My Job Went to India: 52 Ways to Save Your Job

186 Pages·2005·2.46 MB·English

by  Chad Fowler

My Job Went to India
And All I Got Was This Lousy Book
ChadFowler
ThePragmaticBookshelf
Raleigh,NorthCarolina Dallas,Texas
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Contents
Introduction 1
PartI—ChoosingYourMarket 10
1. SupplyandDemand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. CodingDon’tCutItAnymore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3. LeadorBleed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. InvestinYourIntelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5. BeaGeneralist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6. BeaSpecialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7. Don’tPutAllYourEggsinSomeoneElse’sBasket . . . . 34
8. BetheWorst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
9. LoveItorLeaveIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
PartII—InvestinginYourProduct 42
10. LearntoFish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11. UnderstandBusinessBasics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
12. FindaMentor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
13. BeaMentor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
14. Practice,Practice,Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
15. TheWayThatYouDoIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
16. OntheShouldersofGiants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
17. AutomateYourselfintoaJob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
PartIII—Executing 71
18. RightNow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
19. MindReader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
20. DailyHit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
21. RememberWhoYouWorkFor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
22. BeWhereYou’reAt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
23. HowGoodaJobCanIDoToday?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
24. HowMuchAreYouWorth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
25. APebbleinaBucketofWater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
26. LearntoLoveMaintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
CONTENTS vii
27. Eight-HourBurn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
28. LearnHowtoFail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
29. Say“No” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
30. SayIt,DoIt,ShowIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
PartIV—Marketing...NotJustforSuits 112
31. Perceptions,Perschmeptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
32. AdventureTourGuide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
33. MeRiteReelNice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
34. BeingPresent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
35. SuitSpeak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
36. ChangetheWorld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
37. LetYourVoiceBeHeard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
38. BuildYourBrand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
39. ReleaseYourCode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
40. Remarkability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
41. MakingtheHang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
PartV—MaintainingYourEdge 143
42. AlreadyObsolete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
43. You’veAlreadyLostYourJob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
44. PathwithNoDestination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
45. MakeYourselfaMap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
46. WatchtheMarket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
47. ThatFatManintheMirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
48. TheSouthIndianMonkeyTrap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
PartVI—IfYouCan’tBeat’Em 161
49. Lead’Em . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
50. Manage’Em . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
51. LearnfromOpen-Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
52. ThinkGlobal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
WhatILearnedinIndia 173
Resources 176
A.1 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Reporterratum
ItistrueIndiahastheadvantageinsoftwareandChinainhardware.
IfIndiaandChinacooperateintheITindustry,wewillbeabletolead
theworld...anditwillsignifythecomingoftheAsiancenturyoftheIT
industry.
WenJiabao,ChinesePremier,April11,2005
Introduction
Iawoketoanoddsmell. WhereamI?Iasked(aloud,Ithink).
IwasinBangalore,India’sGardenCity. Thatoddsmellwastheremark-
ably foreign combination of pollution, ultraspicy food from the hotel’s
kitchen, and something else that I could never quite put my finger on.
It was my first morning there, and I was late for work. I didn’t feel bad
about that, considering the hellish 32-hour journey I had suffered to get
there. And that my India-savvy co-worker tricked me into an all-night
culturalimmersionintheworld’sscariesthotel,aftergettingofftheplane
inBombaythenightbefore.
After coming to, I felt a panic, realizing that my driver must have been
waitingdownstairsforanhour.OhGod,he’llbeangry,Ithought,asIscram-
bled to getreadyfor the first in a seriesof all-dayinterviewing sessions.
