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Outsourcing Taken To Extremes - lol

by sbucciarel Banned
33 replies
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US programmer outsourced own job to China, spent workdays on Reddit and Facebook

A programmer at a US company outsourced his job to a Chinese contractor for a fraction of his six-figure salary. After handing over his login information, he spent his days on Facebook and perused cat videos while the Chinese firm worked in his name.
lol. Brilliant strategy or not? It appears he doesn't have employment at this company any longer since they discovered that a firm in China was doing all his work while he surfed around Facebook and Reddit and cat videos.

It appears he had several jobs and made six figures and outsourced it all to China for a mere fraction of his salary.

Official performance figures for the company where 'Bob' worked showed that he was the most productive developer in the building.
#extremes #lol #outsourcing
  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    That is crazy. He turned the tables on his employer.
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    • Profile picture of the author Gail_Curran
      I'd call that fraud, and certainly nothing to admire. But what do I know?

      .
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      • Profile picture of the author theultimate1
        Originally Posted by Gail_Curran View Post

        I'd call that fraud, and certainly nothing to admire. But what do I know?

        .
        Gail, if you have a taste for dark comedy, you're going to have a wide, evil grin on your face accompanied with laughter on his "smarts" here. Trust me, I'm having that moment right now

        @Suzanne: Thanks for the laugh. This is going as my Facebook status. Too bad I'm not connected to you there, else I'd have given credit to you for sharing this. Thanks again
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  • Profile picture of the author AnneE
    I'm a programmer and a few of us have joked about doing this. The part that wouldn't work at our jobs is there is a fair amount of communication required -- attending meetings, documenting what you have produced, spelling out requirements.

    And the part that would be the most fraudulant, is not having someone else do your work, but giving an unauthorized, foreign programmer access to potentially confidential or proprietary information. This is why around our office, this is just a joke.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by AnneE View Post

      I'm a programmer and a few of us have joked about doing this. The part that wouldn't work at our jobs is there is a fair amount of communication required -- attending meetings, documenting what you have produced, spelling out requirements.

      And the part that would be the most fraudulant, is not having someone else do your work, but giving an unauthorized, foreign programmer access to potentially confidential or proprietary information. This is why around our office, this is just a joke.
      Yeah ... I had a very lucrative job as web developer with a company but it involved a lot of meetings, even though I could do all the work from home.

      The security is the biggest problem with this. Giving access to a foreign, unauthorized company to the company server.

      The news story made me laugh though. I would have never thought of doing something like this. The company admits that "he" was the most productive programmer at the company. Maybe they should consider hiring the Chinese firm now.
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  • Profile picture of the author SFitzpatrick
    I don't have a real problem with it, it's basic arbitrage and a valid way to make money. However, he would have been better off creating a small business and working as a contractor, then subcontracting the work out. Then it's clean and not in any way deceitful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Des Lau
    ...it's only illegal if you get caught
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Anton
    I hit the thanks button but wanted to say you made my morning . This guy reminds me of the movie Office Space, because I'm sure he didn't give a care in the world throughout the work day, haha. He's smart for outsourcing but not if there is sensitive information at stake as others have stated. Some things need to stay inhouse.
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  • Profile picture of the author challanger
    Nice way to earn more and more.. but if that person has been outsourced and he is outsourcing that work to someone else.....

    than there is not harm in this
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  • Profile picture of the author time4vps
    Best life hack that I know . Smart.
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  • Profile picture of the author denysapu
    Yep! It's very interesting fact. Just read it (and wondering) today.
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  • Profile picture of the author Yogini
    I guess this works best for self-employment. There was a Seinfeld episode where George did very little work, but what he did to cover it up was to always look angry and to make verbal exclamations of frustration. He claimed this makes someone think you are working hard and being productive. (Obviously though with the US programmer he actually was getting a lot accomplished via his "team").

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  • Profile picture of the author ratracegrad
    Sounds like what Tim Ferris did in 4 Hour Workweek. I love the creativity and thinking outside the box that he was able to do this. I do have a concern with the security issue especially giving it to the Chinese. If he just let them create the work and then sent it to him for him to review and submit then what is the harm. The company paid him to produce work and the work was produced. Now if he had Chinese submit work without ever reviewing it yourself and not knowing what is being done in your name then that is risky.
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  • Profile picture of the author Freddie Worrall
    Brilliant, wish i'd thought of this when I had a 'job'.

    They asked him to produce results and that he did. Good man.
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  • Profile picture of the author Martin Salter
    LOL, saw this in a news feed this morning as well.. The guy did not come clean until they showed evidence in terms of invoices showing his past few years billing...

    He said if he had been smarter, he could of set up a terminal at home then piped it in to the office via a proxy so it looked like he just did the work from home!!! There is a video on the ABC site about it..

