Facing Layoff, IT Employee Makes Bold Counteroffer

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Calling this guy's counteroffer "bold" is a bit of an understatement. Obviously the company declined the counteroffer but, if you are going to lose your job anyway, you might as well go out on your own terms. ;)

Culver's letter began by asking for a base pay of $500,000 annually. "This is calculated based upon a figure of $100,000 (the rough, annual pay estimate for my position) times 5 (the number of years for which I would estimate that it would take to create a similar job in the U.S., once you outsource this position to a more 'cost-effective' country of your choosing)," Culver wrote. Culver also asked for "a one-time, $100,000 donation to a charity of your choice, as long as they participate in providing services to the unemployed American workers." The counteroffer also included a provision asking for "a personal, signed apology letter from both the CEO of Capgemini, as well as the CEO of Carnival Corporation, to each of the families who have been affected by this decision."
 
WTF, Carnival? Not even allowing unemployment if they don't accept the employment offer from Capgemini.

I think they are opening themselves up for some blowback, lawsuits, etc.. They are just going all out dick mode.

Not cool at all.
 
Well, won't be cruising with them again! We were getting ready to book another cruise for this summer.
 
tetris42 said:
This was on slashdot earlier. One of the leading replies was something like:

"
Dear Mr. Culver,

No.

Sincerely,

CEO of Capgemini
"
Click to expand...

Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.

What new skills do you suggest they learn?
Click to expand...
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
Click to expand...

While I agree that people should learn new skills... I bet you ANY money, this isn't being outsourced, it's H-1B being abused. I have no problem with 'truely' outsourcing employment overseas... but if you're going to do it... do it. Don't make foreign workers here slave labor.
 
The ultimate truth is that corporations in this nation are the ultimate expression of capitalism run amok, they have no loyalty to their own nation's or their employees, they would automate every single job if they cpuld. /and one day they will.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
Click to expand...

Has any one seen an outsourced set up work well? The problem is company's keep chasing the dollar and cuting cost. No mater what skills you have someone on the other side of the world or that is here illegally will do it cheaper then you could live off.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. Look at overseas support. How many people get discouraged, angry, confused when they are transferred to someone from India? A LOT. Going off a script is cheap. Real IT professionals are expensive. That's reality. You get what you pay for. There are a lot of consumers that are pissed when they get an Indian guy on the phone. For any support. Why? Language barrier is a big one. If I can explain my problem and they start diagnosing a completely different problem, something is wrong. If they can't understand very basic issues that aren't on the script, something is wrong. If they can't relay information back to the consumer, something is wrong. Two - knowledge. Many support agents have none. For IT professionals, it gets a little better, but not great. They can support your backend. It'll take more time, more headaches, less control, etc...

But, to the expense part. From the OP's article:

Carnival's decision to move IT work to a contractor "is not a cost'savings initiative," Frizzell, the cruise line's spokesman, stated.
Click to expand...

In this case, it's not the expense.
 
Lith1um said:
The ultimate truth is that corporations in this nation are the ultimate expression of capitalism run amok, they have no loyalty to their own nation's or their employees, they would automate every single job if they cpuld. /and one day they will.
Click to expand...

Essentially squeezing every penny of profit before they run out of consumers to support themselves.
 
Lith1um said:
The ultimate truth is that corporations in this nation are the ultimate expression of capitalism run amok, they have no loyalty to their own nation's or their employees, they would automate every single job if they cpuld. /and one day they will.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's run amok. Yes it would be nice to have companies with some of those personal attributes it just is hard to place value on them and thus difficult to place laws around them (mostly dealing with publicly traded companies and investors.

Just like government and the political parties... the fault ultimately lies with the people. If people gave a crap other than price companies would behave differently.

The part that is amok in a capitalist (like) market/society is giving these same companies a direct voice in government (no donation limits, lobby etc). It confuses me that people think they should have a voice yet defend company actions like this one saying they have no choice ...they have to make the most profit for their shareholders.

