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From: mmk@netcom.com (Mark Kunichika)
Subject: Re: Jobs, etc.
Message-ID: <mmkCwKF0z.Jux@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <35a635$dpd@cesl.rutgers.edu> <Cw89nq.MKL@txnews.amd.com> <tms-190994135044@stambaugh.tiac.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 04:26:59 GMT
X-Original-Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Lines: 94

In article <tms-190994135044@stambaugh.tiac.net>,
Thomas M. Stambaugh <tms@stambaugh.com> wrote:
>In article <Cw89nq.MKL@txnews.amd.com>, charles.herrick@amd.com wrote:
>
>> prospective Smalltalk employers are anything but conservative.
>Most current Smalltalk activity is being driven by MIS and COBOL shops
>moving into client/server apps. These guys, and the organizations they
>belong to, are as conservative as they come.
Whether this is true or not, I'll agree that "these guys" are inexperienced
in client/server apps and have not yet had the time to develop elaborate
procedures and processes for developing such apps. Hmm. I guess we'll
just have to do what makes sense instead, too bad!

>
>> are you wanting to contract by the hour or for a fixed rate to complete
>> the project? If the former, I'd think you could answer your own 
>> question.
>Come on. No serious contractor whose livelihood depends on word-of-mouth is
>going to pad invoices that way.
I'll go with "few serious contractors," but not none.

>
>Do you have the same feelings about your accountant, lawyer, doctor,
>communications design firm, or auto mechanic?
Yes, accountability is important. I'd like to have some assurance that
the work done is worth the money I'm paying.

>
>> FYI, my experience with contractors is that it's not infrequent that
>> it's hard enough to keep them from working their own business 
>> over your phones while they're at your location...
I consider this irrelevant unless their on our long distance bill or
they don't get their work done.

>
>If you, as a customer, do the following, you'll avoid virtually all
>problems in this area:
>
>1. Work with and choose a Smalltalk contractor as you would any other higly
>compensated professional. Know what you want, and say what you know. Don't
>play games.
One problem here is given that the customer is unfamiliar with the
technology area, they often have a hard time articulating their needs.
They aren't playings games, they just don't know the rules.

>
>2. Ask for and follow up on references
This is what I've wondered about references: have you ever had one
slam the candidate? I mean, assuming the candidate has done _some_
good work for _someone_, references only show the _best_case_scenario_.

>
>3. Limit yourself to contractors with more than, say, two years of
>full-time independent existence, unless you already know them from other
>sources.
Why?

[snip]
>
>My experience in working on-site for most customers is that I work longer
>and harder than their own employees, I waste hours and hours of *their*
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I've found it a crapshoot, some contractors work longer and harder than
salaried employees (and get paid to do so, by the way), and some
employees work longer and harder than contractors (and generally
get paid less than those contractors)

>time (ie, money) dealing with *their* flaky infrastructure on *their*
>obsolete equipment, and I lose two or more hours a day commuting to their
>site to accomplish this feat.
Of course, there are the integration issues for delivered software
components. Also, we've used consultants to build reusable tools
for us, the ability to ask for and receive such tools/components
within a few hours is invaluable to the process of getting such
tools built and used rather than written from scratch every time.

[snip]
Of course, if OTI can deliver a distributed/WAN architecture for
Envy such that I don't have to do explicit import/export, and if
the contractor were to happen to have a compatible hardware/software
platform available for development, maybe we'll see more of 
Mr. Stambaugh's model for client/contractor interaction. Personally,
I think the move away from "build to spec" and towards team
software development makes telecommuting a less attractive alternative
than I once imagined it would be.

'nuff rambling,
Mark Kunichika

-- 
Mark Kunichika                                            mmk@netcom.com
Senior Consultant                                         (817) 967-6293
SABRE Decision Technologies                               (214) 380-8540
American Airlines         
      All opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of AA
