The Goat Pen

India in the professional workplace, I assume as a result of Covid, is in complete disarray for us.


We've hired 140 people in the last 6 months. 60 of them are still with the company. So we decided to switch focus to Mexico and told Mexico to hire 20 people. They can't find 5. We aren't even trying in South America.

We are in a huge hiring crunch right now, globally and locally - and we aren't some $15 an hour burger joint.

You can't find entry level engineers. If you are a student in high school going off to college, you're a moron if you don't consider a STEM degree. Yes, its hard work, but you are set for life once you get it.

and I'm about to write yet another check to Cinci for my son to continue his Business Management degree. Ugh.

eCat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 11:18 am India in the professional workplace, I assume as a result of Covid, is in complete disarray for us.

That is everyone. The non-technical people who have been with the company for 15+ years, they understand the business perfectly. But they have a shit way of communicating the business with India (particularly via skype in the age of Covid.) But the non-technical people DEMAND that India just "know everything" without the non-technical 15+ year business person changing the way they communicate. They demand it because they saw how much that consulting company was billing "per hour" for the time the Indian was putting in and the non-technical 15+ year business person had a fit.

Now we mask these inefficiencies with bullshit business practice like "Scrum-Agile" or "Dev Ops" or what-have-you, putting more and even MORE focus on the developer from India to not only know everything like a psychic, but also demand that the developer communicate everything perfectly to the business people who refuse to change. When that goes to shit (and it almost always does) then its as you say, everything is in disarray. And that is when the one-on-one meetings become far too routine with the executive leadership with the non-technical 15+ year business person demanding this one or that one or ALL OF THEM be removed.

eCat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 11:18 amWe've hired 140 people in the last 6 months. 60 of them are still with the company. So we decided to switch focus to Mexico and told Mexico to hire 20 people. They can't find 5. We aren't even trying in South America.

We are in a huge hiring crunch right now, globally and locally - and we aren't some $15 an hour burger joint.

You can't find entry level engineers. If you are a student in high school going off to college, you're a moron if you don't consider a STEM degree. Yes, its hard work, but you are set for life once you get it.

and I'm about to write yet another check to Cinci for my son to continue his Business Management degree. Ugh.

I need more information eCat.

You said you hired 140 people in the last 6 months and only 60 are still with the company. Did your company fire 80 people? If so, your problem is your OWN.

We need more information here.

I agree that STEM is the way to go but there are soooooooo many students in college who start out in STEM and "flunk out of school" (if they aren't able to change their major) because they can't pass the Calculus (or maybe can't understand the tenured calculus professor because English is his 3rd language), can't pass the University Physics, can't pass differential equations, and/or do not want to spend 40+ hours a week writing code when their psychology/communications major peers are out getting drunk all week. STEM is 4+ years of hard work in university. No partying. You are correct that STEM is the way to go for a career, but we can't all be in STEM. Graduating STEM is matter of IQ and conscientiousness more than anything else.

no, not firing, the job market, because everyone is so desperate to have someone technical, is creating a bidding war for talent.

We were told by the head of our India team that they can't help us solve problems they were hired to do, which we replied, not acceptable, we have a business model built around 20% Indian support which currently they are providing maybe less than 5, its hard to measure that but we're leaving serious money on the table. But he can't just build competent engineers.

There is a trick to graduating if you know how to play the game. For example, my daughter is worried about her Chem II class which is notorious at her school for flunking out students. Word got out you could take the class online at some community college for $600 and the credits transfer. Will she learn as much as she would taking Chem II at her school? nope, will the job she gets afterwards pay the same? yes. That community college probably has 200 students each semester taking Chem II online from her school now. Its a money maker for them.

I wish I had that option. I had to take Differential Equations twice to erase the D I got in it the first time.

I'd say there has been a bidding war for technical talent since the information age officially began some 30-odd years ago. Its just now that much more magnified. But I get your points eCat. Well put.

I'd say there is a bidding war to plot your death.

well rat, it is nice to matter enough such that people would be willing to bid. i am that important. you on the other hand, you have zero importance. no one cares if you live or die

We are having the same issue in our cpa firm. Ten percent understaffed. It's across all industries, really.

