Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Most Brilliant Idea Of The Day

An unidentified US software developer known only as Bob has recently been fired from his six figure job. The reason? Well he did surf the internet all day and watch cat videos. Who does not love a great cat video? Surprisingly though it was not those things that got him fired. No, it turns out the man had outsourced his own job to China and paid the company there a fraction of what he earned in the US. This is brilliant. Unfortunately for him, Verizon, who handles the company's internet noticed that someone from China was always logging on to the system and an investigation was begun and the developer lost his job. Bob was considered the best developer in the building. That's right. He did this while working from an office. Typical day for Bob:


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

55 comments:

Amber said...

Verizon are a bunch of snitches!

Anonymous said...

What's the problem? The job was getting done wasn't it?

VIPblonde said...

It's a real life Office Space!!!! I wonder if he went to Chotchkie's for lunch everyday?

daqueenbee said...

Doesn't everyone outsource jobs to china? What's the problem?

Karen said...

@Amber, RIGHT?!

Unknown said...

actually, this is kind of impressive, in a weird way.

MISCH said...

Oh man what party poops ...

Anonymous said...

One more reason never to deal with Verizon again.....

MM said...

This guy's a genius!

Anonymous said...

Ingenious!

Sugar said...

Snitches get stitches.

Korry said...

That's genius. The man should have been promoted

prolixe said...

Dang!

You did forget 10AM - 11.15 - stalk CDaN.

Agent**It said...

Welcome to corporate USA. Happens all day long,unless you make under 50k. If under 50k, you are monitored by your pee pee time. And if you pee too much, your job gets outsourced. We had a VP get fired for selling on EBay 75% of the day. She made 250k, but it took "we" (the anon corporate workers united) to get her fired by 'following' her on line on EBAY and reporting her to HR with the details. It was fun...

Seachica said...

Anyone have the number of the Chinese company? Hmmmm

Anonymous said...

I'm with Sugar on this. No snitching!

JSierra said...

Sounds like my kind of job right there.

If he was smart enough to find someone in China, train them or instruct them on what to do, paid them, monitored them, and managed a team member on the other side of the world, he totally should have been able to keep his job.

Bleu said...

I thought I saw somewhere that this wasn't the only coding job he held -- he was able to hold coding jobs with other companies working remotely, which he also outsourced, bringing in hundreds of thousands a year.

Christopher Cruz said...

It's usually India, according to this crappy book I read last year.

a non a miss said...

That schedule is a lot like mine! I do about 15 minutes of actual work a day, and play on my phone for the rest of the time. Don't worry, i have a second job that I genuinely have to do work at.

littlejenny said...

I hope he invested those six figures well. and I also hope he is not able to collect unemployment, bc we all know who has to pay for that...

Sarah said...

I am impressed but appalled

Anonymous said...

The fired him, but kept the guy in China still doing his job. (probably)

auntliddy said...

Or his company should hire and pay that guy. This is cheating folks, not cool. He shld have to give his money to people/person who really did his job.

auntliddy said...

This is cheating to me, nothing brillant or cool about it. He shld be made to give his money to the persons who actually did the work. Ifvhe was upgront about this, fine. But to take credit for someone else's work is unethical. And wrong.

mamabot said...

That was going to be my contribution to the discussion! :)

This is one of the funniest stories I've read in a long time. I wonder how many others outsource their jobs?

mamabot said...

That was going to be my contribution to the discussion! :)

This is one of the funniest stories I've read in a long time. I wonder how many others outsource their jobs?

Anonymous said...

Eh, that's pretty much my day too, endless CDAN commenting, with some paperwork, five or so phone calls, and making coffee. Get here at 7am Then go home at 2pm! Thank goodness for www.icanhascheezburger.com! I'm not paid much, but at least it's not minimum wage.

Alicia said...

That's awesome. I needed this laugh desperately this morning.

Mama June said...

Lol, I immediately thought of Office Space!

RocketQueen said...

I read this yesterday and it put a huge grin on my face. What was the worst that could happen? He'd get fired and move on to another job. Pfft...if I could I would!

Sherry said...

I wondered what half my office did! Now we know. Seriously software is the most passive job. I can understand how this happened.

skimpymist said...

Am I the only one who doesn't get what happened here.

MAC said...

Look for his company to fire a bunch of people and outsource their jobs now. I've often thought about "outsourcing" my filing, lol.

jax said...

let's see how many get all "ethical and moral" while surfing CDAN all day.

if it's not your business keep it movin. I really don't care what people do all day or how much they make. If you job is done and done well then that is all that matters.
Ratting someone out and getting them fired...ya sounds "fun."

Last place I worked fired someone for snooping and doing exactly that. He ended up getting fired for creating trust issues among the employees.

timebob said...