OK I can buy the "by law they have too" argument, makes sense... But if they HAVE to do something by law why do we give them a voice when we know what they will HAVE to do in any given situation? Seems pretty obvious they would always side on what would make them more profit ignoring all other factors, not that in of itself is wrong.
 
tunatime said:
Has any one seen an outsourced set up work well? The problem is company's keep chasing the dollar and cuting cost. No mater what skills you have someone on the other side of the world or that is here illegally will do it cheaper then you could live off.
Click to expand...

Banks are pretty good at it.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
Click to expand...


The U.S. loses on this one. An outsourcing company that is not based here whose employees are doing the work of American workers off-shore are not paying income taxes to the U.S. Meanwhile, the American workers who are losing their jobs are not contributing either because they have no income. Great way to destroy the U.S. using a financial weapon.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
Click to expand...

But there is a problem here. They are not too expensive. Someone else is just offering a cut rate solution that uneducated business management is swallowing cause they are clueless.

If the foreign competition were better in terms of skills and compensation/costs, that would be one thing. But the foreign competition isn't even competitive and what Carnival is stupidly believing is that a couple months training, etc, will somehow create a skilled workforce of these foreigners. A news flash guys, most of these foreigners are as incompetent as those triage templates they used to use for help desk support. Carnival is going to loose on this, it's going to hurt them more then they realize and this is because these executives just do not understand what it takes to be an IT professional today.

The Army started getting tough on contracts a while back and they tried to force lower wages on people. In simple terms, no one who has the skills required to do the work is willing to accept the jobs. The contracting companies who have been winning the work have been forced to default on the contracts cause they can't staff the contract. It's starting to improve and the Army is starting to understand that you can't hire a competent developer for $60 when the same developers can get jobs an hour away in Tucson for $90K +.

This thing will go the way Carnival is driving it and they will get a half assed IT work force, their business will suffer, and when they finally accept that this decision has cost them more then it saved, they'll either return to a home grown work force or they will try something else just as stupid as this was. Maybe they'll contract most of their work to a cloud service and such. Whatever.

So yes, these workers need to accept the reality that their employer is committing business suicide and get on with looking for the next job. But they are not overpaid.
 
Lith1um said:
Carnival is the low budget party cruise line, fuck em anyway. My money is spent with Royal Caribbean Line, I like luxury.
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I could not agree with you more. Carnival is the Wal*Mart of cruise lines. I was on Anthem of the Seas two weeks ago & was docked next to the Carnival Valor in Nassau. The Carnival boat, which looked nasty and ratty to begin with, started belching out black smoke & soot while it was docked. Naturally, being a Carnival boat, we assumed the damn thing was on fire. The wind blew everything out of the Carnival exhaust funnel onto the Anthem, resulting in having to shut down the Anthem top deck and outdoor pool area for several hours while the garbage was cleaned up.

Being in IT, I cannot help but feel sorry for the people losing their jobs. Carnival can put whatever spin on it they want, but to say this is anything other than another one of their BS cost cutting moves is a flat out lie.
 
I worked for Holland America / Carnival Corp for almost a year a couple of years ago. I was brought in "contract to hire" - if I performed my work and was a team fit, 3 - 6 months I'd get an offer. A year later, they couldn't get their shit straight and no real offer came (just empty promises). The week I left, they had an offer on the table that was tempting from a $ point of view, but I was done with them entirely by that point. I'm glad I didn't take that offer and moved on. They had some cool stuff there - lots of Cisco UCS running VMware (that was what my job was), but management and executives had no real idea what the heck they were doing. This move doesn't entirely surprise me... I've reached out to a couple of acquaintances that are still working there.
 
Fix the economy and this situation will fix itself. It appears we may be replacing gnat-brained academics and their ideologically driven agenda with pragmatic hard-nose businessmen in decision making government positions. Maybe sanity is returning...
 
thejokker said:
Fix the economy and this situation will fix itself. It appears we may be replacing gnat-brained academics and their ideologically driven agenda with pragmatic hard-nose businessmen in decision making government positions. Maybe sanity is returning...
Click to expand...

