Our Entire Department Just Got Fired

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insta-s-j@reddit

I am terrified of this happening to me! I just heard today that they are outsourcing support services at our very large healthcare organization. I don’t know what that means… is that the facilities department? Is that just the mechanics? Is that just the admin? It’s scary hearing this major rumor without any real context. I’m so sorry this happened to you! How did you cope with the news?? I would be devastated

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SpaceCryptographer@reddit

The outsourcing company uses you to get their team up to speed on your old company, and once the knowledge is transferred they cut you loose.

I would keep looking for a job regardless.

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dalgeek@reddit

Time to negotiate a ridiculous salary then save every penny until the second ax falls.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

Better yet, no one agree to join them, work together to find new jobs for everybody, and let the outsourcing company suffer in pain as they try to get up to speed while the management team yells at them that nothing is getting done in the timeframe they promised.

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signal_lost@reddit

Used to work for outsourced IT consultancy/MSP. People vastly over estimate:

How hard it is to reverse engineer key stuff that’s Following best practices… you did that RIGHT?
How much we would just slash/burn, migrate to new and stable the non-standard Janky old stuff. Management WOULD approve my capex.
How much the decision isn’t about saving money. It often was about speed, and frustration with ignoring business requests.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

You are undervaluing the domain specific knowledge that skilled in-house IT professionals bring to the table. For most small business or straight office businesses, MSPs can probably handle it just fine. Manufacturing, Engineering, etc. though? LOL I'd love to see an MSP actually try... Oh wait, I have, and they failed at the 6 month mark. A well known large local MSP couldn't hack it without the domain specific knowledge of the original IT team (and the original IT team didn't give them shit).

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Fatality@reddit

and the original IT team didn't give them shit

Sounds like a bad onboarding process, someone needs to go to the site and be sure knowledge is captured or that vendor support exists.

Unless it's a hyper specialized IBM mainframe then almost everything can be figured out by someone competent.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

The IT team quit as soon as they found out the MSP was coming in to replace them. Followed the off-boarding procedures on the way out, which included wiping the laptops after the OneDrive content was moved to a sharepoint library.

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MBILC@reddit

That then can also show a lack of proper documentation of the environment and upkeep if knowledge could not be transferred easily to a new company, or even a new hire...

We all keep tribal knowledge in our heads that never gets put down into documentation, or even updated documentation. Any proper MSP that comes in for a company, should be sure to have a transition period to review all required information and work with the exiting team.

While most on-prem teams will fight tooth and nail to not be helpful, they often just burn their own bridges in the end.

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Darkace911@reddit

Also, MSP documentation is the MSP's work product, it never goes back to the customer. Typically, they get handed a domain admin password and get wished "The Best of Luck to you"

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fromthevale@reddit

Depends on the customer and the relationship you have. This could be viewed as a “fuck you,” and give yourself a bad reputation.

We provide a lot of IT documentation for at least one of our clients - a decent amount of it almost exactly from our own documentation.

Should our client go to someone else, we would want the handoff to be professional and, to some degree, easy. Of course, you always want them to feel a LITTLE BIT like leaving you was the wrong choice…. But you’re still expected to make sure things are fully working and hand off ready.

Are you expected to teach the new MSP how to use a Microsoft product? No…. But I expect more than just “here’s an admin account, bye”

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MBILC@reddit

Dead on, the way I see it is if a client decides to go to another MSP, for what ever reason, or even brings things back in house, I am going to hand them everything I know on a silver platter and be as helpful as possible.

The people taking over, they should not be punished for what ever reason our MSP was let go. It also shows that you truly do care about the client and their success, which does leave the door open for those times when they do move to a new provider....and then realize the grass is not greener. They then look back at what a great transition we allowed and give us a call back....

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VosekVerlok@reddit

IP law has a lot to say regarding this, this is region depending of course (i work for a MSP in Canada).

1.) If you are on the clock for a client, anything and everything you produce (documentation, scripts and code etc..) are the client's IP, you cannot just copy if over to your internal repository and use it at a second clients. (dont get me wrong, this happens a lot, but it is theft and if the original client finds out, is bad news legally)

2.) If your MSP has something they developed in house, and uses for/with a client, that is the MSP's IP, and doesnt belong to the client.

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MBILC@reddit

This, there can be some serious legal frameworks around contracts for exactly this reason.

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MBILC@reddit

For any clients we have, all documentation is considered the property of the client which we write, since it is about their environments.

Yes, there may be internal processes and documentation used by the supporting teams they keep local, but the clients I work with, all documentation required for any supporting staff to use, are all hosted on the clients systems (SP or where ever they like) so they also have access to review and validate or suggest changes if needed. This keeps it centralised and also does look better for us if they do choose to move to another MSP - bam! all documentation is there already, go nuts...

Keep it transparent.

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signal_lost@reddit

Good people who helped us we tried to find other uses in house at the customer or would find them a new job at another client. I think I took a headhunting commission for Clark 3 times lol. Smart guy.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

You are aware that even with good documentation, a non-domain specific team might be unable to manage environments right? The needs and requirements for a manufacturing facility are VASTLY different than that of an office building. Want to push updates to an office building, do it at night while everyone is home no complaints. Want to push an update to the manufacturing facility? Fuck you, it's not happening unless the facility is shutdown for some completely unrelated reason, or whatever your updating/patching is so critical to security that not doing it will result in the company being offline in a few hours time.

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sliverednuts@reddit

I disagree with your comment MSP’s over in house team. Part of a team that got let go last year July. They said we will have your portal up and running in 6 months. Well nada it’s been a year and they have paid so far 1 Million and no portal. What we built by hand is still running and they can’t even understand the intricate details of the concept of proper development.

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signal_lost@reddit

In house IT guy “You see in order to provision a new server we don’t use DNS and instead update this spreadsheet and run this script and create a host file, and then SCP the host file to a TFTP server that the location is sent out to most of the servers using DHCP flags, ohhh and this process can only be done from the physical console of this box and we use DVORAK for the keyboard and….

Me That’s cool…. Ads project to setup and configure DNS to scope of the project and see if we can get Dan to do something else other than be a Human DNS server for 20 hours a week

Other IT guy: I have to manually balance the CPU and RAM resources on our Dell R710 VirtualIron cluster and delete the log files every night so the backups will finish

Me: cool, cool. Ads a VMware cluster with 5x the resources and Veeam to the project to replace this

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rainer_d@reddit

Well, the problem is that when you're squeezing lemons all day, you have to time to build something new.

And management often goes like "Why do you want to spend X so it basically does the same as now?".

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signal_lost@reddit

Good technical people are often really bad at “sales”.

Part of being a good outside consultant shop is being able to speak to management how the project will reduce risk, speed up business outcomes (grow revenues), or save money.

To explain this stuff well you need go understand the time value of money. Don’t tell the CFO “if you give me a million I’ll save us a million over 5 years!” When he has other projects that have 40% CAGRs.

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mtgguy999@reddit

In house IT guy: boss I need $200 for some more RAM do the server doesn’t crash tomorrow

Boss: sorry not in the budget make due without

Outsourced IT: client you need a new 10 million dollar data center

Boss: yeah whatever email me when it’s done

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UninvestedCuriosity@reddit

This was painful it's so true.

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signal_lost@reddit

I called this the magic consulting force Field sometimes I would even take the in-house IT people slide deck presentation of what they needed and just slap my logo on it. People forget a lot of consulting is just outsourcing blame for failure and making sure someone who’s talk to other people who’ve done it before are validating that a solution will actually work. For 250 bucks an I could de-risk any any decision.

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rolinrok@reddit

squeezing women’s that were 10 years old old

you mean 'lemons', right? ...right?

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signal_lost@reddit

I’m currently laughing like an idiot in a bar. Yes.

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StumblinBlind@reddit

I've managed several acquisitions and can confirm that point #2 is almost always our method. Usually, the private equity company we purchased has a painfully understaffed IT department, and huge technical debt, so we absorb their staff and deploy our standard solutions via a templatized 8–10 month project.

If I were managing an MSP, I could see myself following a very similar process.

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tekvoyant@reddit

so we absorb their staff and deploy our standard solutions via a templatized 8–10 month project.

A lot of ServiceNow partners do this. Their clients call me a year later to actually make their processes work based on the business and domain knowledge that was missing during the setup.

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StumblinBlind@reddit

I've never worked with ServiceNow , but I could see how a company focused purely on IT service could screw it up pretty bad.

We support about 60 factories and 100 offices divided into three divisions, so we're bringing them into existing, known good, processes from whatever they were doing before.

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FlibblesHexEyes@reddit

I would also argue that the true value of a skilled in-house IT team is that they tend to be very passionate about their work and the systems they manage, and have alot of organisation specific knowledge.

Which means when a new project or organisation initiative is started, the in-house teams can bring all that organisational knowledge together to cheaply and quickly come up with solid solutions.

It also means that when the inevitable happens, and something breaks - because they care about their systems they'll resolve the issue far faster than any outsourcer/MSP would.

I've worked on both sides of the fence, and the outsourcer would often re-invent the wheel when starting new projects, instead of leveraging something that is already there - because they simply didn't know about it and the client didn't convey that information because as non-technical people they simply didn't think about it.

Also when something breaks, the outsourcer is juggling issues with multiple clients and is often understaffed. So not only does your problem need an engineer who has to spend time to get up to speed learning your system, but your issue may be triaged below some other clients issue.

I've always argued that outsourcers/MSPs have their place - especially around small businesses or businesses where it doesn't make sense to have full time IT. But once a business or organisation transitions to more than a around 50 people, they really should start an in-house team.

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goingslowfast@reddit

Depends on the MSP.

I’ve worked for an MSP that specialized in engineering and had a solid background in manufacturing. As a result of that, we had team members skilled in the areas needed to come in and get up to speed quickly.

But you’re right that if the MSP has no OT experience that’s going to be a problem.

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signal_lost@reddit

We purposely avoided some verticals (Medicine and law) and for some stuff (CRM, ERP migrations) found good 3rd party shops who only did that

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Code-Useful@reddit

I work for a very domain-specific, niche MSP and can agree, we have a lot of clients that are told they could save money or otherwise try to test the waters elsewhere, and they nearly always come back within 3-6 months because of our concentration of niche knowledge, response time, and also we still allow time+materials clients.

