A hilarious but greatly insightful article popped up as I was surfing LinkedIn the other day, not sure if you saw it…
U.S. Employee Outsourced His Job to China, Watched Cat Videos Instead (link)
What is so fascinating about this story is not so much that this “Bob” guy was just watching YouTube all day and getting away with it, or even that Verizon let this happen under their nose, its that this guy could be any developer at any company. Here he was getting great performance reviews, doing all that is asked of him, and the company is the one that misses the boat in being more efficient in their development process.
Imagine if Bob figures this “setup” out and fine tunes it to the extent of understanding managing a remote employee, and instead of reverting to laziness he actually approaches his boss. With his new found first-hand understanding of managing a remote developer he negotiates a deal putting him as a team lead over an entire team of remote developers (with a pay raise of course). The situation becomes a win-win, the company is able to leverage Bob’s new found skills as well as the skills of the remote team. More development is done more efficiently and each person is doing what they best.
Just a thought…
Mike Sudyk
Director of Marketing
LinkedIn page