Problem is even if we got growth back up to where it was in the '50s, it would go to less people and we still wouldn't have the same prosperity. Here is the quantification:

http://nyti.ms/2h06IGn

The researchers ran a clever simulation recreating the last several decades with the same G.D.P. growth but without the post-1970 rise in inequality. When they did, the share of 1980 babies who grew up to out-earn their parents jumped to 80 percent, from 50 percent. The rise was considerably smaller (to 62 percent) in the simulation that kept inequality constant but imagined that growth returned to its old, faster path.
Click to expand...
 
Ur_Mom said:
I don't think so. Look at overseas support. How many people get discouraged, angry, confused when they are transferred to someone from India? A LOT. Going off a script is cheap. Real IT professionals are expensive. That's reality. You get what you pay for. There are a lot of consumers that are pissed when they get an Indian guy on the phone. For any support. Why? Language barrier is a big one. If I can explain my problem and they start diagnosing a completely different problem, something is wrong. If they can't understand very basic issues that aren't on the script, something is wrong. If they can't relay information back to the consumer, something is wrong. Two - knowledge. Many support agents have none. For IT professionals, it gets a little better, but not great. They can support your backend. It'll take more time, more headaches, less control, etc...

But, to the expense part. From the OP's article:



In this case, it's not the expense.
Click to expand...

Look, I am not arguing the results following such practices. What I am saying is that in general US IT workers are making over twice as much as those in other first world countries such as Germany and the UK. That's a big fucking deal. Even the case in question isn't about saving money (heh)

You and I both know heavy weight professionals aren't the ones being threatened. It's all about the regular guys who are basically expandable these days. I think many IT people are just bitter their jobs are slowly being "reduced" in importance which, of course, reflects on their pay. Accept it, mon. We're not more important than doctors or carpenters, or cooks, or the ones taking care of our garbage. Even if you don't, that's how I feel. And it's increasingly obvious that's how all these executives feel.
 
tunatime said:
Has any one seen an outsourced set up work well? The problem is company's keep chasing the dollar and cuting cost. No mater what skills you have someone on the other side of the world or that is here illegally will do it cheaper then you could live off.
Click to expand...

I don't have the slightest idea how well it's working for the companies. Good or bad, they are doing it because, as you say, they are trying to cut costs. It's called competition. As for your last sentence, that's exactly what I was talking about. Adapt to a lower pay if that's your only option. How do you think the rest of the world feels seeing how you people have been living for the last 70 years?

jkerr44906 said:
What new skills do you suggest they learn?
Click to expand...

Sorry, my crystal ball isn't functioning properly :(
 
dgz said:
Look, I am not arguing the results following such practices. What I am saying is that in general US IT workers are making over twice as much as those in other first world countries such as Germany and the UK. That's a big fucking deal. Even the case in question isn't about saving money (heh)

You and I both know heavy weight professionals aren't the ones being threatened. It's all about the regular guys who are basically expandable these days. I think many IT people are just bitter their jobs are slowly being "reduced" in importance which, of course, reflects on their pay. Accept it, mon. We're not more important than doctors or carpenters, or cooks, or the ones taking care of our garbage. Even if you don't, that's how I feel. And it's increasingly obvious that's how all these executives feel.
Click to expand...

How do you feel about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour? Executives feel that's BS. Executives don't care about the people. They care about the bottom line. Not what people are worth, but the absolute lowest they can get away with paying someone. If they could, they'd pay people $4.00 an hour. Which in the US when some people see people making $5 a day overseas they raise a ruckus. Nevermind the cost of living is much lower there and that $5.00 a day goes a long way.

All I can say is that it will come back and bite them in the ass later. If they go to rehire, people won't forget. They'll be leary it'll happen again. They'll get lower quality people working there as the better talent will take better jobs.

