IBM = Lousiest IT Company I've Ever Dealt With

[Andrew111]

What really happened is that they interviewed you to show that they cannot find a suitable candidate locally. They used that as justification for bringing in an H1-B.

I'm sure it may have something to do with that...I never see anyone else local interviewing whenever I'm there. The people who do the interview aren't from the area either...it really does sound like they aren't necessarily creating jobs as much as shifting what remains of IBM's U.S. workforce to these cheaper locales while they continue firing people....and when they actually do some new hiring...it's the unskilled people they can pay like dirt.

 

[Vic Vega]

Well to be honest, the American employee is probably seen as someone who will do some or all of the following:

1) Take all of his vacation and demand more next year.
2) Demand a raise every year.
3) Want a "work-life" balance so he/she can drop off kids in the morning to school and pick them up at 3:15 PM.
4) Complain non-stop about traffic, non-ergonomic chairs at work and lack of good coffee.
5) File a lawsuit because he/she burned his pinky toasting a pop-tart at work, or because the bathroom didn't have a "Slippery when wet" sign.
6) Go to work paid training and leave to work for a competitor six months later.
7) Jump from one job to another citing "Lack of motivation"
8) Will likely be an EEOE hire, so he/she cannot be expected to do anything really.

Outsourced Indian employee will not do any of that and put in 15 hours work days just because his boss looked at him angrily.

Yeah I am trying to be funny, but I think the American IT worker is going to go the way of the buffalo.

Maybe we just have different experiences. We have a lot of Indians on staff. Some are great, some really REALLY suck but that's true of the entire staff not just Indians.

Realistically I think we hire a lot of Indians because they're easier to get rid of if needed.

 

[ultimatebob]

They leverage synergy.

No... they proactively leverage synergies to achieve optimal IT efficiency.

I used to use that line when I worked there, and it always got a laugh. Especially after an executive meeting.

 

[Train]

No... they proactively leverage synergies to achieve optimal IT efficiency.

I used to use that line when I worked there, and it always got a laugh. Especially after an executive meeting.

Of course, I was just using the LEAN version

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Well to be honest, the American employee is probably seen as someone who will do some or all of the following:

1) Take all of his vacation and demand more next year.

Everyone should take full benefit of their vacation time every year. If you're one of those employees who loses vacation time every year because you're too "busy" to take it, there's a word for that kind of person -- it is called "sucker." Here, they encourage you to take it and when they saw people were losing vacation time, they instituted a rollover policy so you can roll 10 days of unused time over to the new year so you'd have an opportunity to use it then.

Now on the other hand, if your company pays you for unused vacation time at the end of the year, that's completely different and I wouldn't blame people for saving some to get a nice bonus.

2) Demand a raise every year.

When I see execs getting their titles changed every year and having huge raises thrown at them as a result, you bet I'll demand a raise. Those of us who do the real work are entitled to a piece of the pie too.

3) Want a "work-life" balance so he/she can drop off kids in the morning to school and pick them up at 3:15 PM.
4) Complain non-stop about traffic, non-ergonomic chairs at work and lack of good coffee.
5) File a lawsuit because he/she burned his pinky toasting a pop-tart at work, or because the bathroom didn't have a "Slippery when wet" sign.

Never seen this in my career, though a work-life balance is very important.

6) Go to work paid training and leave to work for a competitor six months later.

Around 12 or 13 years ago, my employer sent me to a week of Exchange training. I was disenchanted and was looking for a job, but I went to the training anyway even though I was interviewing. I got back from the training, expensed it, and got a job offer the second week I was back. I verified my expense cleared and my reimbursement went through and then I quit. I don't feel bad at all, especially knowing how many people they laid off since I left. I do know they were PISSED at me, however.

Outsourced Indian employee will not do any of that and put in 15 hours work days just because his boss looked at him angrily.

As the quality of life improves in India, these workers will make more and more of the same demands that American workers make. They'd be dumb not to make those demands. Working all the time for peanuts isn't a good life.

Yeah I am trying to be funny, but I think the American IT worker is going to go the way of the buffalo.

No, you'll always need some level of onsite support. What I see happening is that eventually, all companies except the very largest will eliminate their IT departments and use service providers. So most future IT employees will likely work for service providers.

 

[amish]

Well to be honest, the American employee is probably seen as someone who will do some or all of the following:

1) Take all of his vacation and demand more next year.
2) Demand a raise every year.
3) Want a "work-life" balance so he/she can drop off kids in the morning to school and pick them up at 3:15 PM.
4) Complain non-stop about traffic, non-ergonomic chairs at work and lack of good coffee.
5) File a lawsuit because he/she burned his pinky toasting a pop-tart at work, or because the bathroom didn't have a "Slippery when wet" sign.
6) Go to work paid training and leave to work for a competitor six months later.
7) Jump from one job to another citing "Lack of motivation"
8) Will likely be an EEOE hire, so he/she cannot be expected to do anything really.