And the word of mouth alone in our industry is enough to keep onboarding new clients constantly, that and trade shows.

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Solidus-Prime@reddit

Yep, have seen this exact situation multiple times in the manufacturing industry.

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Antnee83@reddit

It often was about speed, and frustration with ignoring business requests.

This part cracks me the fuck up, because in all my years of being in IT, I have never, not once seen a userbase happier with an MSP than in-house in this regard.

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signal_lost@reddit

Working at a MSP I also saw a lot of dysfunctional internal IT that was weirdly happy about their mess.

“Why would we want to move off Novel in the year 2014, AD isn’t as powerful!”

“We run blades and Infiniband for scale” (their scale, 20 VMs)

“We don’t use PoE it might catch the building on fire” -someone ordering 500 injectors and having an electrician add power all over the damn place

“No we don’t need a MSP to audit things” - Guy who’s had the cleaning tape stuck in the auto loader and failed backups for 18 months

Some of the largest airlines in the world hire 3rd parties to manage their .com website (and who do objectively good jobs at it).

Outsourcing and MSPs isn’t all glorified printer repair people deploying Somicwalls and running Commectwize

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Majik_Sheff@reddit

That last line beautifully illustrates just how far up their own asses the decision makers can be.

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signal_lost@reddit

Working as a consultant who did outsourced work, I several times did migrations in 72 hours in house IT said would take a year. Yall trying to pretend in house IT is omnipotent is wild. I look back at my times in house and there was tons I didn’t know or lacked perspective on because all I knew was my own environment.

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MidnightAdventurer@reddit

Running Kruger impacts everyone my dude

Just like autocorrect…

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signal_lost@reddit

Haha yes

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Majik_Sheff@reddit

You can't see it, but I'm offering you a high-five right now.

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TotallyNotIT@reddit

I've never had to take over for an internal team but have definitely been on the short side of this deal with exiting providers several times and you're absolutely right.

It really isn't that difficult to figure out what's going on in many environments. With any decent toolset, you can get the majority of an environment mapped out in a few days and, without fail, it was always full of garbage that we would end up ripping out.

As for your last point, we were usually more expensive than whoever we were replacing but we were also worlds ahead too. Money isn't the only answer, and isn't usually even the first answer, despite what the bitter masses want to believe.

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ludlology@reddit

Very accurate unless it's a larger organization. I can discover, document, and socialize to my team almost any SMB well enough to support within 20ish hours. Much less if they don't have a lot of infrastructure, more if they have a lot of apps and databases or an unusual amount of servers and complexity. Law firms and medical offices are more difficult because they always have a bunch of on-prem database LOB apps and those apps usually suck.

That time also includes onboarding, rolling out my management tools, etc. Most of the hard discovery work was already done during the assessment and scoping phase before we took the client over.

After that would come standardization projects to assimilate them in to our standard, and deeper onboarding+discovery.

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

Number 3 is why number 1 was a NO, and won't be when you do it either.

Cheap, Fast, Good. Pick 2.

MSP means you are already giving up Good from what I have seen for the last 20+ years.

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goingslowfast@reddit

There are premium MSPs that won’t cave on “good”.

When interviewing at an MSP, a trick to determining whether they are that type of MSP is to ask how many clients they’ve fired in the last couple years and why.

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signal_lost@reddit

There’s MSPs charging $10 an end user per month and then there’s ones charging $600. Different stacks, different SLAs different staffing levels.

The one I worked for also did didn’t do desktop support. We would hire staff augmentation if you really needed that but for the most part, we tried to leave the existing employees in place for that function. We would do managed VDI (which is never something you deployed to save money).

The reality is everyone outsources something. Most of you have outsourced managing a lot of exchange to Microsoft in the form of 365.

A lot of of you have outsourced telecom or SD-WA. or printers or something that you just don’t want to deal with that bullshit.

Even working for the MSP we didn’t want to own a data center, so we outsourced a lot of those elements to a co-location facility. well, we would manage it for some customers we in-house didn’t want to own BGP mixing our land handoff, and paid for blended transport.

We didn’t want to manage parts bins so we would outsource that to the OEM’s in the form of support agreement agreements.

Everyone who is saying in the industry outsources something pretending it’s this great evil and that it always means bad IT is the most unhinged opinion that I keep seeing on this subreddit.

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

I have never seen one, can you name one?

Firing clients doesn't mean much, even the losers lying to get H1Bs are doing that.

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sliverednuts@reddit

Exactly !!!!!

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Fatality@reddit

That doesn't happen, someone always takes the offer.

What one MSP I worked for did was to take over the contract then offer the existing staff half their salary to stay on. The sales guys used to laugh about it in the office.

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vppencilsharpening@reddit

You could do both. Take the job for now and play dumb.
"Someone else used to handle that"

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COMPUTER1313@reddit

"Oh we need to do something? Can we get a committee formed first to make a decision on it?"

Essentially copy from this 1944's pre-CIA "sabotage manual for the workplace": https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage/

Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, think of the worst boss you’ve had and act like that. Be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. When possible, refer all matters to committees for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible.

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Jesus_Chicken@reddit

This is the -10x engineer creating 10x the work for everyone else

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Icy_Builder_3469@reddit

I love this... I also suspect some of the people I deal with on a regular basis must have also read this, it's the only explanation for how stupid their are!

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Double_Fill_60@reddit

Do the bare minimum, and when tasked with something extra to do, mess it up in such an obtuse way they think you have a learning disability and they won't give you extra stuff to do.

Also *they are

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pertymoose@reddit

The CIA are everywhere! :tinfoil:

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DarsterDarinD@reddit

Why does this all sound so familiar????

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t3arlach@reddit

Good God, I live in a simulation of this work environment

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OwenWilsons_Nose@reddit

“Movie Theater Patrons: To ruin everyone’s time at the movies (without a cell phone, that is) bring in a paper bag filled with two or three dozen large moths. Open the bag and set it in an empty section of the theater. “The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows.”

Oh. My. God

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ShalomRPh@reddit

That one's worthy of George Hayduke.

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lochness350@reddit

dear god man - look at the date on that post

smh

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Sushigami@reddit

It arguably goes back even further - it's fairly well understood now that black slaves used to do as much of this as possible. Leading to accounts from white slaveowners about how "Stupid" black people kept standing around doing nothing and not understanding when told what to do : >

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COMPUTER1313@reddit

Lovely that didn't figure out that not treating people well and compensating them also means there's no incentive to work harder.

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ChairmanSunYatSen@reddit

Who was this guidebook aimed at? Reminds me of the British unions in the 70s, especially the ardent socialist aggitators.

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Scasne@reddit

Is this not just what your average civil servant does?

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Cmonlightmyire@reddit

Either my previous management were spies, or we have a problem

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Sad_Recommendation92@reddit

I used to think some of my co-workers just over complicate things and don't understand how to prioritize work.

But maybe they actually are the Rebel Alliance???

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MxtGxt@reddit

OMG I love that manual. I pull it out all the time when I have to deal with corporate bullshit, mismanaged professional societies, or standards organizations. Afterwards everyone ask me for a copy!

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Perpetually27@reddit

You're a shit admin if you've even achieved the actual roll. I feel bad for your systems.

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Commercial-Royal-988@reddit

OR: "Sorry, I signed an NDA with them. You'll have to contact them and their team."

THEN, when previous employer contacts you for information: "I'd love to consult for you, at 3x my previous rate."

Now your getting paid an extreme amount to teach yourself how to do your old job.

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v1ton0repdm@reddit

Then the prior employer issues a release to the outsourcing company that removes that excuse

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No_Investigator3369@reddit

This is genius and the most passive aggressive show walk of pulling your duck out on the conference table. At that point it's like what are you going to do? Fire me? I already took your pride.

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daniel8192@reddit

That’s the best answer! Of course you cannot reveal the practices and procedures of a former employer, NDA or not. ✅

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Fluffy-Queequeg@reddit

We had one Outsourcing company handling all our stuff, and they did a crap job so the contract was awarded to another Outsourcing company. The incoming company asked the outgoing company for all their SOP documentation and were promptly told that is all our IP, go write your own. All they got for handover was usernames and passwords. The handover coincided with an Azure migration as the original outsource company also owned all the hardware.

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bindermichi@reddit

That is usually how this goes. The outsourced provides and owns all the hardware they provide their services on. The system documentation belongs to whoever is stated as the the owner in your outsourcing contract. If you only bought services from the provider you have nothing in your hand.

The new outsourcing er should know that through… unless they are absolute clowns.

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Fluffy-Queequeg@reddit

The new outsourcing company is far better. The old company was just following their corporate guidelines which was “you bought a service from us, you don’t own any of the infrastructure or the documentation on running it”.

With the new arrangement, the infrastructure provider is separate to the operational provider, so in the future it’s much easier to switch provider. We still don’t get the SOP stuff, but any provider should already have that. I think the new provider was just trying to speed up the transition, but IMHO the SOPs from the old provider would have been useless anyway.

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Dekklin@reddit

Sounds like a total fustercluck

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-DG-_VendettaYT@reddit

Best reply ever! Take each and every upvote available 😆

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daniel8192@reddit

No idea how that happens. I upvoted and comment on his winning post and I get all the upvotes 🤪the Internet is a funny place.

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SandStorm1863@reddit

Winning strategy

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vhuk@reddit

On a much more serious note, if you have signed NDA you are still bound by it even if you join the company providing services to your previous employer. You should get them to release the NDA before you give out any information.

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Rentun@reddit

Literally every NDA has language that you're not allowed to disclose information outside of your company or an authorized party. The outsourcing agency would be an authorized party.

There's no way this would work.

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super_asshat@reddit

That works until your former employer provides a release for the NDA.

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Spaceshipsrsrsbzn@reddit

Holy hell that is absurdly based

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ItsMeDoodleBob@reddit

NDAs are dead in about a month

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justintime06@reddit

I'm wheezing

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Healthy_Ladder_6198@reddit

This is the way

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-DG-_VendettaYT@reddit

Love this!

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ruralexcursion@reddit

Ohhh you clever bastard! I like you!

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swan001@reddit

Brilliant

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ProofDelay3773@reddit

I like this lol.