Treat your employees well, and you'll get the talent. No one wants to work for a shitty company.
 
djgizmo said:
While I agree that people should learn new skills... I bet you ANY money, this isn't being outsourced, it's H-1B being abused. I have no problem with 'truely' outsourcing employment overseas... but if you're going to do it... do it. Don't make foreign workers here slave labor.
Click to expand...

This is a large pat of the problem. H-1B was supposed to be for high end positions where a company couldn't find an American that could do the job at any price.
It was never meant for lower level jobs that you couldn't fill because you didn't want to pay enough.
There should be a compete ban on any outsourcing companies using H-1B since that is where most the abuse is happening.
H-1B should only apply to direct company hires.


Ur_Mom said:
How do you feel about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour? Executives feel that's BS. Executives don't care about the people. They care about the bottom line. Not what people are worth, but the absolute lowest they can get away with paying someone. If they could, they'd pay people $4.00 an hour.
Click to expand...

So, if you are a teenager or an unskilled worker, would you rather have a job at $10/hour or no job with a $15 minimum wage?

You might be able to justify $15/hour in expensive cities like San Francisco (where most people already earn that much or more),
but how do you justify $15/hour in a poor city like Fresno where most people are earning less than that?

If a one size minimum wage doesn't make sense in a single state, how would it make sense to have the same minimum wage for the entire country?
There is a huge difference in the cost of living in the large costal cities and inland rural states.
 
MavericK said:
Then what exactly is the reason?

(sort of rhetorical, not calling you out)
Click to expand...

Official response:

"Our core business is cruising, and by taking this action and working with a world-class IT firm like Capgemini, will provide us with the ability to significantly strengthen our IT operation for our company and our guests".
Click to expand...

Same as any other time someone says it's not the expense that's the problem. PR nonsense, IMO.

They'll move their IT people to Capgemini, so the same exact talent (or they'll train their replacement then be let go) will be there.
 
nutzo said:
So, if you are a teenager or an unskilled worker, would you rather have a job at $10/hour or no job with a $15 minimum wage?

You might be able to justify $15/hour in expensive cities like San Francisco (where most people already earn that much or more),
but how do you justify $15/hour in a poor city like Fresno where most people are earning less than that?

If a one size minimum wage doesn't make sense in a single state, how would it make sense to have the same minimum wage for the entire country?
There is a huge difference in the cost of living in the large costal cities and inland rural states.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%.

Is a skilled, educated, certified, experienced IT worker worth $10 more (or a little less than that) than a burger flipper? At that point, I'm not so sure it really makes sense to spend that time and money to invest in yourself to be a great IT worker. In the long run, I could make just as much as a burger flipper. No education, no certs, no studying... I enjoy IT so I'd probably do it anyway. The guy I replied to was saying IT people aren't worth as much as they think they are. If $60K a year in a decent town for a decent sys admin is normal, then they would be worth less than that? So, take it down to $45K a year. That's 22.50 an hour or so? Is it worth 15K more a year than a burger flipper?

I see IT workers as a bit more valuable than he does. I'd like to see the numbers Carnival is paying their new contractors...
 
dgz said:
How do you think the rest of the world feels seeing how you people have been living for the last 70 years?
Click to expand...

That is part of the problem though isn't it? Other people's perceptions of what life is like for Americans. Some think that we are all rich, that we are all swaddled in the lap of luxury and it's not really true, not by half. But it effects how they see us and how they interpret our comments.

About 25% of high school freshmen fail to graduate from high school on time. The U.S., which had some of the highest graduation rates of any developed country, now ranks 22nd out of 27 developed countries.
Click to expand...

Now this has actually been improving greatly recently, but still, it hardly supports the concept of all American kids going to college and having bright futures.

If you have read my stories about how I have no debt and no mortgage. How I was lucky, or smart, and got on top of my finances and so far, have managed to remain in pretty good shape over the years, I'd like to clarify something that a foreigner might not catch on to.