It's always feast and famine with my job either im completely slammed or i'm patiently waiting for Enty to post his next story and I can comment on it which A. makes me look like i'm working and B. I force my thoughts on everyone. It's a win win for me.

Honestly being busy just makes the day go faster. You can only post so many pictures of your lunch on facebook so many times.

But hey, he worked the system the work got done, he paid the person a wage and he get mgmt up to date on status.

I heard a story once of a guy who worked for a company for 30 or so years and after he retired they realized he actually did nothing. He had fallen through the HR cracks and reported to no one, had not assigned work to do. He did his own reviews and kept getting raises. My hero!

FrenchGirl said...

i don't tweet or go to facebook or go on internet when i'm at work ! but i have a real job,me!

for me,it's cheating! it's not smart,it's idiot! when all your jobs will be in China or India,don't cry because there is no job in USA!

i also guess it's an Enty day!

Unknown said...

I actually have the same problem, timebob.

A few weeks ago I put in 75+ hours and last week was over 50. This week I'm largely telecommuting, cleaning up our online files, and texting my boss complaints about how the stupid gun in World of Warcraft's Looking For Raid still hasn't dropped for my hunter. :-(

Eeekalicious said...

He sounds like a smartass. It was not his call to outsource. The company hired him, not someone overseas. It's arrogant and dishonest.

SashaJames2 said...

The guy is a genius, wish I could pick his brain and get some good business ideas.

Kloie said...

Maybe he should get a job as an efficiency consultant. It's always okay when the company hires those, but I guess it is not okay when the employee unilaterally initiates the efficiency?

auntliddy said...

If he wants to do that fine. Either open your own business or tell bisses what youre doing.

Mango said...

I had lunch at Chotchkie's yesterday and my server wore only the minimum pieces of flair. I was bummed.


All about Eve said...

i don't tweet or go to facebook or go on internet when i'm at work ! but i have a real job,me!

for me,it's cheating! it's not smart,it's idiot! when all your jobs will be in China or India,don't cry because there is no job in USA!

Lmao at this!

Del Riser said...

I think this is akin to watching "The Sting" or some other great con, you know it's not what the company intended, but it's still fascinating.

The guy is clearly smart, I'm sure he'll think of something.

TracySwingKid said...

Puleeze. There isn't a job that I have worked where someone doesn't try to get me to do their job at some point, and it's always the biggest slackers. At least he paid them for it.

feraltart said...

I do not need to be at my job full-time. I have told my boss this, have offered to work reduced hours, he is happy for me to be getting paid to 1) practice my line dancing, 2) surf the Internet on my phone, 3) read my kindle, 4) do my puzzle book. I do my work, but I can do it with one eye closed & one hand tied behind my back. I also pay bills & meet people for lunch (not all the time). I counter this by using my car for work, but I can claim that on my tax. Is it my fault the boss keeps me full-time? I am not so stupid as to look a gift horse in the mouth & knock back money for gravy.

BabysitMe said...

Snitches end up in ditches

allthesun said...

So, my ex husband did this (I only found out later) after he read The Tipping Point I think, but he outsourced to India...one of the many things that made him such an epic loser.

Agent**It said...

Figures some would support cheating.
I am amused by faux outrage yet saddened by middle aged bitterness.










Zeeky_Boogy_Doog said...

The problem I have with this is an unauthorized person has access to Verizon's data. They have no agreement with Verizon -- they could sell info to competitors, or write software that could possibly steal customers' personal info.

It also makes me mad because everywhere I've ever worked, if I was idle for like 10 seconds, I'd get into trouble. And I wasn't paid anywhere near what this Verizon guy was.

Henriette said...

He really understood the concept of the 4-Hour Work Week. Why fire the guy for being smart?

Lelaina Pierce said...

This guy is a lazy genius. Hey, he was just working smarter!

stigs84 said...

At my last job, business was slow & no one ever monitored what I was doing so they paid my salary in 2009 to literally sleep at my desk for the whole year. I got paid to do nothing. It was soul drainingly boring tho, I couldn't take it anymore & quit for the job I have now where I'm watched like a hawk & am just constantly, constantly working for 12 hrs a day except for little 15 min breaks here & there & a half hour lunch.

Idk what's worse, being really bored or being really busy

Snapdragon said...

The problem I have with this is an unauthorized person has access to Verizon's data.

Yes, though "Bob" didn't work for Verizon. The software company pulled in Verizon to help them figure out why "Bob" was showing as connecting in through VPN from China. They thought it was some kind of malware and that's when they found, after a forensic examination of "Bob"'s computer, PDF invoices from the Chinese company. (I read a more detailed version of this story elsewhere.)

In theory I don't think what he did was any different than what corporations do in higher quantity (and as a result are patted on the back as having 'good business sense'--which sucks) but he crossed the line when he FedExed, without authorization, his secure VPN token to China (so that they could connect in)... what a massive security breach.

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