the taxpayers money". After all, every one knows that private entrepreneurs can do the work so much more cost effectively than those useless civil servant slackers. :hit:
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Yes, like I said it's a political position that things should be done by private companies rather than by government.

Of course, it doesn't work because government still spends the money to pay the contractors, but as Darat pointed out that money comes from a different bucket. It's still the same money though.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yes, like I said it's a political position that things should be done by private companies rather than by government.

Of course, it doesn't work because government still spends the money to pay the contractors, but as Darat pointed out that money comes from a different bucket. It's still the same money though.
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But it's not the same, as outsources cost more.

A large additional cost is the loss of institutional knowledge, the IT folks that have been around and know the ins and outs of the operation. The new outsourcers, not having the institutional knowledge, go on to make amazingly stupid and uninformed mistakes, which costs additional time and money.

Going through this now. 3 years ago my system and department were told we would be gone in 3 years because the company was outsourcing new development to India. We were just told we will be gone in 3 years because the new development will be complete.

The India teams and our brilliant brand new Business Analysts are ignoring our efforts to share our experience with our systems. They insist they know the business and keep making bone-headed mistakes.

We created a road map to get our systems from where they were to where they needed to be. The New CFI didn't even read it and rejected it out of hand. In the last three years they've decided to do about 60% of the road map without even realizing it to support the new system.

It's amazingly frustrating and wasteful. It's also millions of dollars over budget (about 2.5 times original total cost, and it's about 20% complete).
 
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There are arguments both ways. I'd argue the payment is about the same, though. You pay more for a contractor, but you don't have to pay for the benefits an employee gets. Things like health insurance and retirementare provided by the contracting company, not to mention a lot of the admin costs (hiring process, background checks, etc), so whether they cost more are not depends on the exact rate. That said, pros and cons:

In-house pros:
You build up an in-depth knowledge of how you use, deploy, and configure the application in your environment
You can take advantage of knowledge of other related systems and unique peculiarities of support infrastructure
Generally employees are more invested in your business success, as they have a more direct connection to the business
You have greater control over your personnel with regards to hiring, firing, and other functions

Outsource pros:
You may be able to afford higher-level resources than you could in house. A lot of contract places may have experienced tier 2 and tier 3 resources that a single company couldn't afford full-time, but that are shared between multiple businesses.
The contracted employees may have a broader experience. While they may not know as much about your configuration, they've likely seen other configurations and can offer suggestions about new and possibly better ways to perform tasks
You get to transfer at least some of the risk to the contracting company
 
Hellbound said:
There are arguments both ways. I'd argue the payment is about the same, though. You pay more for a contractor, but you don't have to pay for the benefits an employee gets. Things like health insurance and retirementare provided by the contracting company, not to mention a lot of the admin costs (hiring process, background checks, etc), so whether they cost more are not depends on the exact rate. That said, pros and cons:

In-house pros:
You build up an in-depth knowledge of how you use, deploy, and configure the application in your environment
You can take advantage of knowledge of other related systems and unique peculiarities of support infrastructure
Generally employees are more invested in your business success, as they have a more direct connection to the business
You have greater control over your personnel with regards to hiring, firing, and other functions

Outsource pros:
You may be able to afford higher-level resources than you could in house. A lot of contract places may have experienced tier 2 and tier 3 resources that a single company couldn't afford full-time, but that are shared between multiple businesses.
The contracted employees may have a broader experience. While they may not know as much about your configuration, they've likely seen other configurations and can offer suggestions about new and possibly better ways to perform tasks
You get to transfer at least some of the risk to the contracting company
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In my career I have been a civil servant -- "rising" from a lowly programmer to a manager of managers in IT -- and a Certified Management Consultant to governments and the private sector. I have seen all sorts of catastrophes and an occasional super success. There is no easy answer. :sigh: Sensible management certainly helps.
 
Dear Idiot:

For the third time you've scheduled a meeting in Microsoft Teams without providing a conference call line. Most of the invited are working from home on company-supplied equipment which does NOT include cameras or microphones. My company laptop doesn't even have a sound card. It's entirely mute. So unless you're planning to use the text chat features it's going to be a pretty damned empty call.

I suggest just using a goddamned telephone since there's absolutely no need to show anything visually for this, even if we could.

Please die horribly,
TM
 
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