The home ownership rate for Americans is about 64%, of that, just over 30% have paid off their mortgages. So if 64% own their home with a mortgage, and one third of them, or 21%, have paid off that mortgage, does this fit the picture of rich Americans?

One in five truly own their own home, most of which, are of course, retirees. These retirees are no longer working usually, and they raised their children while they were in debt, and their children's educational opportunities may reflect the financial burden their parents were under.

Now I am a little different. I never had a mortgage, I wrote a check for my home. I wasn't rich, I was forty years old when I wrote that check. My kids didn't do without, but they didn't get all the things they wanted growing up, not by a long shot. No designer labels and their toys were all knock-offs mostly. But they got what they needed and by the time they were ready for college, my wife and I had the house payed for and we had enough coming in to give the oldest a full ride, ( a mistake we corrected with the younger girl). We also had enough to buy a condo for them to live in while going to school so we wouldn't have to dump money into dorms or apartments, again, no mortgage.

So someone might say this sounds kind of rich to to them right now. But until my kids were done with school, I had only ever bought two new cars, a 1986 Honda Civic 3 door hatchback, it was that light blue color. All the other cars for me were used, my wife did get a new Honda Odyssey in about 1997, before they had the sliding side windows and were still built on an Accord chassis. I drove things like '70 Le Mans, a '83 5th Avenue, a '96 3000 GT the same year we bought the house, (time to treat myself). In 2008 I returned from a year in Iraq and bought a 2006 328i, the economical beemer. And finally, two years ago I bought a brand new 2015 Dodge Challenger R/T which I enjoy greatly. I have always been a gamer, that was my life long hobby, my wife cooks like crazy and we rarely go out to eat, more in the last few years then in the first 25 or so.

So where is all this going?

If I fall somewhere between the top 5 to 11% of Americans when it comes to wealth, and all I really have is a modest home and another that I rent, some decent cars but nothing that would turn anyone's eye and make them say "Wow!". My wife's fingers are not sparkly with diamonds and no one would look at a Barber and a System's Admin and call them anything above middle class. How is it you imagine the rest of America, the 12% and above, are living? And does it fit with your ideas of how we have been living for the last 70 years?
 
Ur_Mom said:
Agree 100%.

Is a skilled, educated, certified, experienced IT worker worth $10 more (or a little less than that) than a burger flipper? At that point, I'm not so sure it really makes sense to spend that time and money to invest in yourself to be a great IT worker. In the long run, I could make just as much as a burger flipper. No education, no certs, no studying... I enjoy IT so I'd probably do it anyway. The guy I replied to was saying IT people aren't worth as much as they think they are. If $60K a year in a decent town for a decent sys admin is normal, then they would be worth less than that? So, take it down to $45K a year. That's 22.50 an hour or so? Is it worth 15K more a year than a burger flipper?

I see IT workers as a bit more valuable than he does. I'd like to see the numbers Carnival is paying their new contractors...
Click to expand...

Oh exactly.

I am a skilled IT guy. As such, I work with others like myself. I have seen guys who buy used rack mount equipment to play with, storage systems and switches. That can be a real investment in a guy's personal development cause lord knows IT guys don't usually get to just play on production systems and networks. At one point the government started requiring all their IT people to have Security+ certs. Now the test is only $150 or so and usually companies will reimburse the worker when they pass, but studying in order to pass is a pain. I found myself where I couldn't get work until I got my Security+ and wasn't earning a check, I took a flight to San Jose, a $6,000 9 day boot-camp and came back with A+, Net+, and Security+. Two years ago my company said I would need CASP or CISSP, I had two weeks to prep and pass one of them or hit the door. I passed the CASP. For all this I make about $75K a year. My wife is a barber, she makes about $60K a year, no certs or keeping up with the crap I have to keep up with. She does pay $75 a year to renew her barber license. How many times a year do you think I wonder if I shouldn't have just been a barber like her when I retired?


