Re: Outsourcing

[HOLLAND -at- IPFWCVAX -dot- BITNET]

As the recipient (victim?) of several companies' occasional outsourcing, I
have special sympathy for contractors.  We're expected to learn various new
writing tools on our own time in some cases; we're expected almost always to
learn about the company's secret set of requirements and business rules
without "bothering" employees to gather this information; we're expected to
follow the company's unwritten style sheet.

. . . Now that I think of it, my main complaint is that WE'RE TREATED AS
BADLY AS EMPLOYEES ARE: The doc dept staff, too, has to put up with this
nonsense.

I do, however, have one pet contractor peeve: More than once, I've been
invited to submit a detailed proposal for a documentation job, only to find
that the work has NOT been contracted out--instead, employees (often
secretaries and engineers!) have been given a copy of my proposal and have
been told to follow the documentation plan I developed in preparing the
proposal.  In one case, I spent nearly a week reviewing source material and
interviewing developers and prospective users.  The resultant proposal
contained an elaborate outline of a full documentation set, sample formats,
and a list of sneaky tricks (or Great Ideas) I was prepared to deliver on.
My 6 days' work was given to a pair of secretaries to "implement."

Other than the obvious "Don't deal again with anybody so unethical," does
any of you people have any suggestions for handling such occurrences?

        Steve Hollander
        holland -at- cvax -dot- ipfw -dot- indiana -dot- edu