[CS-FSLUG] Jobs at Rackspace, tech "telework" in general

[Ed Dodds]

I realize this is off list topic but I saw a recent article where at
least some Indian support centers are experimenting with underwriting
MBA tuition expenses to deal with the employee churn rate due to the
inflation of wages. There either is or isn't a global tech worker
crunch going ( hard to figure given the US CS grad rate decrease ) and
it seems like C-Suites are throwing money down the HR whole to put up
hoops for folks to jump thru in order to take a gig in the US but
don't mind off shoring completely. I just don't get the dichotomy of
thought...

My real concern re: this list is related to my wife's work in
disabilities services ( UCP in NAshville ). In the US 70% of folks
with disabilities are unemployed -- the number one and two reasons
being the cost of accessible transportation to the work site and the
cost of health insurance. The catch 22 is that if you don't have a job
you can't afford insurance or the accessible van. If you don't have
your health, you can't get a job. Since a lot of these folks live in
rural areas with poorer healthcare systems to begin with ( and don't
even get me started on how many petro dollars we could save for better
use elsewhere if we cut out unnecessary commuting ) it seems weird to
me that more "church" techies don't take up the banner to promote this
theme given its self-enablement possibilities.

I step off my rant box...

On Nov 15, 2007 6:46 AM, Micah Yoder <yoderm at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just curious -- has your management ever considered sturcturing the work so
> > that at least some of these positions could be done remotely a la
> > culturerx.com ? I monitor the tech press re: the C-Suite complaints
> > regarding hiring tech workers and they all ( gross exaggeration ) seem  to
> > miss the point that the "relocate your family to another local -- often {
> > not in your case apparently } to a real estate market which isn't
> > supportable with typical tech salaries only to by outsourced when you
> > arrive" fear is a relevant factor in these decisions.
>
> I can't speak for management, but I don't think so.  Being on the
> phone with customers is a big part of it.  There's no inherent reason
> why it couldn't be done, in fact there is a VPN where you can work
> remotely if you need to (though I think the phone integration requires
> Windows).  But there's also the teamwork aspect.
>
> There's not too much to worry about in this case -- the company is
> growing like mad.  If you haven't heard, they bought an abandoned mall
> in San Antonio to relocate to, and have a bunch of new tax breaks
> contingent on hiring about 3000 more people in the next 5 years. :)
>
> Of course you may have heard about our datacenter outages this week.
> That was kind of nuts. :)  By far the biggest interruption in service
> the company has ever experienced.  There was a bit of fear as to how
> it would financially damage the company, and it obviously will to some
> extent.  But I think we came through it strong, showing customers what
> real service is all about.
>



-- 
Ed Dodds
Strategist, Systems Architect
<Conmergence />
facilitating convergence
dodds at conmergence.com
http://blog.conmergence.com