(IBM Mainframe Discussion List) wrote:
Nobody said anything about terrorism. Now you are making it very wide. The entire discussion so far has been about experience and, most importantly, COMPETENCY.
Some years back, IBM outsourced operations and system maintenance for their Poughkeepsie-based systems to Brazil. Because they have been our customer for decades, I had many opportunities to talk to and work with the Americans that did these jobs and have some basis for comparison with the people that do it now.
There is no comparison. The Americans were among the best system programmers I have ever known. It seemed like they knew *everything* about MVS and they taught me many useful things. (Sometimes I wonder if Mark Zelden trained there! ;-) )
The new people seemed to know almost nothing when they first started. They asked dumb support questions. (Q: In which proclib did we place your started task JCL? A: We don't know. Ask one of your colleagues.) At times we were teaching them how to do their jobs! These days, they're more self-sufficient than before, but still require some "hand holding".
From my limited contact, I would say a *significant* amount of in-depth z/OS expertise was lost during that transition. :-(
A business is free to move everything anywhere it wants (if legal), and can also hire only totally incompetent and unskilled workers, but then someone will have to train those workers and get them up to speed. If their employer won't do it, then the employer should be expected to suffer financially as a result of the incompetence of its management.
In big companies, decision-makers often move on to new positions before the problems resulting from their poor decisions have a chance to surface. A few years ago, IBM outsourced JES development from Poughkeepsie to India. Now *that* was a debacle!! After receiving the obligatory accolades and bonuses for a job well done, those responsible for that decision moved into other jobs -- where they presumably get to make new, bad decisions. Meanwhile, JES development has now been "in-sourced" back to Americans living in Rochester, MN. THANK GOD!
-- Edward E Jaffe Phoenix Software International, Inc 5200 W Century Blvd, Suite 800 Los Angeles, CA 90045 310-338-0400 x318 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