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BigBatDaddy@reddit

I like this. If your team is large enough I'd say start your own gig. Market may be saturated but never too saturated for good people doing good work.

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NoradIV@reddit

Market is never saturated for competent people.

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listur65@reddit

Is there a good way on a resume to show I am competent without any certifications or official trainings? It feels like if you don't have the ones they list it doesn't matter what you know your app gets passed over.

I have been in my current position 10 years as a ISP sysadmin-ish type so I have a fairly broad knowledge of all systems, but unfortunately nothing that is cloud based which I think hurts as well.

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Drakoolya@reddit

Fix it. Get certified. It's not hard.

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TooManiEmails@reddit

But it is expensive, some companies think you are studying to leave (which you are) but they don't need to kow that!

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Drakoolya@reddit

Expensive? People invest in their businesses all the time why would you not invest in yourself? Why are you waiting on someone else to invest in you? Tell me with a straight face that you have not spent as much money or more on a Mobile phone or something frivolous.

There is so much free content on the internet that you can study it all for free and just pay for the exam.

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listur65@reddit

Unfortunately it's not that easy either, for me at least. Trying to study after hours by myself I have struggled with previously. I do much better with structured, instructor led courses, but then I have a time and money issue lol

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Drakoolya@reddit

First of all, view yourself as a Company all in itself and you contract your work to your company,Your are the CEO,CFO and CTO. You invest in yourself to make yourself invaluable to the industry that you are in, nothing comes easy. Surviving in the Industry for 10 years shows me that you are more than capable of learning on your own, what u lack is self-discipline. You can either make excuses for yourself or realize that instructor led courses are not what is keeping you from progressing.

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BarefootWoodworker@reddit

From someone who looks at resumes and hires:

Show that you know what you’re talking about. The best example I can give since I’m a network nerd is when people list every single fucking model of Cisco product they touch, I toss that resume.

Why?

Anyone that’s worked with Cisco gear knows the difference is IOS v IOS-XE v IOS-XR. Yea, the models have different capabilities. I don’t care about that. I’m looking for if you can configure the damned thing at all. For Windows, just put that you worked with Windows Server. For Linux, just list Linux and openrc v systemd.

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listur65@reddit

I appreciate this. I will have to look over my resume tonight and check some things out! I am sure I can add the systemd thing in to clarify, and same with IOS-XR. Thank you

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Geminii27@reddit

You showcase the things you accomplished or held down, the technologies you were using, and claim anything that the department did or was in that time that happened to use any IT system to support any of the people doing that thing.

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PartisanSaysWhat@reddit

Everyone you are competing against is embellishing, at least slightly. Act accordingly.

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RandallFlagg1@reddit

It is so often not the competent ones that get hired.

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occamsrzor@reddit

And to top it off; it’s typically not the competent ones interviewing either. And even if they are, it’s hard to judge the interviewees competence.

I do interviews. I’d like to think I’m competent, but admit it’s possible I’m an example of Dunning-Kruger. I’ve hired both competent and incompetent people. There have been incompetent that have fooled me. Is that a flaw with me? Solely them? Or a little from column A, a little from column B?

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k0mi55ar@reddit

The fact that you are considering a Column-A/Column-B possibility means you are fine, IMHO.

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occamsrzor@reddit

Thanks

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erm_what_@reddit

It's the ones that are competent at interviews, not at the job, that get hired

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Geminii27@reddit

Yup. Sucks to have great technical skills and sucky interview ones. The longest (and pretty damn good) job/career I ever had started with a non-interview. I probably couldn't get that same job these days because they switched to standard panels soon afterward.

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RandallFlagg1@reddit

Yeah, I forget that it is an actual skill until I have one and realize to me it is harder than the job.

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TheButtholeSurferz@reddit

Because the competent ones know their worth to the market. The market doesn't care about that, the market cares about getting just enough boxes checked to be compliant.

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RhymenoserousRex@reddit

as someone who's been hiring lately? yep. Market is saturated with dipshits though so that's something.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

So, why do you think there's such a terrible mismatch in the labor market? I know that if I get fired, even with a wide range of current experience and knowledge from a long career, it'll take forever to find a job. Jobs on LinkedIn get posted and have 1000+ applicants an hour later. Those are scratch off lottery ticket-level odds for even a phone call, let alone an interview.

If someone figures this out without turning the entire job marketing into a miserable body shop, I'm sure they'd have employers and employees alike paying them to match both groups up.

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Rentun@reddit

Because a lot of people think they know what they're talking about when they absolutely don't.

Also, because it's difficult to determine the ones that do from the ones that don't from a resume.

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RhymenoserousRex@reddit

This. I have some pretty basic questions I ask to see if they understand fundamental technologies and what they do.

I usually ask people to define what certain core networking services do in their own words and they trip up because they have no clue. I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the number of people who have no clue what DNS really does, or what DHCP does, and so forth.

[-]

EndUserNerd@reddit

Problem is it's impossible to even get someone to give you a chance to prove you're not an idiot. Some people apply to 100s of jobs and get zero replies.

[-]

Kahrg@reddit

This times 1000

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CuriouslyContrasted@reddit

I wish that were true.

[-]

Cremepiez@reddit

This is so true it hurts

[-]

Sufficient-West-5456@reddit

Or never saturated for cheap labor from 3rd world countries

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

Even if it's a small team, start your own thing, get a few customers, etc. and if business isn't booming you can always go to an MSP in the area that seems good, and suggest to them that they buy your company (and thus it's customers) and bring your people into the fold. I've seen local MSPs do that a lot, it'll start out as 2-4 people, they get enough customers to be sustained, but not doing great, they sell the business to a larger MSP they like, keep working with the customers they had, everyone wins.

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EndUserNerd@reddit

Here's an interesting question. Small 5 person MSPs don't seem like they'd be as popular as they were back maybe 20 years ago. Back then, small businesses would just hire "the computer guys" and pay "the computer bill" every month. Is that really how business IT works now? I'd think small businesses would be shoved into some large MSP's M365 packaged service instead of hiring some mom and pop place. Just seems like less of an oppotrunity...fewer broom closet servers running Windows SBS and such.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

Smaller MSPs still exist, what I've seen is they tend to do a lot of local small businesses, but then they also do remote support for businesses that you might not normally think of needing an MSP. One MSP near me specializes in farms for example, it's 5 guys, and they do almost everything remotely. And the best part about farmers is that they don't have to advertise at all, they did one farmers stuff, and within 2 years they were doing work for every farm in a 80 mile radius. Farmers talk to each other, and word of mouth spreads very fast. The flip side of course, if you seriously fuck up, that spreads around the farms quick too.

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samspopguy@reddit

I worked for one once, holy hell was it terrible.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

I'd think that's right. Those servers aren't going to get replaced with VMs, they'll wind up in Exchange and SharePoint in 365. Managing M365 is button-pushing in a portal, not a whole lot of hands-on work you can charge for. Unless you have a very small, very insular market, the owners of businesses who would previously take a leap of faith on some rando group of tech dudes will probably just go with whoever gives them the cheapest per-month price to shoehorn email, Office, files and QuickBooks into the cloud.

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Pristine-Donkey4698@reddit

Ah yes, the ol' Trunk Slammer model

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signal_lost@reddit

There’s far more money if you’re going working for a large shop than trying to be a 1 man MSP. I remember my old boss quiting to do this. He tried to hire me and I had to explain I made twice what he did and 3x what he was offering me for start under him.

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Dragonfly-Adventurer@reddit

One man MSP is a trap.

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rphenix@reddit

Agree. No holidays for you. Chained to your phone regardless of a customer paying for 24/7 coverage or not.

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Dubbayoo@reddit

You had to explain how much you made to your previous boss?

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signal_lost@reddit

I had moved on… it had been 3 years or so.

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Japjer@reddit

That's only good advice if the team has people that are good at marketing, good at business management, good at ownership, good at paperwork, etc.

Oftentimes, I find, actual techs make really shitty MSP owners. The best MSP I had ever worked for was owned by someone with zero IT knowledge. He just knew how to run a business and manage it

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anomalous_cowherd@reddit

I like to think I'm a good techie. I tried going solo and I was absolutely awful at it.

So little of it was the fun techie stuff and so much was paperwork and money worries and trying to stir up new business.

I gave it a year then went back to working for The Man.

[-]

jimicus@reddit

The other problem is the sort of business that needs anything but the most trivial tech often needs an organisation with more than one person. At a minimum they need an MSP with a networking expert and a storage expert.

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GreenBeardTheCanuck@reddit

The worst part about going indie was that I ended up spending more time trying to collect on past-due contracts than working new jobs. Feels like if you don't do the volume to support a full time account collection person and a lawyer on retainer, you'd almost make more money flipping burgers.

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anomalous_cowherd@reddit

I was doing small business stuff but also home users. Trying to charge some old lady anything like a break even rate when it took 5 hours to recover her deeply virus infected PV without losing all her un-backed- up pictures was impossible

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Geminii27@reddit

It does help if a manager knows their technical limits, though. Otherwise you get bosses who promise the impossible and expect the technicians to pull free magic out of their ass, who have no idea what things cost in the real world or how much work they take, and are generally horrible to work for.

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hiroo916@reddit

Get your group together and bid for the outsource yourselves.

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Man-e-questions@reddit

And the “important” people like marketing and HR and the business get super frustrated at how bad the support is when they have issues, then they start leaving to go work for better companies

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

And then the accountants get to go to the board meeting and say "Hey everyone we saved half a million on IT salaries, hurray! But also, we've lost a significant number of key employees and every single project is behind schedule or failing. It's going to cost the company X millions of dollars in lost profits/revenue"

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Man-e-questions@reddit

I was laid off during an outsourcing like the OP. I kept in touch with one of the network guys who they kept (they kept core group of network and firewall teams). I was so happy when he texted me that they had some domain controller issues and nobody could log in for like 5 days. Being a financial company that can lose millions of dollars an hour when things aren’t working I can’t imagine how much they lost.

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AnnyuiN@reddit

It fills me with joy seeing companies have their outsourcing backfire badly.

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Remarkable-Host405@reddit

Why? It's not like their outsourcing to another country. They evaluated their needs, decided something else fit better, and went for it.