As for the minimum wage being raised to $15 an hour? It will only raise the cost of living acrossed the board and it will not improve these people's lives one bit. No one was ever supposed to try and raise a family on minimum wage. Anyone trying to is doing it wrong. I know it sounds terrible to say because we all know reality and that their are people trying to hold down more than one minimum wage job to do just that. But they are doing it wrong. Do they need help? Yes, they need someone to show them the light, not raise the bottom bar acrossed the board so that the ground gets raised right with it.

My wife the barber barely knows English enough to get by. She works hard. She got a Pell Grant that paid for half of her 9 month schooling. The same grants have existed for decades and you have to be in bad financial shape to get one. Between a Pell Grant and a student loan, people can learn a trade and become skilled and what is really funny. Barbers usually rent their chair from barber shops, they are self employed and don't need anyone to hire them. The just need a barbershop with an empty chair to rent. That isn't the only skilled trade that's like this.

Does $60K a year sound better than minimum wage? You do have to work for it, you do have to do the haircuts, not smoking and joking, although slow days come with the busy days.
 
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I can't say I side with Carnival on this, I think its a bitch move, but its hard when you have a cruise line that constantly stops in ports where there is much more poverty and people in need with much cheaper labor to be had and not start to consider the possibilities. Ultimately, it is up to the shareholders and customers to speak their voice and force Carnival to make what they feel are better choices. Because I can assure you, the contractors are sure happy someone is employing them, so I can't necessarily say what is the right choice, even if I think its a monetary consideration.

FTFY:
Lith1um said:
The ultimate truth is that corporations universally are the ultimate expression of capitalism run amok, they have no loyalty to their own nation's or their employees, they would automate every single job if they could. /and one day they will.
Click to expand...


lcpiper said:
But there is a problem here. They are not too expensive. Someone else is just offering a cut rate solution that uneducated business management is swallowing cause they are clueless.

If the foreign competition were better in terms of skills and compensation/costs, that would be one thing...

The Army started getting tough on contracts a while back and they tried to force lower wages on people...
Click to expand...

You are using false equivalency here. First, the Army by law cannot outsource to other countries except in special circumstances and there are a lot of hoops they need to jump through to do that.

Second, there are much more qualified workers over seas that work for far less than here. The funny thing is that some leave their countries to come to the US because they aren't qualified enough for the jobs in their own country, but they can get them here.. The irony of the situation is truly enlightening as you get deeper into the details.

However, you are correct that many times businesses just screw up because they don't do their homework and get jipped by the contractors selling them invisible clothes.

lcpiper said:
That is part of the problem though isn't it? Other people's perceptions of what life is like for Americans. Some think that we are all rich, that we are all swaddled in the lap of luxury and it's not really true, not by half. But it effects how they see us and how they interpret our comments.



Now this has actually been improving greatly recently, but still, it hardly supports the concept of all American kids going to college and having bright futures.
...

If I fall somewhere between the top 5 to 11% of Americans when it comes to wealth, and all I really have is a modest home and another that I rent, some decent cars but nothing that would turn anyone's eye and make them say "Wow!". My wife's fingers are not sparkly with diamonds and no one would look at a Barber and a System's Admin and call them anything above middle class. How is it you imagine the rest of America, the 12% and above, are living? And does it fit with your ideas of how we have been living for the last 70 years?
Click to expand...

I think you grossly underestimate the reality of the situation. Other countries don't think we are rich because they believe we all have college degrees and homes and cars. They think we are rich because we have food and clothing and clean water. Not to mention electricity, internet, shelter, HVAC, plumbing, public education, etc. I worked for a very small construction company for awhile doing all their IT and design work. We hired a lot of workers on H1-B visas and green cards (on a side note, we typically looked for people who were screwed over by H1-B scams and got them converted over to work by visa for our company as skilled laborers). Many of those employees came here to work to make money that they then shipped home to provide for their entire extended families. They piled up 4-6 people in one bedroom studios or efficiencies and lived off ramen to save as much money as possible to send home. In one summer, at $8-12/hr, some of them could make enough money for their families to live off for a couple years. So again, I believe your perspective is a bit off in that regard.
 
