Developer Bob - Outsourcing Your Job

Have you heard of Developer Bob? He's the guy whose story Iain Thomson broke on 16 January 2013 in the UK's Register, reporting on the 2012 security audit of a US 'critical' infrastructure company. The audit found that the firm's top performing coder had "outsourced his own job to a Chinese subcontractor" (Thomson, 2013).

He was found out by a check of the company's VPN logs (Virtual Private Network), pinging up a "regular series of logins to the company's main server from Shenyang, China, using [Bob's] credentials". The IT gurus thought that Bob's PC had been co-opted by a hacker or was being set up for a 'zero day malware' attack, and were worried. They didn't suspect Bob, but got permission watch and monitor Bob's activity so as to catch the ghost in their system (Thomson, 2013).

Boy, was everyone surprised! Thomson reported that the IT guys discovered that Bob had "hired a software consultancy in Shenyang to do his programming work for him, and had FedExed them his two-factor authentication token so they could log into his account. He was paying them a fifth of his six-figure salary to do the work and spent the rest of his time on other activities" (2013).

Some deeper digging turned up that Bob was not only doing this work for this employer: he had taken jobs with other companies, cranking out a very nice income for himself indeed. But what caught the public imagination was when the company eventually pieced together Bob's 'typical' day at work: "9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos 11:30 a.m. – Take lunch 1:00 p.m. – Ebay time 2:00-ish p.m – Facebook updates, LinkedIn 4:30 p.m. – End-of-day update e-mail to management 5:00 p.m. – Go home" (Thomson, 2013). The cat videos have sparked a lot of online me-too comments, articles and blog posts.

Nice work if you can get it, eh. Unfortunately Bob isn't getting it any more. He is no longer with the company.

Interestingly, many people seem to feel that Developer Bob is a Robin Hood character. David Futrelle reported for Time on 18 January 2013 that many people in the US were wishing they had done what Bob had; "fantasizing about outsourcing [their] own job". He went on to relate what Arden, a commenter on Gawker (an online media and blog site), had said: "So when a corporation outsources your job, it’s just Capitalism and sorry but that’s how things work, get used to it. But when YOU outsource your OWN job, well that’s wrong and bad and you’re fired now and you shouldn’t be lazy. Smell that? That’s the smell of good old fashioned American Hypocrisy" (Futrelle, 2013).

Futrelle went on to say that "every company who outsources jobs to foreign workers who are willing to work for less is doing" the same (2013). However, he also pointed out that the difference between a company outsourcing tasks and Bob's endeavours; that when companies outsource work, the shareholders - sometimes - get the benefit. Bob got the outsourcing benefits himself, not passing those benefits on (2013).

But perhaps Bob's consistently high performance achievements (Thomson, 2013) gave others in the organisation something to strive for. At least he will have lots of time to update his LinkedIn profile now, and to catch up on all those cat videos.


Sam

References:

• Futrelle, D. (18 January 2013). Developer Bob and His Illicit Work-Around: What’s Wrong With Outsourcing Your Own Job to China? Time (Business & Money). http://business.time.com/2013/01/18/developer-bob-and-his-illicit-work-around-whats-wrong-with-outsourcing-your-own-job-to-china/
• Quan, K. (17 January 2013). Business Developer Outsources Job to China so He Can Watch Cat Videos. Time. http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/17/developer-outsources-job-to-china-so-he-can-watch-cat-videos/
• Thomson, I. (16 January 2013). Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work. The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/16/developer_oursources_job_china/

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Newsletter Issue 230, February 2013

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 230, February 2013

Hi guys,

Have you used an EQ test? What did you think about it? Did you rely on some EQ results to hire someone? Well, you might want to re-examine the results for accuracy. Check out A bit of a 'hmm' for Emotional Intelligence below.

Have you accidentally Shared Your Contacts with Facebook? Read on if you would like to know how to unshare them. 

Two TechRepublic Tips   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

 

A bit of a 'hmm' for Emotional Intelligence

I am sure all of you know what IQ is: hopefully you have all also heard of EQ. This is our measure of emotional intelligence - EI - capacity (potential) which, along with our current levels of skill (competence) is what gets measured in an EI test, and gives us an EQ score. EI is "the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (Mayer, Salovey & Brackett, 2004, p. 1961).

The most popular forms of EI assessments are Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Goleman's Model and the Bar-On model.