Similar thing happened at my company. Instead of a room of grumpy it techs that don't want to work, we have an msp behind us with a huge team, and some personable younger techs on campus a couple days a week.

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AnnyuiN@reddit

Actually it's just like they ARE outsourcing to another country. Maybe you haven't experienced it in your career YET but it's quite common. Large companies like Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, TCS, Accenture, and Mindtree all hire mostly out of the country. At least where I live in America, they hire SOME Americans who know what they're actually doing so that they can train the people outsourced outside the country how to do their jobs. How it usually ends up is they can't actually end up firing the Americans they hire because the outsourced labor almost never ends up being able to get to the point where they're effective enough to do it on their own. Usually it ends up where the Americans they hire do anything and everything more complex than a password reset.

I don't personally consider MSPs to be outsourcing even though they technically are by definition. To me outsourcing usually implies out of the country as is common in IT nowadays. Obviously I'm changing the definition slightly, but it makes it easier to separate it in my mind. This part isn't relevant though to this conversation.

I have 0 issues with the idea of MSPs, the only real world issues I have are that they usually treat their employees poorly. At least MSPs usually are effective enough at doing their job.

Oh, and the earlier paragraph talking about those off-shore outsourcing companies? I'm sure A LOT of this sub has experienced it, in fact I KNOW a lot of this sub has experienced it as I literally had this conversation a few months back on this subreddit.

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signal_lost@reddit

And then everyone clapped and you got invited back for a million dollars!

The weird in house only cult fan fiction gets weirder every year

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

I don't have a problem with MSPs, MSPs have their place, are at least generally speaking local, and generally good people.

But the post explicitly says "outsourced" which is a VERY different thing than being replaced by an MSP. Notably most likely some 3rd world country support with people reading off scripts that barely speak English. And the ones who do have critical thinking skills promoted away from customer facing roles faster than you can say hello.

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signal_lost@reddit

My dude you are confusing the word Outsourcing with Offshoring.

You can outsource to domestic workers, people with visas, or people in other countries.

There are some very smart people in those countries. I used to be an ESL teacher In Asia briefly weirdly enough.

We have some great people in our Bangalore office (who are not outsourced, full badges). More people in India speak English as a primary language than the US, so pretending we command the language. Lastly have you tried talking to people from the swamps of Louisiana or Southies from Boston? I can’t understand them. This is before I go on a rant about the British who seem allergic to consonant sounds.

It’s highly likely you’ve talked to people in Manila without realizing it because their English is actually better than a lot of Americans. They seriously are the 51st state in a lot of ways, good people.

Anyways, before you complain about people’s English please learn what the word outsource and offshoring mean. Your post somehow comes off as simultaneously ignorant and Xenophobic.

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MBILC@reddit

Yup, they never see that financial impact when they hose the people who know the company inside and out!

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jpotrz@reddit

Impromptu Union. I'm all for it.

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Belchat@reddit

I heard the same from a team at Atos. They fired everyone to put the Indian team on this Backoffice 100% and had to rehire because management didn't think true that an environment has specific knowledge

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metalnuke@reddit

Fuck Atos with a rusty railroad spike. Our team was absorbed as part of an acquisition. We all lost our tenure (8+ years). Looking back, I should have taken the package they offered instead of transitioning. Stayed for the team, they were great.

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llDemonll@reddit

Good idea, but it won’t work. People have bills to pay and if they don’t have a job lined up they’re gonna take the paycheck.

OP should get ahead of the curve and negotiate a better offer than they sent and collect the paycheck while looking for a new job.

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DarthtacoX@reddit

Hey, if they are paying well, who cares? A job is a job. Yea it sucks to get fired, but get pissed at the old company, not the MSP.

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Suspicious-Stay-6474@reddit

Better yet, no one agree to join them, work together to find new jobs for everybody, and let the outsourcing company offer stupid amount of money for support you will provide via contracts.

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Niceromancer@reddit

Better yet, no one agree to join them

Problem is someone will.

Someone is going to be left in a bad spot where they need income right fucking now.

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Bromlife@reddit

People with kids have to pragmatic unfortunately. I’ll bet there’s at least one person on the team who doesn’t fill like they have a choice.

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Dave9876@reddit

That's the union way. No scabs, don't cross the picket!

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AlexisFR@reddit

If IT people could work together like that, they wouldn't be in a situation like this in the first place.

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Geminii27@reddit

Or join, take them money, and train them wrong, as a joke.

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SaliciousB_Crumb@reddit

Would it be illegal to tell them all the wrong things. Like could u give them instructions that would mess up the systems?

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

That would be brushing up against a very thin line i think.

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dalgeek@reddit

Won't change anything for the outsourcing company because they're likely on contract, so they get paid the same regardless. Might as well make a few extra bucks from the deal if you can.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

They'll get paid the same, but the CFO or whatever that brought them in will be burned by the ultimate failure of the plan.

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kmkota@reddit

You are a very vindictive person and a major red flag

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sanitaryworkaccount@reddit

Not before it's recorded as a win by increasing profits and he takes that win to the next company to either:

A. Save them by bringing IT back in house from the terrible service of outsource company

B. Save them by repeating the process of outsourcing IT to increase profits.

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thrwwy2402@reddit

This happened at my previous job.

The new CFO was put in charger of IT. CIO was exiled but obj payroll because of legal reasons. CFO killed or COA by half. Morale tanked. Top talent left. They couldn't hire anyone competent with the going rate. More people left because their load increased. They are now contracting at even more expensive rate to get things done. CFO got fired after a bunch of kids management called it quits. I left before my promotion kicked in and out was the best decision I've done in my career.

I hear horror stories of all the standards going out the window. Decades of work being undone by a c suit that didn't even know how her fucking computer connects to the network.

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signal_lost@reddit

Working for a MSP I don’t think anyone we took on as a client ever reduced their IT spend. We tended to enable them to do things faster or reduce risk.

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oldvetmsg@reddit

That sounds like my time on the svc...

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rfc2549-withQOS@reddit

You are naive.

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MikeTheCannibal@reddit

Burned alright, with another five figure bonus regardless of how south this business move goes. Like the corrupt gov’s, the money flows pocket to pocket.

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TheDeaconAscended@reddit

There should be SLA penalties

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notonyanellymate@reddit

That’s if the contract includes all those other jobs, the projects etc. Within a few years they’ll want in house staff again. Wheel of stupidity.

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signal_lost@reddit

If your theory was correct MSPs and IT service consulting shops and SaaS firms would be shrinking and uhh… they are not.

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dalgeek@reddit

What happens is the onboarding process just takes 3x longer than it should. SLAs don't kick in until onboarding is complete. The MSP or whatever can just say "If you can't give us the info then we can't be held responsible".

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TheDeaconAscended@reddit

I worked for a major MSP that was bought out by a company that rhymes with DeskSpace. When we did McDonalds and Wyndham, we had relaxed SLAs but still had SLAs. The same was true for smaller customers who may have had only 30 or 40 servers with us.

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NoSellDataPlz@reddit

Agreed. Fuck the former employer and fuck the outsourcing company. Reject the job offer and warn former colleagues about how outsourcing companies handle situations like this and encourage them to reject the offer. What’s worse, losing your job and having to find a new one or losing your job twice and having to find a new one twice?

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crackintosh@reddit

Never reject an offer. Ask for what you think would make it worthwhile. Ask for $250,000 or more to lead the team. Make them say no. See how desperate they are. Again, never refuse any offer.

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BatFancy321go@reddit

and training your replacement yet still getting treated like garbage

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Username_Chx_Out@reddit

*Even better than THAT: take the new job at a ridiculously inflated rate (agreed upon by coworkers in same dept), train replacements terribly until hired by another company, using inflated wage for improved ladder-jumping.

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TeaKingMac@reddit

But that doesn't actually hurt anyone (other than the users still there who are trying to do their jobs).

Management looks bad, the outsourcing company looks bad, but that doesn't actually change anything.

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Dont_Press_Enter@reddit

I second this. If your team is big enough, I would join forces, start a business, get everyone of the people together, and then I would put a bid in on the company that just fired you.

This would mean you now control the worth of your business and employees.
If the outsourced company fails, the company that fired you and the outsourced company that wanted you or others of the team will have to go with your business or deal with others, not knowing your system. Thus you don't just have a win-win; you have a focused win and the ability to raise everyone's worth. - Just don't be a selfish individual and plan accordingly.
You were chosen; others may have been chosen as well. Be mindful

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Cultural_Result1317@reddit

put a bid in on the company that just fired you.

And you'd not get the contract, unless you plan to hire some devs offshore and deal with managing them.

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Dont_Press_Enter@reddit

I operate an independent consulting company.

Fired from a company that did this exact same firing technique from the company almost 14 years ago.

If I didn't get the contract, the company will still stay in contact with me as they do and as the bigger person, I still help without getting paid because those same people give my name to others and boost my business. Thus, the consulting company that paid less to get the contract paid me my price to work as an independent and get paid what I'm worth.

It may be a corporate world, but people operate the business, and you may not win everything, but eventually, people come around and need the skills they lose.

Be well out there. It's not always about contracts but your worth as a person.

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kinvoki@reddit

Great revenge fantasy. 🙄

Who is going to pay for OPs mortgage and kids expenses while we live through them vicariously?

OP- take the job offer , look for a new job, leave as soon as you find it . Outsourcing company is most likely just using you to get up to speed .

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JoeyJoeC@reddit

But one option benefits OP, the other doesn't affect OP at all.

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YBK47@reddit

lol out of anyone persons controll

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Airhead315@reddit

While I agree this method would "stick it to the man" in a way, it does little to benefit the OPs financial or career position. This situation sucks. Any situation in which you are cut from a position sucks. The OP should do what benefits him the most, my thoughts on that would be to negotiate as high of a salary as possible with the outsourcing company but start looking for other jobs immediately (as if you were unemployed). That provides temporary financial stability with arguably the same job prospecting capability. Sometimes you have to try to keep emotions out of it as much as possible.

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sys_overlord@reddit

This is the way.

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Block_Of_Saltiness@reddit

and let the outsourcing company suffer in pain

THey wont care. The sales/suits at outsourcing company care about profit. The poor peons they hire to do the outsourced IT will be stuck between the customer complaints and the suits.