NoOther said:
I think you grossly underestimate the reality of the situation. Other countries don't think we are rich because they believe we all have college degrees and homes and cars. They think we are rich because we have food and clothing and clean water. Not to mention electricity, internet, shelter, HVAC, plumbing, public education, etc. I worked for a very small construction company for awhile doing all their IT and design work. We hired a lot of workers on H1-B visas and green cards (on a side note, we typically looked for people who were screwed over by H1-B scams and got them converted over to work by visa for our company as skilled laborers). Many of those employees came here to work to make money that they then shipped home to provide for their entire extended families. They piled up 4-6 people in one bedroom studios or efficiencies and lived off ramen to save as much money as possible to send home. In one summer, at $8-12/hr, some of them could make enough money for their families to live off for a couple years. So again, I believe your perspective is a bit off in that regard.
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In many regards yes, I was not addressing these as I was replying to dgz and I don't think his country fits this demographic. I believe he is Western European if I remember correctly although I could very well be mistaken. Try speaking with Englishmen about what they think life in America is all about. My own wife who I married in 1983 is Korean, and 1983 Korea was something similar to a cross between America's rural and smaller urban communities in a 1950's and the larger big cities in the 1970s with a thin veneer of the contemporary modern world out for display in some places. I remember my wife's family home which had electricity and running water, an outhouse over a septic tank, electric fans for A/C and charcoal brick heated steam pipes in the foundation for heat in the very cold winters. Her parents paid for her to go to school and as far as I know, as advanced as Korea is today they still have not embraced public funded education. So I am not unaware of how poorer countries view America. I just find it enlightening to know how other countries that some Americans tend to view as more advanced, see us. And even more so, what they have no idea exists and is yet all too prevalent.

Your comments here and mine in another thread, (one about women in the IT work force), bear similarities. Someone said that the inequality had much to do with women not wanting to do IT work. Another said this didn't bear out because in many other countries women make up much larger percentages of the IT workforce. I pointed out that when you are looking at other countries, their can be a stark contrast between wants and needs, and how they effect a person's decisions, including their career choices.

For instance, I don't want to be a sheet metal worker although I have done it, and wasn't bad at it. But if I really needed money, and sheet metal work paid better than IT work, I'd be swinging a metal hammer and not a keyboard.
 
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lcpiper said:
In many regards yes, I was not addressing these as I was replying to dgz and I don't think his country fits this demographic. I believe he is Western European if I remember correctly although I could very well be mistaken. Try speaking with Englishmen about what they think life in America is all about. My own wife who I married in 1983 is Korean, and 1983 Korea was something similar to a cross between America's rural and smaller urban communities in a 1950's and the larger big cities in the 1970s with a thin veneer of the contemporary modern world out for display in some places. I remember my wife's family home which had electricity and running water, an outhouse over a septic tank, electric fans for A/C and charcoal brick heated steam pipes in the foundation for heat in the very cold winters. Her parents paid for her to go to school and as far as I know, as advanced as Korea is today they still have not embraced public funded education. So I am not unaware of how poorer countries view America. I just find it enlightening to know how other countries that some Americans tend to view as more advanced, see us. And even more so, what they have no idea exists and is yet all too prevalent.

Your comments here and mine in another thread, (one about women in the IT work force), bear similarities. Someone said that the inequality had much to do with women not wanting to do IT work. Another said this didn't bear out because in many other countries women make up much larger percentages of the IT workforce. I pointed out that when you are looking at other countries, their can be a stark contrast between wants and needs, and how they effect a person's decisions, including their career choices.

