Replaced by Outsourcing -- What's a Geek to Do?

SafariShane asks: "Yesterday I was fired from my position as 'Network Security Analyst' from a financial institution. I was pushed out by a 3rd party vendor, who labeled me the major security risk, after performing a 'vulnerability assessment.' At the time, I thought a vulnerability assessment of our network was a good idea, but in retrospect, it occurs to me that this company, who's other product is 'Outsourced Network Monitoring and Intrusion Detection' may pull this little trick everywhere they go. Has this happened to any other network security folks out there. Does anyone know if this is a common practice, and what's a geek to do if they find out a 3rd party assessment is on the way? If this happens again at another institution, should I just start polishing my resume right away?" Here's a question I always wish I could ask managers, whenever the topic of 'outsourcing' comes up: if dealing with programmers overseas is more appealing to the bottom line, why not let your programmers work from home for 50-80% of their current in-office pay? For those of you who feel the threat of Outsourcing breathing down your neck, what are you doing to try and stay in your current job, or even in this current market?

"Here comes the obligatory South Park reference:

1. Perform Network Vulnerability Assessment
2. ?
3. Profit! (Sell Outsourced product)

Looks like they came up with an actual step 2:

Label anyone who is responsible for network security as the risk, and get them fired.

I wouldn't even dream up the above situation, except that when the assessment was done, all results were hidden from me. The company presented the results not to the geeks that can interpret them, but directly to the executives that still think 'Clippy' is a great product.

I'll also note, because people will ask me anyway, if there were other problems. In my year on the job, there was only 1 network intrusion: Welchia, which was contained in twenty minutes. Anyone familiar with Welchia will know that it is no easy task. I was never reprimanded for anything. In fact, I received a 12.5% raise only two months ago for job performance.

I doubt what they did was illegal, but it's bad business at best. Here is a group of network security geeks, who get other network security geeks fired, so they can increase their bottom line.

I'd like to hear comments from folks this has happened to, and what did you do as a result?"

Comments

DUH

[akedia]

Move to India

Hack them from India.

[Perl-Pusher]

Find a hacker from India, tell him every root password you can remember, what OS's they use, everything you know about the company. And when they are at their knees, say I told you so and offer to fix it as a consultant for alot more than you would have been paid.

The world needs ditchdiggers too

[Anonymous Coward]

Beeeyoootch!

go get a job

[ghettoreb]

just a note, shouldn't you be out there looking for a job instead of posting on slashdot? not to be an ass, but it just struck me as odd...

Re:You were set up

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Counterpane.

Re:How to move to India?

[Glonoinha]

Honestly I think there are legal restrictions from Americans moving to India and working there. At least that is the anecdotal musings I have been led to believe.

IT in the USA is practically a dead end

[agslashdot]

Time to face up to the facts. If you are still working in IT, in the USA, its just a matter of time ( few months, maybe a year, maybe two ) before you are terminated from your job. There are people who tell you stuff like - if you are a really good programmer, you have nothing to worry. Balls! You could be a kernel hacker and you will be replaced. Lemme give you actual stats - every 365 days, 250,000 programmers are minted in Bangalore - and that's just one city. There's atleast 5 cities in India where the quantity & quality is comparable. Now, even if you think you are creme de la creme, you are uber hacker dude, you are the top 0.001% of the IT population, you can still be replaced by one of 0.001 * 250,000 = 250 Indian prgrammers. Plug in your percentage worth and do you own math, but the fact is this - I personally know of Indian programmers who code device drivers and hack assembly for a living at a fraction of the price they pay here in the US of A. We're not talking about "pick up VB in 14 day" type losers - there's a whole different breed out there and they WILL assimilate you - just a matter of time. You basically have 2 options - a. if you don't care about IT, you just want a job & a paycheck - then just switch careers. Pick a job that can't be outsourced - sales manager in local walmart, or a paralegal or a train driver or a ... b. if you MUST do IT for a living and nothing else - well, you can move to India and work as an expat. India has a whole bunch of foreigners working there on expat visas. economics is a noncompassionate science.

You are overpaid.

[jotaeleemeese]

If there are 1000 people willing to do the same for less then you are overpaid. You'll be crazy not to offer more for the same, accept less or move to a less saturated market.

There's nothing wrong with Capitalism...

[Chordonblue]

Sorry, Lenin you are wrong. The facts of the world have proved you wrong. Communism worked in one place - Paris... Until people started starving to death.

Humans are incompetent - most of them at most things. What's more, they're greedy bastards. This isn't necessarily evil, but it is inherant in our genes. What? Do you think that your capitalist boss isn't human, that's he's somehow SUPERHUMAN? He's just like you only with more power. Don't delude yourself man. Given enough money and power it would corrupt you as well.

Which leads to the fallacy of communism - that everyone will be happy with what they've got. I won't quote the whole song here, but Oingo Boingo's 'Capitalism' about sums up my attitude:

"There's nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask me I'll say it's just fine."

Have a link if you don't know the song:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/38962/Oingo_Bo in go/Capitalism/