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curiousMrBrown@reddit

Best case scenario - outsourcing company will easily onboard services and force the outgoing team to turn over everything. It belongs to the company that hired them after all. Outgoing team messing any of that transition up , depending on employee contract could get expensive for the employee. Very litigious.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

When you quit you're done, they can't force shit out of you. If everyone quits at the same time... Well that just sucks for them. And exit interviews are always voluntary.

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curiousMrBrown@reddit

Even better - they are no longer needed - show them the door. The entire company will benefit from this move. Outsourcing saves a ton where possible. Not always possible.

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3percentinvisible@reddit

Or alternatively, assuming that OP enjoys their job up till now, take the job and carry on doing it. There may be further opportunities in an outsourced company rather than limited in a single company.

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cereal7802@reddit

Did something similar. Was doing work on virtualization systems at a previous job. Was asked to show someone else how to manage all of the systems (someone who didn't even know basics of linux). I explained it was hard to teach someone in another country how to manage the systems when our shifts didn't align and we had no means of remote viewing setup. Timeline kept getting pushed down the line for them getting trained. Eventually I was told "ok, don't train that one guy. Train these 8 people from the outsourcing company we hired." I instead found another job. never had anyone reach out to me in my last 2 week to get ssh keys or anything. I had archived them, labeled them, wrote notes for all the systems. Left it on my desktop on my workstation. Last day i was there, they formatted my workstation and no backups for the data on it existed. A couple days later one of the managers tried to reach out and ask me for ssh keys. I told him it was on my workstation, nobody would tell me what to do with them before I left, so I left them there. Never heard back from them. I assume they got in, but I know from other people who still worked there that the outsourced IT team built all new systems in the end.

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Administrative-Help4@reddit

Or form a consulting company of all the existing team and offer it to the outsourcing company as a unit: all or none.

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CornerSp33d@reddit

Outsourcing to the outsourcing company is a baller move! Seriously worth considering if you have time and energy.

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sheaiden@reddit

This is actually one of the best case scenarios for the MSP coming in; they can then blame the fact that they didn't get any training and wiggle out of any consequences for not complying with the contract. I've even seen them use it to force the company hiring them to pay for a bigger contract because "reverse engineering and documenting an existing process was not covered in our initial contract, you agreed to provide us SMEs for the processes we will be supporting".

3 times I've seen this exact thing happen...

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jslingrowd@reddit

Right, you can try to negotiate a ridiculous salary only to be passed because your old colleagues took a lower bid.

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geebz31@reddit

This is the answer

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GrandTitanius@reddit

Buahahaha let the em burn

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6SpeedBlues@reddit

While I don't disagree, they generally don't care. It will be lots of heated "conference calls" while things aren't getting done, but it will slowly settle down and the outsourcing company knows it.

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posixUncompliant@reddit

That is a good time!

Even better is management realizing that there's no reason for you to stay to the bitter end, and getting you and your counterpart large bonuses to do so, ones not contingent on us taking a job with the outsourcing company if they realize they should've offered someone in our group something.

mmm.

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oldvetmsg@reddit

That sounds beautiful 😍

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Recent_mastadon@reddit

If you're trying to screw over the situation, then take the job with the outsourcing company WHILE YOU LOOK FOR BETTER but when start day comes, show up, say this job is too hard, you require more money to do it, and you aren't coming in until they pay you more. This will be the most effective blockage you'll create.

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FruitbatNT@reddit

Management will learn exactly jack shit, as they always do. They’ll just make sure they go on vacation next time there’s a switchover.

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rubikscanopener@reddit

They won't care. Once the contract is signed, the company can yell all they want.

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ADtotheHD@reddit

Yep. Unionize now. Either everyone negotiates together for the new company and everyone gets a job or no one goes.

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UnklVodka@reddit

Or in corporate terms “fuck yo SLA’s”

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MOTIVATE_ME_23@reddit

Negotiate the severance.

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Dar_Robinson@reddit

Get all that were let go, start up your own "IT Consulting" group, offer your services to the company that got the outsourced contract. Get paid for your new company's "expertise" on your old company's systems and infrastructure. If they want to bring in their own staff for you to train up, then offer them a 6 month "training" contract.

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bindermichi@reddit

This is the right answer.

This will not be a long term solution though, but better to manage than taking a direct employment with the new service provider. They will have less incentive to reduce headcount for external staff but they will want to cut capex as fast as possible.

But you can creep your way into other projects at and customers more easily.

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Odd-Distribution3177@reddit

Did that however I was the one chopping the second axe.

New company(1) hired some on 3month at a higher rate. Then on second contract they wanted to cut it in half.

Signed new contract different company (2) and said no thank you to company (1) they said but your the only one who knows how to meet system X up and our service calls going. I replied yep my last contracted shift is Friday. Good luck. BYW here is a MSP who knows the system see ya

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KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

but your the only one who knows how to meet system X up and our service calls going.

Guess you should have paid me more to retain me and hired another person to train as a backup in case I get hit by the lottery bus!

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Odd-Distribution3177@reddit

Ya they assumed they had the power of keeping a job at 50% cut in contracts as leverage unfortunately that didn’t work out well for them

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digitsinthere@reddit

new MSP was who? You and your team?

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Odd-Distribution3177@reddit

No actually I started to work for a different company full time.

However all of the IT team from the original company was created my the old director and he hired all of the helpdesk and senior It guy that I worked with as the msp grew. I didn’t join them full time for years later.

They did well say exploit there pre-existing knowledge of the service. Unfortunately the services required somewhat daily manual maintenance to keep it running if you knew what you were doing it was easy. If you didn’t the system would halt in about a week or so.

This used to be a 14 person it team that covered NA to a service company. As the service company was sold off in pieces to try and not go under the last section of service was sold off has a whole except me in IT keeping things running. Anyways they ended up with the contract for 2 years 8 hour response and a hour min. The first 6 months they used those 4 hours a question or two at a time multiple times a day lol. Then realized they needed to bring more than one Q at a time.

The system move was quoted at a high rate and they didn’t sign instead they said they would move on there own. Well when they fired that system back up it was junked. 2 days on site to ensure it was back online after they had to fly 2 people to the new site last minute to get it back online.

Silly decisions get silly results.

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digitsinthere@reddit

incredible. so the original team made a wad of money off layoffs and lured you back. what a freaking wonderful story.

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Odd-Distribution3177@reddit

Yes correct, the original director as the first be be let go fired up a consulting company and slowly built up.

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mikeblas@reddit

This thread has all kinds of wild-eyed fantasies and very little sensible advice.

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Mr_Fried@reddit

And while you are getting that salary, every day you work remotely bludge as much as you can. Filibuster, make sure they get nothing useful from you so they have to keep you on. Travel to the data centre on the regular, need to visit sites. Vendor meetings. Long lunches. Set that expectation up front like a boss.

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MarketingManiac208@reddit

This is it. They need someone who knows the ins and outs of the company so negotiate a 50-100% increase in salary to take the new job, then spend every waking minute you're not at work finding a new job at a decent company. Tell potential employers you're immediately available, then give little to no notice when you leave.

I have zero sympathy for companies who treat people this way. Sorry you're dealing with this right now.

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dat510geek@reddit

Indeed. This

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sheps@reddit

This. "Sure, I'd be happy to sign on as a consultant, as I'm very familiar with the company's systems and can help ensure a smooth transition!". $400/hr, 8 hours per day for X weeks/Months, 4 hour minimum for all calls outside of the scope of the contract term/hours, all paid in advance. It may sound like an absurd amount of money but the contract will pay for itself if you deliver, and it will only be for a short time while you look for other jobs.

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JustinHall02@reddit

Don’t get too greedy in the terms and it may work. Demanding a multi month retainer up front before any help is given will be the hard sell. Depending what service they are offering, their billable hours probably start around $225/hr. If you can save them weeks of time, that rate itself would not be absurd.

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OptimalCynic@reddit

You have to demonstrate this in the bid too. They won't go looking for the ROI number by themselves.

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RedditNotFreeSpeech@reddit

I bet it's Infosys lol. No negotiating. Here's your new salary 40% of what you were making.

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ihaxr@reddit

They'll cut you off immediately with no benefits, severance, and dispute your unemployment saying you violated the terms of employment and quit voluntarily.

Disney did it in 2015. It's one of the primary reasons we need healthcare that isn't tied to employment.

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sinbad269@reddit

As someone working as a contractor on a site [not in tech, but nonetheless], pushing for better salary won't net anything positive. Only way some real will take place is if like /u/tankerkiller125real mentioned that nobody takes them up on their job offer and they flounder.

Next to garunteed the company is paying the contractor a bit less overall than your salary, so minus the overhead their admin will take and your take-home salary and/or benefits will be significantly reduced.

Fuck 'em, let the entire c-suite burn in hell

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Routine-Ad-6803@reddit

FYI - Outsourcing companies don't give "ridiculous" salaries. American companies pay the highest. Been in IT for 20+ years.

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dalgeek@reddit

If it's a temporary position for the purpose of knowledge transfer then they'll likely pay lot more than the overseas chair-warmers that answer tickets. If they don't want to pay a decent amount for that knowledge then I guess the knowledge isn't valuable to them and it's time to move on.

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thisbread_@reddit

Exactly. YOU determine the value of that position, especially considering that you are a valuable asset with the potential to be subjected to exploitation and significant stress. Consequently, you should set a high monetary value for your services as you decide what/if any amount adds up to make the job worth it. (It shouldn't be your old salary.)

Refuse to accept anything below this predetermined amount and aim to negotiate upwards whenever possible.

Companies frequently establish fixed pay scales for specific job roles, hoping you overlook factors like emotional exhaustion, stress, job security, difficult working conditions, inconvenience, performance demands, fatigue, unique skills, and overall contribution—elements that all influence the job’s worth. For example, if someone finds themselves in a role that initially promised low stress but has evolved into a high-stress environment without corresponding pay adjustments, they ought to reassess the position's value. Questioning, would they have accepted the job at the same pay rate had they known about the increased stress from the start?

TLDR If there is a compensation level that makes the job's challenges acceptable, then consider it. However, recognize that some situations may be too detrimental to endure for any amount of money.