    U.S. Software Developer Busted by Employer for Outsourcing His Job to China - ABC News

    Crazy story though!
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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      Originally Posted by Martin Salter View Post

      LOL, saw this in a news feed this morning as well.. The guy did not come clean until they showed evidence in terms of invoices showing his past few years billing...

      He said if he had been smarter, he could of set up a terminal at home then piped it in to the office via a proxy so it looked like he just did the work from home!!! There is a video on the ABC site about it..

      U.S. Software Developer Busted by Employer for Outsourcing His Job to China - ABC News

      Crazy story though!
      Yeah, if I were to pull a stunt like this, I would have sent them the docs they needed and had them give me the product remotely to my own computer or a file locker like dropbox or something to deliver myself. Would cut into his "cat video" time, but he might still be working if he'd done that.

      There's still a security issue with distributing company docs to a Chinese firm without authorization that I'm sure the company would take issue with.

      Didn't anyone at work notice him just cruising the Net all the time?
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  • Profile picture of the author ttenner
    Brilliant - Marvellous ... however as is being said it would be better if he was a contractor and then sub-contracting to offshore staff.

    On the other hand ... pretty boring life .. surfing Reddit / Facebook etc
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by ttenner View Post

      Brilliant - Marvellous ... however as is being said it would be better if he was a contractor and then sub-contracting to offshore staff.

      On the other hand ... pretty boring life .. surfing Reddit / Facebook etc
      Yeah ... I'd call him an out of the box thinker and creative, but definitely wouldn't call him an over-achiever.
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  • Profile picture of the author napoleonfirst
    That thing is old, that is the same thing many big firms do, they outsource their job to China and third world countries for a fraction of the cost.
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  • Profile picture of the author Maecenas23
    It's not a fraud from my point of view as long as the programmer is checking the work did by the chinese and offers the work perfectly to the people who employed him.

    I have a construction company and after I won an auction, I sub-contract some of the work to smaller companies. If the results is perfect, the ones who pay are not really interested who did the work. They want to know who to speak with in case problems appear.
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    • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
      Originally Posted by Maecenas23 View Post

      It's not a fraud from my point of view as long as the programmer is checking the work did by the chinese and offers the work perfectly to the people who employed him.

      I have a construction company and after I won an auction, I sub-contract some of the work to smaller companies. If the results is perfect, the ones who pay are not really interested who did the work. They want to know who to speak with in case problems appear.
      I disagree - if your client was hiring you, and you gave the impression that you would be doing all the work personally (ie - just yourself) then it would be wrong to use others.

      To me it's a question of perception. He was being paid to do the work himself and that was what his employers believed he was doing.

      He shot himself in the foot. If he'd said right from the outset that he was going to project manage a team of outsourcers then he would probably have been seen as a brilliant project manager and gifted at choosing the right people for his team.

      Pretending to be something you aren't is usually a bad idea!
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  • Profile picture of the author J. P.
    I loved the story about this guy. I would say that if he's smart enough to outsource the tasks, he ought to be smart enough to protect his employer from getting hacked in any way. I have a feeling that he's going to get a book deal out of his experience, because this is an absolutely viral story of the coolest kind.
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  • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
    I need to be more careful of who I hire for my moonshine business. Who knows? There could easily be several hundred drunk Chinese running (wobbling) around over there now giving away my secret recipe.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pixel Minisite
    I don't know if I should call him smart or cheater, probably both lol
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeTucker
    Hmm... Was this real? I thought it was a joke from the movie/series "Outsourced"?
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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      Originally Posted by MikeTucker View Post

      Hmm... Was this real? I thought it was a joke from the movie/series "Outsourced"?
      No. It's real. It's in the news by several media companies.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeTucker
    Yeah but these days, the media doesn't really do any
    of its due diligence. In any case, real or not, it's
    pretty funny.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      It may or may not be fraud, but I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut it violated his employment agreement with his company. Any job I've ever had that dealt with any kind of sensitive information included a non-disclosure agreement. Sharing that information with an outside company, Chinese or otherwise, violates that agreement.

      It may not be ethical, legal or admirable, but as the noted philospher Larry the Cable Guy is wont to say...

      "I don't care who you are, that's funny!"
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  • Profile picture of the author aceshigh888
    hmmmm sounds like a guy I know. The crazy cat obsessed nerd from a IM meeting I go to.
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  • Profile picture of the author brentb
    Thanks for bringing this to my attention sbucciarel! Funny and interesting...
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  • Profile picture of the author JackyDaniels
    That guy is awesome, and if i was his Boss i would promote him because he is genius. Or maybe fire him and outsource my whole business, lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    Haha.

    If he had only relayed the functional requirements to the Chinese he would still be collecting a nice check.

    (He only got caught when a network admin noticed foreign traffic in their internal server).

    How much do you want to bet the company outsources their next programming job? Muahahaha

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