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Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

david.newgas.net

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Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#121

Post by orochimaaru »

shoo wrote: post #75
etothepii wrote: post #25

As a junior software engineer, I worked at a large UK bank. Senior management routinely seem baffled that they could announce redundancies or hiring freezes, yet technology costs would continue to rise. One pattern I saw repeatedly was a contractor being let go, only to return via a large outsourcing provider. The provider must have added a substantial markup despite supplying the same engineer back to the same team,…

when i worked for an australian bank, one co-worker in a nearby team had been working on the the banks systems as a sysadmin for over a decade. the bank would go through cycles of "we need to reduce our headcount and outsource everything" and then 4 years later "we need to reduce spend on contractors and retain more knowledge and expertise in house". he'd survived multiple waves of it, switching back and forth betwee…

Have y'all hit the "can genai do his job?" phase yet...

Early on I used to try to explain that things don't work as advertised. There are a lot of advantages but you need a human reviewing and directing.

These days I don't even bother. Call it being desensitized to the bullshit, but I'm waiting for some fancy AI agent to take out stuff in a way that no one can do anything. Past that I don't see a way for C suite to wake up.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#123

Post by somat »

sekh60 wrote: post #93
shoo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when i worked for an australian bank, one co-worker in a nearby team had been working on the the banks systems as a sysadmin for over a decade. the bank would go through cycles of "we need to reduce our headcount and outsource everything" and then 4 years later "we need to reduce spend on contractors and retain more knowledge and expertise in house". he'd survived multiple waves of it, switching back and forth betwee…

I hope he was able to get a paybump each switch!

Sometimes(most of the time?) that is the only way to get a pay bump.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#124

Post by OccamsMirror »

jfengel wrote: post #110
shoo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when i worked for an australian bank, one co-worker in a nearby team had been working on the the banks systems as a sysadmin for over a decade. the bank would go through cycles of "we need to reduce our headcount and outsource everything" and then 4 years later "we need to reduce spend on contractors and retain more knowledge and expertise in house". he'd survived multiple waves of it, switching back and forth betwee…

Managers love the idea that contractors can be fired more easily than employees. Except that this flexibility comes at a cost; people insist on being paid more to have an insecure job. The uncertainty never goes away. You can pay someone else to suffer it, but it will always cost more than dealing with it yourself. And that can be ok. Just don't fool yourself into thinking you're getting a bargain.

A stable environment with a great culture has lower costs.

But then they have to hire good managers and for that you need to be a good manager yourself.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#125

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

rayiner wrote: post #100
talon8635 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay… do you not feel culpable at some point? Do you feel no obligation to expose these various individuals fleecing the tax payers? Your boss, the academics, and everyone else who participated or knows and remains silent. Obviously, you are now in the later group. Yes I know it’s not all that rare, BECAUSE people can’t be bothered to blow the whistle.

If you don’t have a duty to report, you don’t have a duty to report. You can’t predict what government prosecutors will do. If they start investigating and it turns out for whatever reason they can’t pin it on the boss, they could have pinned if on OP. Think about it logically. If you’re the prosecutor, the guy whose time is fraudulent is presumptively the criminal. It could very well be that he was actually the one…

[flagged]

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#126

Post by shermantanktop »

pdimitar wrote: post #63
shermantanktop wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a small company, anyone can damage the company prospects. But product people have outsized negative impact when they are wrong. They can tank the whole company in short order. Which is maybe as it should be, but it does pit agonized debates over detailed technical work in perspective.

All true but every time I tried to help with an outsider's perspective -- and IMO us as engineers with systems thinking _can_ contribute -- I was told to shut up and stay in my lane (more politely than that but still crystal clear what's the underlying message + a clear show of we-will-not-debate-this-again). So let them do damage. I do what I am told, I have the strategic thinking but not many have made use of it. O…

Same. I’m lucky to have some execs who appreciate that product people have a specific point of view (or agenda) and as a result are willing to at least listen to my views, wrt defect rates, availability, etc., but also about the occasional product idea.

At the end of the day, if they choose spend their magic beans on shitty features, I’m still getting paid. Then again, I’m at a larger company, not a startup.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#127

Post by qsera »

rayiner wrote: post #103
Der_Einzige wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, having been to high trust places like Singapore for a decent amount of time - it's better to live in a low trust society. Singapore is easily one of the most boring, sad, depressing places on earth despite it being on paper a paradise according to education, health care, etc rates. High trust in society correlates strongly with being anti-innovative. Europe is going through another lost decade in a row beca…

I love how we’re actively cheerleading third worldism now. Boring is good, bland is good, efficient systems that assume high trust are good. Unless you’re Norway or Denmark, you should try to make your country more like Singapore.

Boring is not good if you are interested in something that is not boring!

More fun always come with more risk. Everyone has their own threshold. So it is pointless to say that "Boring is good". It might be good for you, but not for everyone.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#128

Post by shermantanktop »

raincole wrote: post #117
shermantanktop wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a small company, anyone can damage the company prospects. But product people have outsized negative impact when they are wrong. They can tank the whole company in short order. Which is maybe as it should be, but it does pit agonized debates over detailed technical work in perspective.

A healthy economy permits the companies within it to fail.

Did someone disagree with that?

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#129

Post by buildsjets »

talon8635 wrote: post #36
comrade1234 wrote: post #4

I was on a government project where I found out I was being fraudulently billed on my hours. It was towards the end of the year and my manager was trying to use up the budget of the client. Although this is normal in the private sector I told him from the beginning that you can't do this on a government project. The project was $1M+ which was enough for prison time. He had gone into our billing software and edited my…

Okay… do you not feel culpable at some point? Do you feel no obligation to expose these various individuals fleecing the tax payers? Your boss, the academics, and everyone else who participated or knows and remains silent. Obviously, you are now in the later group. Yes I know it’s not all that rare, BECAUSE people can’t be bothered to blow the whistle.

Absolutely not. Honor does not pay the mortgage. Whistleblowers have no real protection, despite laws saying they should. If you blow that whistle, you will be retaliated against, guaranteed.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#130

Post by bandrami »

etothepii wrote: post #25

As a junior software engineer, I worked at a large UK bank. Senior management routinely seem baffled that they could announce redundancies or hiring freezes, yet technology costs would continue to rise. One pattern I saw repeatedly was a contractor being let go, only to return via a large outsourcing provider. The provider must have added a substantial markup despite supplying the same engineer back to the same team,…

At the risk of injecting recent US politics into this, the shipyard I used to work at had five employees laid off under DOGE and replaced by the exact same individuals (there aren't actually that many naval architects in the US), now working as contractors at a higher base pay. I feel like there's a lot of that out there.
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