For instance, I don't want to be a sheet metal worker although I have done it, and wasn't bad at it. But if I really needed money, and sheet metal work paid better than IT work, I'd be swinging a metal hammer and not a keyboard.
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I would be shocked to find out any Western Europeans really think Americans are rich... Most tell me Americans are wasteful greedy idiots and that is being polite, heh. Most Koreans I have met think Americans are gullible slackers. But those are just the generalizations. I live in an area with a lot of foreign immigrants, especially Korean. Mostly we just all laugh about preconceptions across the ponds.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Problem is even if we got growth back up to where it was in the '50s, it would go to less people and we still wouldn't have the same prosperity. Here is the quantification:

http://nyti.ms/2h06IGn
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Or... The New York Times is posting "fake" news (again) from some academic whose research and statistical methodology is designed to "prove" his theory that America is a country in decline. There could be countless unanticipated developments in the near future that could dramatically change things for better or worse. The current administration (and liberal democrats in general) have bet the farm on creating an entitlement society with the government as our great benefactor. They are invested in the concept that economic growth and prosperity are in the past. "Free"men find this absurd and believe if we can cast off the shackles of economic restrictions than our destiny is in our own hands.
 
"is not a cost-savings initiative."

Oh really? Then what is it?
 
Well, honestly, it could be costing them about the same to have the outside agency vs in-house contractors/FTEs. Salary + benefits isnty cheap, but generally contractors get more per hour to make up for lack of benefits. I know when I was getting towards the end of my contract with them, converting me to a direct employee would have saved them some money. It's hard to say for sure without knowing the specifics, but if they are saving money, it's probably not that much.

They do have a fine point - Carnival and all of its companies aren't in the business of technology/IT. And, during my time there, I'd agree - they really didn't know what they were doing. They had some basic infrastructure issues that they were blind to, and didn't want to hear about. They'd spend a ton of money on hardware to hopefully overcome some of these issues. Like I said, full Cisco house, UCS gear for hypercisors, at least 3 datacenters. It's probably a good move for Carnival to get out of that field and indeed have someone else manage it. It might make their IT not suck - it certainly can't get much worse.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
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Lumping devs into this is pretty short-sighted. Aside from the fact that becoming any kind of serious developer requires a lot of knowledge and training, finding people who do quality work is difficult. If you've ever actually looked at the kind of work that 'outsourced' devs produce, it would make you cringe, hard.

Save a few bucks at the expense of your application either flat out not working or having an endless stream of bugs to fix.

Source: My company outsources our web and mobile applications to an overseas firm. There's never a dull moment with them.
 
dgz said:
Yeah, I chuckled reading that one.

While I think the company is in the wrong demanding people training their replacements, the american IT workers/devs need to accept reality - they are too expensive and not only compared to poor countries.

Either learn new skills or accept a lower standard of living. Being angry is fine but at some point they're going to have to accept reality.
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So vastly USA customers are paying a USA company to take them on cruises in a USA area, and they expect to use non USA primary help?

Searching for the lowest price on everything is why there has been stagflation on everything and why family income has been flat since the 90's. If people don't take a stand and say, "Hold up, I want to support my country" then we are screwed. Globalization is a failed concept which only works one way in the long term: To benefit the poorer country.

When the idea of globalization was created, economist were like, "But you get more buying power and we will retrain those workers for new positions" While the first part of the statement is true, the later part is blanket false. Japan has been trying to switch to a service economy for decades and they suffer from the same problem of economic growth. Not all workers can be retrained. The only remaining positions that pay decently are usually very high tech ones, or medical industry ones.
 
Emission said:
Lumping devs into this is pretty short-sighted. Aside from the fact that becoming any kind of serious developer requires a lot of knowledge and training, finding people who do quality work is difficult. If you've ever actually looked at the kind of work that 'outsourced' devs produce, it would make you cringe, hard.

Save a few bucks at the expense of your application either flat out not working or having an endless stream of bugs to fix.

Source: My company outsources our web and mobile applications to an overseas firm. There's never a dull moment with them.
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Somewhat true. But I also seen outsourced devs I have a great amount of respect for. I work with a few that are contractors brought on as additional help.
 
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