Outsourced Indian employee will not do any of that and put in 15 hours work days just because his boss looked at him angrily.

Yeah I am trying to be funny, but I think the American IT worker is going to go the way of the buffalo.

1. use it or lose it policy with no pay out.
2. inflation goes up 3% every year, why not my salary?
3. laughable. once again the company promotes a "work/life balance". I get in at 7:30, leave at 5pm, and then get to log in later. typically I'm still online when my Indian counterparts are rolling in at 10 AM IST.
4. meh. I'll give you that one. typically the coffee isn't that great.
5. I've never seen anyone file a lawsuit for anything. We did have someone have a heart attack and die at her desk while she was on a call.
6. employ at will states exist here and we don't sign contracts. we are free to come and go as we please. however, the company could just let you go for no real reason too. it works both ways.
7. I've never seen it, but I'm sure it exists. Frankly, I don't care as long as they aren't part of my team any more.
8. ha, EEOEs still have to work where I'm at or are counseled out.

I'm sure I could come up with a list of annoyances that I have with my Indian counterparts but it wouldn't help.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

my friend works them and corroborates your story more or less. They only care about satisfying their top tier customers like Walmart whom they pretty much get 90% of their revenue from. Everything else falls to the wayside.

 

[Skel]

Well to be honest, the American employee is probably seen as someone who will do some or all of the following:

1) Take all of his vacation and demand more next year.
2) Demand a raise every year.
3) Want a "work-life" balance so he/she can drop off kids in the morning to school and pick them up at 3:15 PM.
4) Complain non-stop about traffic, non-ergonomic chairs at work and lack of good coffee.
5) File a lawsuit because he/she burned his pinky toasting a pop-tart at work, or because the bathroom didn't have a "Slippery when wet" sign.
6) Go to work paid training and leave to work for a competitor six months later.
7) Jump from one job to another citing "Lack of motivation"
8) Will likely be an EEOE hire, so he/she cannot be expected to do anything really.

Outsourced Indian employee will not do any of that and put in 15 hours work days just because his boss looked at him angrily.

Yeah I am trying to be funny, but I think the American IT worker is going to go the way of the buffalo.

I get you're attempting to be funny, but I can say you're not too far from the mark on some of those.. however you can't act like the Global resources are without any issue. In fact I'd rather take most of these than the crap I've had to work with.

1) A lot of bosses are forcing their people to take vacations as it helps them not burn out and create subpar work.
2) Not sure where you're talking about but everyone at IBM knows you negotiate your rate when you walk in the door as it's not changing. The only raise you can expect is if you move to a better position.
3) Most of this I've seen is from higher management (at least in IBM's case) as again you don't want to create burn out or other issues. All of the GR (Global Resources) I've seen log off randomly explaining they're at the end of their shift, regardless if the issue is resolved or not. I had one drop in the middle of a bridge call where an outage was costing money every minute it was down. No one had a clue he'd dropped and all his local manager said was "he was needing to get home".
4) I call that venting, and I'd so much rather them vent out over coffee than something important.
5) There's always idiots that attempt to milk the system, even in other countries.
6) A few GR that worked for me, had received training and left to another company down the street in India. I was told the other company was paying a bonus for people that received the training my group was supplying.
7) Most of the GR rotate in and out as they have a "career path" that requires them to learn a bunch of different jobs with IBM. I don't think we've had a single GR that's stayed longer than 6 months. (unless you're talking about Hong Kong, but that's because we bought the company those guys came with. They've been around for years and are rock stars)
8) 95% (being generous here) are unable to perform the basic job functions required. They arrive hired off the street and expect US resources to train them and hold their hands the entire time they're on the job. I've challenged a couple of them (one because he needed my lead to walk him through how to open a word doc) and was told all they needed to do was fill out an application, just like McDonald's.

I've worked with India, Brazil, Hong Kong, China, Ireland, Britain, France, Argentina and Japan. I jumped ship from one account because the mandate was to have a 90/10 split between 90% GR and 10% US, which to me was a no win. This current account I'm with is starting to get GR and will be going through some growing pains. I'm not saying GRs are the worst thing ever, but pound for pound I'd take that US guy over them all. He's got some issues, but nothing compared to his counter parts..

 

[T_Yamamoto]

my friend works them and corroborates your story more or less. They only care about satisfying their top tier customers like Walmart whom they pretty much get 90% of their revenue from. Everything else falls to the wayside.

Bank of America is up there too. Dad was bitching about them recently.