However, a number of researchers think that EQ results are not reliable enough for workplace use yet, so we shouldn't be using EQ as a selection or professional development tool or relying on the results of such tests. Among those raising concerns is Professor Wildermuth from the US Centre for Applied Cognitive Studies, who says that she has "not seen a consensus on the validity of the instruments" or agreement on what EQ is defined as. Because of that, she thinks that EI test results can be "somewhat dangerous" (HR Daily, 2012).

Instead, Professor Wildermuth suggests HR professionals focus on candidate EI ability not traits, saying "traits are unlikely to be changed in adult years [and] Trying to transform somebody who is more challenging [into] a person who is more agreeable is probably an exercise in futility" (HR Daily, 2012). Haven't we all run into our own traits resurfacing at the least convenient and most telling moments!

Professor Wildermuth feels EQ testing can be too subjective, rely on the context of culture and belief, and, because most of the tests are self-reported, suspects that results are easy to fake; that we wear our 'best' persona when answering.

Some academics believe that competencies should be measured by others, avoiding self-report tests altogether. Professor Wildermuth says "One argument for that is that we are terrible at assessing our own competencies, [and] that our assessments... correlate weakly with assessments made by others", citing research where 94% of US college professors think their work is "above average" and the bottom quartile of college students think they are actually above average. "So if we're measuring emotional intelligence specifically, is it reasonable for us to expect somebody who is low in emotional intelligence to be emotionally aware [of their] weakness? The person who is the lowest in emotional intelligence is unlikely to be accurate in the test and therefore the results are not going to be right" (HR Daily, 2012).

References:

• HR Daily (29 October 2012). EI assessments "should be avoided" in selection: Academic. Retrieved 2 January 2013 from http://www.hrdaily.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&nav=1&selkey=2392
• Mayer, John D.; Salovey, Peter & Brackett, Marc A. (2004). Emotional Intelligence: Key Readings on the Mayer and Salovey Model. USA: National Professional Resources Inc.
• If you would like to listen to Professor Wildermuth, go to her webinar at http://vimeo.com/51543193#at=0 or read more at http://www.theeffectivenessgroup.com/traits-or-intelligence.html. If you are interested in the Big Five Personality tests, check out Cris Wildermuth's page at http://www.thebigfiveplace.com/ and http://www.criswildermuth.com/current-projects/the-big-five-group/ or Berkley's personality lab at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~johnlab/bigfive.htm

Sharing Contacts with Facebook

If you have been plagued by someone constantly emailing you, asking to join them on Facebook, chances are, that person innocently ticked a box, asking them if they would like to 'share their contacts'.

Facebook then sucks up all the contacts, and for all of those who aren't yet your friends, bombards them with invitations. Your clients, acquaintances, friends and even your dentist are likely to get a bit miffed.

The difficulty is that this function is incredibly well hidden, so disabling it becomes one of those circular "Argh!" chores. However, I have a fix for you. Go to https://www.facebook.com/contact_importer/remove_uploads.php and click the remove button.

And go out of your way to NOT share your contacts on any other social media platforms.

Two TechRepublic Tips

TechRepublic's Susan Harkins recently posted 'a year in review' article which contained two rather good tips sent in by readers:

• Quickly remove Word table borders Users learned how to change Word’s table defaults in Change Word’s default table properties to suit the way you work. By changing the defaults borders and other properties, you can reduce a lot of tweaking when you create new tables. Cal Wilson shared a shortcut for removing table borders: press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+u.
• A quicker way to select an Excel data range In A quick way to select an Excel data range, I reviewed using [Ctrl]+[Shift]+8 to select the current data range. Mvdarend suggested using [Ctrl]+a, instead and it does work, sometimes. If you click a cell inside the data range or adjacent to the data range, [Ctrl]+a selects the data range instead of everything. When selecting an adjacent cell, [Ctrl]+a adds the adjacent row and/or column to the selection.

They are both just great, and save so much time!

 

Reference: Harkins, Susan (7 January 2013). Four things I learned from readers in 2012. USA: TechRepublic. Retrieved 10 January 2013 from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/four-things-i-learned-from-readers-in-2012/7085?tag=nl.e064&s_cid=e064

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for you:

• EI, Emotional Intelligence. The ability to identify, assess and control one's emotions, and to understand the emotions of others and of groups.
• EQ, Emotional Intelligence Quotient. An index or measurement of the amount of emotional intelligence the test subject possesses at the time of the test
• IQ, Intelligence Quotient. A score derived from a standardised tests designed to assess intelligence that a test subject possesses at the time of the test.

