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Old 01-16-2013, 08:40 PM   #1
Ironhorse
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Default Man outsources his own job

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When a routine security check by a US-based company showed someone was repeatedly logging on to their computer system from China, it naturally sent alarm bells ringing. Hackers were suspected and telecoms experts were called in.
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It was only after a thorough investigation that it was revealed that the culprit was not a hacker, but "Bob" (not his real name), an "inoffensive and quiet" family man and the company's top-performing programmer, who could be seen toiling at his desk day after day and staring diligently at his monitor.
For Bob had come up with the idea of outsourcing his own job – to China. So, while a Chinese consulting firm got on with the job he was paid to do, on less than one-fifth of his salary, he whiled away his working day surfing Reddit, eBay and Facebook.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...ources-own-job
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Old 01-16-2013, 08:42 PM   #2
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That man is my hero.
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Old 01-16-2013, 09:01 PM   #3
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Awesome.
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Old 01-16-2013, 09:07 PM   #4
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(a) Bob moves to China and becomes CEO of the Chinese consulting firm;
(b) Bob's former company works with that Chinese consulting firm directly;
(c) Bob's former company let go 80% of their staff while keeping their works highly efficient/ clean/ timely;
(d) Profit: Bob/ Bob's ex-company/ Bob's new company.
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Old 01-16-2013, 09:09 PM   #5
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I am Bob's outsourced job.
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Old 01-16-2013, 09:13 PM   #6
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I read about this earlier today and it's awesome. Not only had he outsourced his own job, but he had signed up himself on several other companies and was outsourcing those jobs as well.

With the contacts he's developed the guy would probably make more money going to companies soliciting contract development to outsource overseas.
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Old 01-16-2013, 09:23 PM   #7
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Hahaaa reminds me of cartoon I saw earlier today...

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Old 01-16-2013, 09:35 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by FlameOn View Post
I read about this earlier today and it's awesome. Not only had he outsourced his own job, but he had signed up himself on several other companies and was outsourcing those jobs as well.

With the contacts he's developed the guy would probably make more money going to companies soliciting contract development to outsource overseas.
They should make him President of the company. Sharp cookie.

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Old 01-16-2013, 09:40 PM   #9
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When the company checked his web-browsing history, a typical "work day" for Bob was: 9am, arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours, watch cat videos; 11.30am, take lunch; 1pm, eBay; 2pm-ish, Facebook updates, LinkedIn; 4.40pm–end of day, update email to management; 5pm, go home
Isn't this everyones normal workday?
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Old 01-16-2013, 10:29 PM   #10
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That is fantastic.
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Old 01-16-2013, 10:30 PM   #11
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Hahaha I was going to say, sounds like a usual work day
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Old 01-16-2013, 10:42 PM   #12
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Alright, that's pretty epic. Though I have to say, I would think it'd get boring after a while.
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Old 01-16-2013, 11:42 PM   #13
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They should make a movie about this national treasure.
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Old 01-17-2013, 05:14 AM   #14
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this story was a fun read for sure. Interesting how they figured it out (VPN logs showing Chinese IP accessing their NW).
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Old 01-17-2013, 08:45 AM   #15
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They should make a movie about this national treasure.
Nicolas Cage already has the movie rights for this story and its coming out on the 4th of July weekend
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Old 01-17-2013, 08:48 AM   #16
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This is exactly what Tim Ferriss talks about doing in 4 hour workweek.
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Old 01-17-2013, 09:35 AM   #17
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There was a fella that wrote a piece on this in Esquire years ago. Same guy that wrote the book Year of Living Biblically, which was a good read.

Here it is

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0905OUTSOURCING_214
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Old 01-17-2013, 09:45 AM   #18
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Having worked for a large software company I can't say this surprises me at all. Once developers reach a certain level of seniority they essentially supervise themselves and could easily get enough day to day freedom to pull something like this off. As long as the guy still understands the code & can talk to a spec sheet he could easily pass off the work of others as his own, especially if he's a decent enough Q/A tester and can do a code review.

I'm more surprised that he was able to get consistently usable code from outsourcing, my experience in the past is that even in the best case scenario you have to count on a 10-20% buffer of "fix" time on any code you get.
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Old 01-17-2013, 09:47 AM   #19
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Hero!
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Old 01-17-2013, 10:31 AM   #20
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The company should give him a nice severance as he leaves, since he has already found them his replacement at 1/5 the cost.
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