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jbaird@reddit

and do the minimum of what they perceive as a 'good job' training the new team

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tunachilimac@reddit

This is what I did in a similar situation because we both knew they couldn’t just take over without having problems. I got a contract they’d keep me at least 18 months then consider long term hiring after that, and they’d pay out the full 18 months if they let me go earlier.

I accepted it but I also kept looking and took a better offer a few months later.

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Siritosan@reddit

This is the time to negotiate big time

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PsCustomObject@reddit

The answer I was looking for!

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Trick-Initiative6278@reddit

This 1000 percent. I have seen it happen twice. Once the new company gets the knowledge they need your gone

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1TRUEKING@reddit

Well that’s why during the job offer you put in a termination clause and ask for months or years of severance if ever getting let go

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monsterzro_nyc@reddit

or the humiliation of re-applying for own job with the new company and being rejected.

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Remarkable-Host405@reddit

Maybe you should have stayed sharp? Shit changes. Needs change. You can't stay a dinosaur.

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Trick-Initiative6278@reddit

For context, I work for a state government( can't say which one obviously) and they outsourced to NTT data. NTT came in offering better pay and a promise of good money. The state pushed as many folks as they could to NTT saying"hey apply for us and NTT and you can choose whichever you like" well the manager(long since fired) got a list of everyone who applied at NTT and instantly wrote them off and refused to offer positions to any that took the NTT offer. Fast forward 6 months from that and NTT found a way to eradicate about 85% of those they hired. Fast forward even further and the state has hired back some folks,brought the service they outsourced back( applause all around for the director who "saved the state IT" even though he signed off on it in the first place. I was fortunate enough to get a job at another dept. The institutional knowledge that was lost was akin to Yoda sensing the death of all the Jedi. There were systems that had to be completely and totally rebuilt because the teams that built them were gone.... All so somebody somewhere could make a buck and of course" save taxpayer money" which they totally failed upon.

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TypicalJoke@reddit

Yes that's definitely a popular tactic. Keep you on board to help make the transition smoother and then cut you loose when they're confident enough.

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bindermichi@reddit

As someone who has worked in outsourcing for 20 years. This is how the deal has been calculated and always plays out.

customer demands you take over their IT department (huge customer mistake)
outsourced uses staff for transitional phase until everything is migrated
outsourced screens staff for suitable longterm talent
longterm talent gets assigned to other customers
migration ends
everyone still working at that customer is terminated

About that huge mistake: someone at the customer company needs to know the applications and services. Ideally you want to keep people from your IT department acting as service and application manager to manage the outsourcer.

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AngryKhakis@reddit

Yep i got a job that was outsourced to us, we were in the states but it was one of those locations gonna close and everything else is coming to the new location. The people who came to train us found out while they were training us what was about to happen to them. Pretty awkward last couple weeks

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Flabbergasted98@reddit

but also get into talks with the outsourcing company. Negotiate a rate that's about 20% to 30% higher than what the original company was offering.
Even if you don't want it. Challenge yourself just to see if you can get it. You can still say "sorry no, I've received a better offer."

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CartographerNo2717@reddit

I've been on the other side and structured these deals with offshore providers.

Usually the contracts have a requirement that re-badged employees are to be kept on for a minimum amount of time - usually 1 year. Our org has a policy of 2 years security for our people we've moved to the provider. Salaries and benefits must be fully matched or exceeded.

At least that's the case if you have competent people drafting the agreements, and keept the employee experience top of mind in decision making.

these situations suck. But a good organization can transition business respetfully, and do their best to keep employees whole. I'd move and use the time to look for a new job.

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flugenblar@reddit

This is true. Try to understand the basic business model for outsourcing is to do the same with less. Less employees. They pitch innovation and efficiency, but what they do is steadily reduce headcount to make their quarterly earnings, it’s much easier to cut headcount and freeze wages, once a contract is in place, than to improve services and efficiency. Also offshoring is big. You get transferred to the outsourcing company then you’re told to train resources overseas who will be replacing you shortly for pennies on the dollar.

Keep job searching. Think long-term about yourself.

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Siritosan@reddit

Most of the time. I got department outsource and the outsource company brought a few of us in company. Most of the guys that came in refused to do other clients on the outsource company and they got let go. I been a few to survive but I don't teach much. I play the I am too busy or I am burrow in a project. My reason to stay is the lifeline of work. 4 years later still looking but they don't pay what I currently make.

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SanFranPanManStand@reddit

This exactly. Do the work - but only do minimal training - and document nothing.

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Revolution4u@reddit

Ive just been browsing this sub lately and dont work anywhere;

Why dont people in the situation you are talking about just sabotage the outsourcing company more often?

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Escles@reddit

Yup don't fall for it. Just leave

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aspirationless_photo@reddit

I've never been more motivated to make a career change into woodworking with a specialty in producing fine-crafted guillotines after reading this thread.

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noracretep@reddit

He speaks the truth it happened to me.

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peacebwitchu@reddit

This is not always the case. With the outsourcing I have seen most staff has been retained for the long term.

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holy_mojito@reddit

I'm sure this happens, but I've never seen this. Been working defense for decades where this type of thing happens all the time. Every time I've seen the outsourcing company hire people that are already in place, they try to keep them.

But to be fair, 9 times out of 10, I see the outsourcing company offer them less than what they're currently making, and the benefits may be garbage. So yes, keep looking for another job as the company may try to lowball you.

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iHeartAtmosphere@reddit

Not true all the time. I went through this and was basically the only one left since others didnt take the offer. Still working at this company and no longer on the out sourced team. I'm back on the company payroll and we still have out sourced members of IT.

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Sufficient-Class-321@reddit

Take the job, but drip-feed the info on your old company, make it like getting blood from a stone

Just enough to have them not fire you, but not enough to get them up to speed quickly

Keep cahsing their paychecks until you find something actually worth doing lol

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Mythbrand@reddit

This, don’t get used.

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Imaginary_Doughnut27@reddit

Differing from others… you’ve got the specific knowledge. Reasonable chance the offshores might underperform expectations. You’re the backstop, and there’s security in that. Not to say there’s no risk, but is there more risk than finding something new?

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Kndstpd@reddit

Came here to find this or similar comment. You are going to be over worked and mistreated during this too.

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Unfair_Somewhere_470@reddit

BTDT. Still looking. The best is getting calls with questions from India.

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cube8021@reddit

As someone who has been through this before. Take the job so you have a paycheck and health insurance coming in (make sure it doesn’t screw up your severance package tho) and update that resume, LinkedIn, and start getting those interviews lined up.

It might take a month or two but you’ll find something better and can leave on your own terms

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spin81@reddit

Also, if they haven't offered it, insist on getting the same or better terms as your current contract.

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CalendarFar6124@reddit

Best option is to go overseas if he can get an offer in the same industry. OP should take this opportunity to really consider his options.

My old man was an $80k a year systems engineer at EDS in the early 2000s. Got laid off exactly 1 year prior to his benefits package kicking in. He was unemployeed for a year, waiting on decent contract offers, then went to Asia & EU to complete a few world first 64bit mainframe migrations. Afterwards, he became a $300k+ a year contractor in the span of 1-1/2 decade. All of his previous colleagues at EDS later got absorbed into HP and their careers stayed stagnant.

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confused9@reddit

100% true. When my company did the same exact thing I left but my senior admin stayed with the outsource company. They made him train the entire team, kept him around making Knowledge Base articles once they felt they could do without him. They switch his schedule around until he couldn’t take anymore and he ended up quitting went from a 9 to 5 to a 8pm to 4am. That was his breaking point.

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Unique-Job-1373@reddit

This 100%

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Kritchsgau@reddit

Yep my msp used to gobble up so many and did this. Unless the guy has deep expertise to use elsewhere in other clients then its all about knowledge transfer.

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TamarindSweets@reddit

Yep. Accept the job bc you need one rn, but definitely keep looking for another job

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conlius@reddit

Worked for a company that did exactly this. Outsourced, converted employees to contractors of that outsourced company and then they all disappeared over time. The ones that were still FTEs left over time as well. It was pretty sad.

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RobbieRigel@reddit

To play devils advocate, The MSP side of the company I work for has hired former employees of companies we've been hired by. One worked for us for 3 years before we moved on. From our company's perspective it's someone who already knows the infrastructure, software, and the client's end users know.

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Penultimate-anon@reddit

This is correct. They want to pay waaaay less than what you’re worth so it’s just a bridge to train the low skilled replacements.

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BallBagDrag@reddit

Quiet sabotage might be in order. That way, you can charge exorbitant consulting fees when their overseas team inevitably fucks everything up.

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The-Kid-Is-All-Right@reddit

Negotiate a retention fee that is payable over 3 years and must be paid out in full immediately if they fire you without cause prior to that.

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Hideyoshi_Toyotomi@reddit

My company offers bpo, though we don't offshore, we typically take over dysfunctional teams. We are happy to recruit top performers and keep them, if they want to join us. Our customers like it because it means they don't have let go of all their talent or institutional knowledge when making a painful decision and we have fewer people to onboard.

If your new colleagues are going to be offshore resources, your best bet is to negotiate for a defined term at a multiplier of your salary (I would ask for 2.5X for 3-6 months, hourly, with the hopes of getting about 1.6-1.7X). Then, you get a nice bump, you're motivated to transfer knowledge, and have time to find your next permanent role.

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spookydookie@reddit

All of you need to form an LLC and offer the new company to contract for them for a ridiculous amount of money. It has to be everyone though.

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seang86s@reddit

And your severance will be for the one year you worked at the outsource company, not the time you put in at the original company. This is exactly what happened to a coworker of mine...

He worked 30+ years for a big company in IT. Big company outsources IT to a tech company. Tells all the IT employees that if they elect not to take the job with the tech company who will support Big company, they are volunteering to quit and will not get a severance package. The IT employees take the job with tech company keeping their current salary. One year later, they all get let go and receive 1 month of severance (1 month per year of service). If my 30+ year of employment coworker got laid of directly from big company, he would have gotten 2.5 years of severance. They screwed him, royally. He was in his mid 50's looking for a new job. Took almost a year but was able to land something with a pay cut.

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OutsideCase6295@reddit

u/AlarmingAssistant548 This is exactly what is going to happen.

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rob_1127@reddit

Try having a golden parachute clause in the contract with the new company. If they go for it, good for you. If not, that shows their intent.