Here are the main reasons:

1. PPP loans were too generous and were used by companies, who really didn't need it, to acquire talent.
2. Pent up wage increases that's been deferred for decades.
3. Cost of housing is being inflated by investors. People have to demand higher salaries to rent a place.
4. Demographics - The Z generation is much smaller than the Millenials

sardis is totally right. wages have been flat for decades. there were a number of very valid "supply-and-demand" reasons as to why that was the case, but for the longest time, that was the case. Now, the demand for labor has now far outpaced supply. So wages finally had to increase.

Efficiency through the technology the last 20 years saved employers' labor costs. I think that has maxed out until A.I. is more vastly implemented.

exactly right. that is one of the main reasons for getting into "Dev Ops." You just want to have your production support people be all "entry level" and have them press F5 or whatever and a script that is created by the developers automatically does a production install. If that is implemented perfectly, than yes, that will drive down wages for every other person who is not a software developer. Which is the goal for all non-technical business people who just.... "manage."

But "Dev Ops" has not been mastered yet at companies NOT named Amazon, Facebook, or Google. Instead companies desperate for developers (that is all of them) call up recruiters and scream for anyone who knows anything about Cloud Bees, Azure, CDA, AWS, or Ansible Tower, lol!

I have to admit it's a little concerning to hear "there's some serious stuff going on right now". Also I hope I quoted that right.

Tree, Jackson was the white house physician for both Trump and Obama. So from a medical public servant standpoint, he wasn't political. He's a Republican congressman now so it may be purely a political comment directed towards Biden, but I sincerely believe our current President's brain is calcifying way too fast. They are going to need to do something.

Idiot

Gonna be a fun day watching the Trumpettes trip all over themselves.

Are you having fun now rat? Seeing our President make a complete ass of himself on public television is no fun for me. Its embarrassing.

Lake Orville, 3 year span.

fuck..I moved out of Austin because I freaked out about water rationing. I can't imagine living there

IB. If you really think that's the case than you are well conditioned for it after the previous term. Now that was a clusterfuck.

didn't take long

Six months into Joe Biden’s presidency, we are starting to see evidence that the tide may be turning against him. The main culprit is the Delta variant that has upended hopes of having turned the corner on COVID-19. But a confluence of concerns (like inflation, violent crime, and the border) are also helping erode optimism about the future.

Until recently, there was a sense that COVID-19 was waning and by competently overseeing the distribution of vaccines, Biden would preside over a recovery where life would return to normal and the economy would bounce back. But the Delta variant has caused us to reconsider and revise many of our assumptions, including the political implications of presiding over the recovery. Consider this tweet from Bill Kristol, the NeverTrump conservative who has been very pro-Biden: “I am alarmed… about COVID, and how the broad social and economic reopening people are counting on is at risk. And I’m alarmed [that] the Biden Administration doesn’t seem alarmed enough, and doesn’t seem to have enough urgency about this threat.” Thanks to the rise of the Delta variant, the U.S. has decided not to lift travel restrictions, and Goldman Sachs has decided to revise downwards a bit its forecast of surging economic growth.

Perhaps more concerning is a new ABC/Ipsos survey showing that Americans’ optimism about the country has “plummeted” almost 20 points in the last couple of months (as recently as May, this same poll showed Americans were optimistic about the future). Not surprisingly, it also shows a decrease in support for Biden’s handling of a wide range of issues, including COVID, immigration, crime and violence, and the country’s economic recovery. (On the economy, at least, this is not an outlier; an AP/NORC poll also shows that “Fewer than half, 45% [of Americans surveyed], judge the economy to be in good shape, while 54% say it’s in poor shape.”)

What are you talking about rat? Trump doesn't have Alzheimer's (yet.) You can ask him anything and you will not get a bumbling, stumbling response. You might get a response that you HATE, but at least you will understand it clearly. No world leader ever believed that POTUS Trump was going senile. We can't say ANY of that about POTUS Biden now can we?

That's the difference.

POTUS Trump welcomed debate and questions. He allowed himself to be challenged by the media. He was very public, a very public image. He was constantly going before the media. He wasn't sheltered. Biden never welcomed it and after watching that youtube its obvious why he didn't. The only person he allowed to ask him questions before the election was the illiterate Cardi-B. The reason for that is also obvious.

Thats hilarious.