That’s just what I need on my first morning in a place like this...an angry taxi
driver.
Irusheddownstairs,resistingthefabulousaromaofaSouthIndianbreak-
fast, and ran out to ask the doorman to page my driver. I asked if the
driverhadbeentherelong. Hehad. Twohours. Ugh.
IspentthefirstfiveminutesinthecarwithJosephapologizingprofusely
overbeinglateandmakinghimwait. Helaugheddismissively. Thisismy
job. I wait all day. And as I found out later, he really did. He didn’t just
dropmeoffatworkandcomebackatafixedtime. Hewaitedattheoffice
until the very minute I was ready to go. Without warning, at any time,
I could come downfromthe officeandexpectto hop into the carandbe
drivenaway.
MyfirstexposuretoIndiaindaylightwasthatdriveacrosstownfromthe
northwesterncornerofBangaloretothesouthwesterncorner. Theculture
shockstartedtohitme.
BangaloreisknownasIndia’sSiliconValley. Beingfromasmallcityback
home, it was exciting to realize that I had come to a technical mecca.
INTRODUCTION 2
More surprising, though, were the extreme contrasts between high tech
and low tech. I saw half-naked children playing in the dirt in front of a
huge Yahoo! sign. I saw a rickshaw with a Novell advertisementon the
backand another with whatlooked like a SunSolarisCD danglingfrom
therearviewmirrorasanornament.
We drove past beautiful, state-of-the-art office buildings, filled with the
employeesofsomeoftheWesternworld’smostinnovativecompanies.We
dodged buffalo in the street and begrudingly yielded to rickety bicycles
andfullfamiliesonsinglemopeds.
We passed by fields containing huts made from twigs, mud, tarps, and
assorted garbage. We drove through crowdsof well-dressedyoung peo-
ple, drinking coffee outside their office buildings before the start of the
day,onlytodrivealittlefarthertobepropositionedbylepersbeggingat
atrafficlight.
So before I even reached the office on my first day, my perspective had
changed. This was a world of great extremes. These foreign voices I
hadheardthroughscratchy,unreliablephoneconnections,attachedtothe
brainswhosecodeI’dbeenruthlesslyreviewing,livedhere? Thesearethe
peoplewhoareallegedlystealingourjobs?
I had come to India in the first stage of the setting up of a new software
developmentcenterformycompany. Myjobwastointerviewandselect
about25peoplewhowouldformthe“seedteam”ofadevelopmentshop
that would eventually house 250 people. More precisely, my job was to
rejectmorethan200people. Wehadadvertisedouropenjobsandreceived
nearly30,000applications. That’sfourzeroes.Youarereadingitcorrectly.
Wehiredoutsidefirmstohelpuswhittlethe30,000downtoamoreman-
ageablenumberandthenusedour ownU.S.-basedemployeestofurther
workthatnumberdowntoashortlistofacouplehundredthatwecould
interviewinperson.
I was to be our interview panel’s executioner, sniffing out the weak and
finishing themoffquicklyand(Ihoped)painlessly. While inIndia, Ivis-
itedthehotelconferenceroomsofthreedifferentcitiesandmethundreds
ofpeople. IprobablytookasecretpleasurefromthefactthatIwasgoing
togoover andstopallthese peoplefromgettingthroughthesystemand
“stealing”ourjobs.
Itwaspost-boomtime. Bythat,ImeantheDotCombubblehadburst. The
ITsector’slifestylehadgonefromrock’n’rolltoHolidayInnloungeact,
anditwasshowinginIndiaaswell.
Reporterratum
INTRODUCTION 3
Infact,whatIfoundwasnotanarmyofpeople,plottingtostealourcom-
forts for themselves. Unlike their counterparts in the West, these people
weren’tangrythattheyhadtogetasmalltelevisionsetoreventhatthey
might not be able to afford this month’s cable TV bill. These were sons
and daughters who were scraping by, trying to raise money to support
theirparentsandtheirspouses’parents. Theseweremothersandfathers
whoseITjobsmeantthedifferencebetweenreallyeducatingtheirchildren
or sending them to a school from which the further educational options
haveahardlimit. Theyweren’ttryingtostealtheAmericandream. They
weretryingtosqueezeaonce-dryeconomyforafewdropsoflife-giving
cashflow.
Ultimately, I was an executioner very much fit for the task. No physical
injuriesresulted,butmanyintervieweesleftwithbruisedegos. WhatIleft
withwasa changedperspective. Things had changed. A vibrantsociety
of highlymotivatedand intelligent people existed here. And they weren’t
playingforamenities;theywerecompetingforthesurvivaloftheirfami-
lies.
You can’t underestimate—or blame—someone with that kind of motiva-
tion.
Things Ain’tWhatTheyUsedto Be
According to the U.S. government, IT unemployment has doubled since
2000. The Bureauof LaborStatisticsreportsthatbetween2000and2004,
thenumberofprogrammersintheAmericanITindustrydroppedby17%.
Injustthefirstthreemonthsof2005,U.S.techologycompaniescut60,000
jobs—twicethenumbercutinthesameperiodofthepreviousyear.1 The
numbersaresobering. Inthisworldinwhicheverydeviceseemstocon-
tainacomputer,couldsoftwaredevelopmentbeadoomedprofession?
Matters are made more confusing by the bipolar temperament of the IT
jobmarket. Hadyouleftandwentonretreatinacavein2000forseveral
months,youwouldhaveemergedintoanITemploymentlandscapethat
was as unrecognizable as Java to a COBOL programmer. In the mid- to
late-nineties,agoldrushtookplaceintheITindustry. Irememberreading
aboutemployersgivingBMWsassigningbonuses. Ateamfromanother
company actually auctioned itself off on eBay for a huge signing bonus.
1“ChallengerTechSectorJobCutsReport,”http://challengergray.com/
Reporterratum