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Signal-Ad-3362@reddit

Never document or share knowledge in these kind of situations. Hate to say this, but have to.

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yolo_retardo@reddit

poor guy is nice and naive and will be doubly fucked later

at least he can leverage a ridiculous pay rate to get em up to speed but only if he has the courage

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mailboy79@reddit

100% this. Its happened to me multiple times in my 22 year career.

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zilch839@reddit

I usually argue with people when posts about job changes are made and people reply like this. But in this case, this is exactly how it works. A buddy of mine from Venezuela had this happen to him. He took severance (it was good luckily) and chose not to stay on with the new company. A few weeks later they made an offer for him to come back, and he took it. 6 months later and he was out again. Surprise! He was a high performer too. All they wanted is someone on staff to help with the transition.

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zilch839@reddit

This was at Dollar rent a car BTW.

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IsilZha@reddit

Then demand a massive payout for that institutional knowledge transfer.

$500/hr, minimum 40 hrs/week, all overtime rules apply

Win win either way.

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PewterButters@reddit

Yeah you take the job but do NOTHING for them just keep looking for work, consider it a severance.

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0pointenergy@reddit

Offer to do it contract part time for a ridiculous sum of money.

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CalHoward@reddit

This. Get a contract going OP if you do indulge them. Don’t get taken advantage of. Take advantage of them.

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ITchiGuy@reddit

That’s exactly what happened to my team. One year after transferring over to the new company, original company reps were let go.

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Philux@reddit

That’s not necessarily true if you’re talented lots of outsourced IT keep on the staff.

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yeti-rex@reddit

Also known as badge flipping.

Agreed, regardless of accepting the offer, keep looking.

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NW_pragmaticbastard@reddit

Been there. Done that. Start applying for jobs now.

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resile_jb@reddit

That's not always true. When we've swallowed up on prem teams, those guys have stayed and moved on to better roles.

So there's that.

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Junior-Ease-2349@reddit

Anecdotal - but my wife's job transferred their entire IT dept to an outsourcing company - as in literally they just said "You guys all work for them now - same job besides that for the next X years".

This was almost a decade ago now, and while their plan was to convert to a different support team in a couple years after a certain big tech transition (and stop using that outsourcing company then), they still are using that outsourcing company, an every year or so she gets a new "retention deal" where they will give her X thousand bonus dollars if she doesn't quit on them before X new planned transition date.

So it can work out well, it really depends on how cool the companies involved are (especially the new one).

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Infamous_Sample_6562@reddit

Exactly what happened at my now client. Move everyone to the new company but 35% declined the offer. Bring in new hires to fill the gap then started axing all of the older workers which were most of the staff.

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GaryDWilliams_@reddit

There are cases where you can stay with the outsourcing company and get experience working with other clients. I have worked with two MSP's in my time in IT and hated both but I won't deny the experience was decent.

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Mindless-Internal-54@reddit

Some companies use this as a chance to possibly find some good employees… let’s say every time they hire in a group of folks maybe there’s one they’ll keep, the rest don’t make the cut and get dropped as soon as they get some info from them they needed.
Definitely keep looking even if you accept working for them. Chances are pretty slim it would be long term gig.

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GrantSRobertson@reddit

Take the job, and give them bad information.

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theolentangy@reddit

I work in another tech-related field, but this exact thing happened to me. We were told everything is being outsourced, and I was offered a job with the new company.

It was obvious from the start I was temporary. They gave me the tip top of my requested salary range with no questions asked, and the new management squeezed me for all the tribal knowledge I was worth, and eventually let me go.

I knew it was happening so I considered it a decent lifeline rather than deception.

Yeah find something else though, because even if they love you like they did me, you aren’t staying long.

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hso1217@reddit

Such a a grim outlook. Keep in mind the MSP has just acquired a customer so they’ll likely need to staff up if the headcount is considerable. You’ll likely be a lead for the account but assist with others. Maybe you’ll get axed, maybe you won’t - it depends on what the management is like.

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tnarg2020@reddit

Generally that's how it works but take a minute and learn about the outsourcer.

We went through this 11 years ago. I still sit at the same desk working for the outsourcer to this day. Quiet a few of them will look to keep a few seniors onsite to interact with the customer over time.

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heimos@reddit

Damn that’s ducked up

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osnap19@reddit

He’s right that happened to me. Make sure they hire you ask for a 30% pay increase. They want knowledge they gotta pay for it.

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osnap19@reddit

While you’re doing that job, still look for a different job

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unusualgato@reddit

Not always my old job did this and recommended the people from their department and those people are still with the msp today. It can go this way tho so I agree with you.

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MakeItSoNumba1@reddit

I wouldn't trust anyone but I would take the money and play dumb unless it's a raise and role upgrade.

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caillouistheworst@reddit

This happened to me once 15 years ago, I didn’t realize until after my got laid off that they just used me. Never again.

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Frydog42@reddit

I would take it, and fast track your second piece of advice… find that new job, but while keeping an income coming in

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awoodby@reddit

This. Take the job but get looking for a better job! Time to move Up my friend.

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LBSmaSh@reddit

100% this!

It's what happened when we got hit by ransomware. The company dumped us and offered us to the outsourcing company.

Took the job and looked for something else right away.

the outsourcing company was trying to be nice to us and were asking for documentation and to document what was missing.

Both my colleague and i left on the same day as a big FU for the company and outsourcing company as we remained onsite.

The company was run by venture capitalists. They bought the company, beefed it up and were planning to sell it for profit.

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kusdane@reddit

Yep, or they’ll give you some kind of bs “admin” job because IT is full.

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ryzen124@reddit

They did this to one of my friend. He was a programmer though. The knowledge transfer never ended because the offshore guys were too incompetent with fake resumes. He is still working as an employee of the offshore company.

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ID-10T_Error@reddit

so be sure to have a sign-on or off bonus in that offer letter. and then start hunting like you don't have a job

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SierraTango75@reddit

Exactly this! Happened to me several years ago. The only advantage was they did pay well over market for the time I was there.

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VrinTheTerrible@reddit

Commenting to bump this higher. Absolutely what’s going to happen.

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geegol@reddit

Bingo. This is very true OP. Give them the info but in small bites while you look for a new job.

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Acrobatic_Cycle_6631@reddit

This is the best advice, take the lifeline depending upon financial health. Look for another job asap

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UnrealSWAT@reddit

This. Knew a guy that was made redundant as part of a total outsource, but outsourcing company had agreed to offer jobs to all the third line staff as part of the deal with the company he worked for (think there was an extra payout incentive to agree to move). I worked at an MSP at the time and tried to get the guy to join us but he took the offer. Few months later all that third line team were fired as their work had been offshored. Thankfully then he listened to me about the job offer and ditched them quickly.

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Jazzlike_Clue8413@reddit

this!

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pseudocide@reddit

Not only that, they will drive you until you quit or they can find an excuse to fire you for cause to avoid paying unemployment.

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Solidus-Prime@reddit

Yep, this is exactly what they are doing, OP.

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thelastwilson@reddit

I expected he would become the department.

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mindbenderx@reddit

Your consulting fee is $300/hour and billed in minimum increments of 4 hour blocks.

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Actaeon_II@reddit

This happened to me 3 times in 4 years. Starting with bell south. When they gave me my 30 day notice I started answering the phone with a horrible “indian” accent *thank you for being callink bellsouth services of technical how may I be helpink you today”. I mean what were they going to do, fire me?

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Hour-Bandicoot5798@reddit

Most places I have worked at do the sneak attack. They stand up one IT dept as "Central IT". Onboard depts and all they eventually no longer need a sys admin at every dept and don't need to hire them on with central. I have seen this happen at two large places of higher learning. One location went from over 90 separate help desks down to 1.

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Hour-Bandicoot5798@reddit

I worked IT for a manufacturing company and they would regularly purchase small companies. They would send us out and we would bring all new computers and onboard the employees to our systems. It was awkward working with the local IT people. Other than being located near by they no longer had any understanding of the systems and we would leave after 2 weeks and they wouldn't have any permissions outside a standard user. Always felt bad for them. At the end of the day we didn't need a onsite tech and would fly out when every 3 months.

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Hour-Bandicoot5798@reddit

Make them pay you very well

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Zelexis@reddit

Don't do it.It's a trap. I got an offer a similar to that.Before those who took it were let go in three months. I got a pretty decent serverance instead.

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Micah-B-Turner@reddit

outsourcing tech in 2024 lmao what

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ChiefWapello@reddit

Welcome to the RIF (reduction in force) tsunami. It has hit almost everywhere lately.

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Overall-Brilliant-78@reddit

You must be a baby in the field lol. Ive been at it 30 years and been through this many times. No, do not go with the contract. Take your unemployment, go find another job. If you take the contract, they will fire you in less than 6 months and you get no UI.

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WesBur13@reddit

I worked for an MSP that was replacing a retiring tech at a company. They also had a younger dude who did all of their database and custom design stuff. We advised them to NOT fire the kid as he already had experience and worked well. The client was adamant about getting rid of him so we tried to negotiate to allow us to hire the kid away from them long term.

They were cool with that idea but then fired him on a whim before we could officially make him an offer. So by the time that offer was read he assumed we were just desperately trying to get him back. Sucks because he was a cool dude and our company was going to pay him decently more.

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De6woli@reddit

The people suggesting you don't take the job are bloody morons.

Of course you are going to take it so you have a paycheck coming. Once you line up something else then you quit. Also, need I say not to throw all your knowledge at once? Milk jt out slowly, very slowly.

Don't listen to these fools.

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Megonaught486@reddit

Exactly - Milk it.

What are they going to do? Fire you without warning?

Take the check so you can keep yourself floating until you find a better job.

You don't owe them professionalism when they didn't offer it to you.

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Acrobatic_Ad1204@reddit

It happened to me. Accepted the redundancy. A week later the company paid me the money. I then filed a complaint with fair work Australia that they had outsourced our jobs and the company then had to pay me an additional 6 mths salary. Found another job within 48 hrs.

Winner winner chicken dinner

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FunPhax@reddit

why does this smell like northrop

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NotYourScratchMonkey@reddit

I've seen where the company outsourced IT and the outsourced company just hires all the same people. This basically puts this other company in charge of HR and responsible for SLAs as well as perhaps making IT costs more predictable. I'm not saying this is good and, in my limited experience, the company later in-sourced IT and just hired the same people back from that vendor.