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

In this newsletter, we look at Save shortcuts:

• Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word "Save" Shift & F12
• Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word "Display Save As dialogue box" F12
• Access, Excel, Frontpage, IE, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Word "Save the active file" Ctrl & S
• Windows "Open the Save dialog box (You also can choose the Save command from the File menu)" Ctrl & S
• Access, Excel, PowerPoint "Display Save As dialog box" Alt & F2
• Outlook "Save, close and Send when in an email message, or go to Sent Mail" Alt & S

Hot Linx

Some sociologists are predicting that our population will continue to age, and it will become a global phenomenon. Check out the US taskforce's intro to this issue at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZOA1v4-2Fos

How much benefit do developers gain from crapware? Check out the attached articles to find out at http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/ and http://www.zdnet.com/why-does-crapware-still-exist-follow-the-silicon-valley-money-trail-7000009830/?s_cid=e064

For sports people looking for that first elusive position after their degree, check out some great advice from an expert, Howard Gauthier, at http://sportscareersinstitute.wordpress.com

Check out the consumer predictions of Dutch marketing gurus, Trendwatching, for the coming year at http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/10trends2013/

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 230, February 2013"

Seven Tips for a Healthier & Safer PC

With the new year upon us, the change of season usually prompts us to think about health in all matters. That also means thinking about running through a few health checks on your PC to ensure its WOF is up to date.

My suggested list of maintenance checks, largely thanks to WindowsSecrets, are:

1. Backup your data REGULARLY. Download Microsoft's SyncToy 2.0 from http://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=15155, set up folder pairs with your removable hard drive and regularly run (weekly is generally recommended).
2. Temp files. Delete all your temp files. This is really easy - go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-nz/windows-vista/delete-files-using-disk-cleanup and follow the instructions.
3. Empty Recycle Bin. Clean out the rubbish from time to time. Makes the house smell fresh :-)
4. Defrag. defragging is still good maintenance in all versions of Windows - run it after you have done the first three steps. Windows defragmentation utility — defrag.exe — is adequate in XP, moderately good in Vista, and more refined in Win7. Vista’s and Win7's Task Scheduler automatically runs defrag.exe weekly during system-idle times, determining whether defragging is needed by estimating the percentage of fragmented files. If fragmentation is low, it skips 'til the next week. A percentage in the high single digits or greater should trigger automatic defragging. However, you can verify that it’s working properly by entering defrag.exe in the search field above the start button in Windows 7.
5. Antivirus. AVG is still a great free piece of anti-virus software for private use. Download it from http://download.cnet.com/AVG-AntiVirus-Free-2013/3000-2239_4-10320142.html. Ensure you download all the updates, and run it regularly. I have used this on my home PC for fifteen years without one single infection.
6. Malware. Windows Defender Offline (WDO) for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 & 8. Download at http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/pc-security/mse.aspx. WDO is Microsoft's most powerful anti-malware consumer tool. It's a self-contained, downloadable utility that operates completely outside Windows. After you've downloaded and launched, it swill walk you through creating bootable media (from a CD, DVD, flash drive, etc.) and installing the WDO files. You then restart the PC with the bootable disc/drive. Because WDO is both operating system and AV scanner, neither the Windows installed on the system hard drive nor any other software is active. Everything on the hard drive is effectively inert. This lets WDO detect malware that is in one way or another well hidden in the Windows system. Because it's completely standalone, WDO can't conflict with other security tools you normally use. Scan regularly.
7. More Malware. Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7 (or go for "Windows Defender" - not "offline' if you have Windows 8). Download at http://windows.microsoft.com/is-is/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline. Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is Microsoft's all-in-one, consumer-security tool. It targets both types of malware - malicious software and potentially unwanted software. It's a free download (site) for XP, Vista, and Windows 7. MSE provides always-on, real-time protection for your PC. It detects and removes a wide range of malware. It's also highly automated, operating with little or no user intervention. Do nothing aside from checking for updates from time to time.

That lot should keep your computing fit and healthy until spring!

Thanks to Windows Secrets for a lot of this information. Go to https://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/microsofts-six-free-desktop-security-tools/ and https://windowssecrets.com/best-software/a-windows-system-that-never-needs-defragging/ to read Window's Secret's original updates.

read more "Seven Tips for a Healthier & Safer PC"