I suspect that sometimes a company gets a new CIO or something who wants to make a splash with a lot of change that will presumably save money or improve efficiency. The new CIO then moves to the cloud or they outsource IT. Then that executive leaves claiming they improved their former company by all their action while not being their long enough to see if any of their changes actually worked. But they use that change as evidence they are worthy of whatever next job.

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crazyjumpinjimmy@reddit

This is CIO 101. Drives me mad now that I have seen both models. It always makes me wonder if there is some sort of backroom greasy deal happening.

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davidlowie@reddit

Exact same thing happened to me about 3 years ago. We had to train our replacements for 4 months and it was so annoying and repetitive. Some of them seemed truly junior…like barely knew how to turn on a computer.

It all worked out for me…found a new job almost right away

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CG1386@reddit

This happened at my first IT job while I was still in college. It was weird, they took all of my rights away and gave the IBM crew (India) admin rights to things. They laid off engineers and people who had literally built the systems these guys were taking over, but nobodies like me were kept around as feet basically. On many occasions I actually had to tell the guy on the phone how to fix the issue because he had the privileges but had no experience/knowledge of the system "we" were trying to fix. It was incredibly frustrating. Once we had a minor fire at our facility and the power was shut off. I received calls from no less than three non-english speaking folks asking why my servers were down... while I'm standing in the parking lot with sirens around me. I'm not sure they ever understood the scenario even after that third call.

If you're getting any sort of severance package I'd walk, unless they're matching pay or you have any interest in working for that group long term.

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CaptainFluffyTail@reddit

Read the contract of the new job before signing anything. make sure you are not giving up the option of severance from the old employer by accepting.

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blk55@reddit

Always curious, what's severance like where you live? Part of me hopes they will one day sever me so I can get that sweet sweet payday 😂.

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CaptainFluffyTail@reddit

I live on the Gulf Coast in the US in a state that does not value its people. Thankfully I work for a Californian company which applies CA laws to the rest of the US hiring. For people that don't get put on a PIP to send them out the door we do a month of pay for every X years employed, at least that is what the metric looked like the last time a whole team was let go (bad business decision caused overhiring in non-core roles).

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reserved_seating@reddit

OP, if you can afford it and you get severance, just take it and move on. Be done with all of that monsense

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wrt-wtf-@reddit

Exactly. I’ve seen this in a company that outsourced desktop and server support (I do comma), and one of the senior accountants kept bitching and moaning that even though they’d outsourced the IT dudes they’re still stuck with the previous idiots… dude lost his job. She was the office computer passion-fingers. Every piece of equipment she touched died - and calling her passion fingers came from one of her colleagues, not IT!

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pezgoon@reddit

I’m confused as to the “passion” part lmao

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xinorez1@reddit

passion-fingers. Every piece of equipment she touched died

Passion fingers... Because they only have desire but no ability?

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wrt-wtf-@reddit

Passion Fingers - because everything they touch gets fucked up.

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xinorez1@reddit

I'm just not understanding the reference. The only thing I can think of is paschendale or passion of the Christ :p

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wrt-wtf-@reddit

Then in all likelyhood you’re the one in the thread with passion fingers.

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opmopadop@reddit

I will do my bit to increase awareness of Passion Fingers. It ticks all the boxes for this sensitive time we live in: can be applied to anyone regardless of culture and gender. Perfect.

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JohnQPublic1917@reddit

This needs more upvotes

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sparkyblaster@reddit

Also make sure what it says about IP and internal knowledge.

If you take the job, in theory you can't use your knowledge from a previous job for another, even if the client is the previous job. Technically this means more trade secrets stuff but it's usually written more generally and could conflict with this new job. You can use that to your advantage though.

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sparkyblaster@reddit

Also make sure what it says about IP and internal knowledge.

If you take the job, in theory you can't use your knowledge from a previous job for another, even if the client is the previous job. Technically this means more trade secrets stuff but it's usually written more generally and could conflict with this new job. You can use that to your advantage though.

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Complex_Technology83@reddit

How many sysadmins are under an employment contract?

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ultimatebob@reddit

Yeah, I'd also see what the severance package is if you decide not to take the offer.

Realistically, the outsourcing company will probably only keep you on for 3-6 months to train your replacement. If the severance is better than that, take it.

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No-Drink2529@reddit

The job they offered you is temporary. The want to siphen all your knowledge and train your Indian replacement. Start lookiing elsewhere.

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No_Tension_9017@reddit

Outsourcing really needs to be banned.

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andy_nony_mouse@reddit

Take the job while looking for another. Forget about pride and emotion, be cold and calculating. Income is better than no income. Walk with no regrets when you have the new job. Best of luck.

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Next_Information_933@reddit

Stop spending any dollar at all. rice and beans. Negotiate a 3-6 month contract with the outsourcing company at at least your current salary where they have to pay you out regardless if they dismiss you. Then keep looking for a new job. Even if you accept their offer your days are numbered.

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VirtualDenzel@reddit

Nah add a 30% raise to it. Since they want you to migrate the client and learn all weird configs. You are just being used. So use them in return

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Next_Information_933@reddit

Until your coworker isn't as greedy and they take him over you. Take stability in the short term and find the right next job, not the quick one.

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VirtualDenzel@reddit

It depends on your field of expertise though.

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Next_Information_933@reddit

No your not going to convince me, 30% over 3 months for someone earning 100k a year is less than 10 grand.. We all know most folks here aren't earning 100k. Your gambling being jobless all of a sudden for like 1 months pay...it's just stupid and I garauntee you'd be scared like OP. Take what you can get and get ready to run.

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VirtualDenzel@reddit

Nah i been through this exact situation. With 2 weeks notice. But i was very confident in my skills. Since i know someone like me is almost impossible to poach. It really depends on your field of expertise

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Next_Information_933@reddit

Lol okay, yes you are indespensible and impossible to replace. Everyone shall bow down as you type in your pass-phrase "i-am-totes-coolest-and-lord-of-system"

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VirtualDenzel@reddit

Im sorry you are not as skilled as i am and never will be. When i open myself on linkedin i have 200+ people after me in 1 day. And there is a reason for that. Multiskilled experts like me are worth gold. Simple as that.

Im sorry you are jusf mediocre it seems. Maybe do what i did. Get better.

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Next_Information_933@reddit

Lol my last 3 jobs have been through recruiters..Just because you work helpdesk and move jobs easily doesn't mean you're skilled......200 request in 1 day is a complete load of shit too.....I have a plenty broad skillset as well, my last gig was as a Sr project engineer at an msp doing anything and everything on prem and in the cloud....

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VirtualDenzel@reddit

Helpdesk? Lol. You have no idea son. Im the guy that fires you when i have to fix the mess you made as a 'senior project engineer'. Unlike you i have been around the globe merging entities together and with my way broader skillset then you will ever have or could dream off. Yes if i say i am available i do not get 200 recruiters after me. No 200 directors of companies i helped over the years. Those include the dutch dod, nato, european commission. And those are just some, lets exclude the bigger internationals since by now you should see im a bit out of your league. Its all about skillset and the environment you manage.

And wow great you did some first line engineering at an msp ... thats childs play.

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Next_Information_933@reddit

I can smell the bullshit from here..lmao and no I was the guy that went in and worked on the stuff other people messed up.. I was contracted out as a consultant, not someone who generated new users and deployed laptops.......so

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lkovach0219@reddit

There are many ways this could go (in no particular order):

1) they're going to hire you and use you to train their people, then you're gone 2) they're going to interview people that were let go and hire one to lead the new team 3) they talked to your manager, your manager said you're good people, and they want to keep you. You're already have all the knowledge of the systems and networks and you would be valuable to keep around 4) you're going to get hired by the company, but you're going to a team that works on other clients

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of scenarios, but these are what came to mind. Either way, always keep your options open.

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Right_Ad_6032@reddit

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Any advice would be appreciated.

Can't eat honor, can't pay your rent with dignity.

I will say that even after you've settled into your new jerb (this being no more than a month!) you should resume your application process. There's fair odds the outsourcing firm knew exactly who you were and knew before you did that your former employer was going to cut everyone loose so they saw it as an opportunity to harvest tribal knowledge and / or a way to collect pushover talent from another employer. In either case you could soon be out of the job again.

Even if it's a job you like you should always be pushing out a couple applications a month, especially after 6-12.

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Zortrax_br@reddit

Do not be stupid like some justice warriors here. If the company fired you and the other want to hire, is there any reason for you to don't go? "Oh, they fired me".Yes, they fired you, I know ti sucks, but if a company came with a better offer you also would quit your job. At the very least, you should take this job till you find a better place. Be reasonal and do not let emotions take decisions in your place.

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Eschatos@reddit

Is the next thing being ceded to the libs in the culture wars a sense of self respect? People being "reasonable" and ceding to these kinds of offers is why they're successful in the first place. Lord forbid any workers have solidarity towards each other. Get a new job somewhere else that didn't actively just fuck you over.

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VanillaThunderis@reddit

Who are you talking about? Everyone is telling him to take the job and keep applying.

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Zortrax_br@reddit

Have you read all the comments? I saw at least four that said he should take revenge in his old company, so I was referring to these people.

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VanillaThunderis@reddit

You're referring to ~4 comments out of 500+ in this thread?

I was under the assumption that it was any significant amount of comments from the grandstanding.

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Zortrax_br@reddit

Have you read all of them to know the ratio? If you look at what I wrote, I said, do not listen to what SOME people are saying, I never implied how many where there or if there was a majority.

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monkeyguy999@reddit

Dont fall for the trick! At least competent companies will keep a few folks around. Generally with bonuses to train the incoming indians and or Chinese. Ask for stupid amounts of money to do anything.

Then they go on as management or get axed.

How it works unfortunately.

Someone who has been through a bunch of those.

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naps1saps@reddit

Seems like a bad choice after the crowdstrike thing. My appointment with our MSP got canceled that day. Imagine if we used crowdstrike we'd be fighting with all the other companies trying to get the MSP to help fix things. MSPs are good staff augmentation but are not dedicated staff replacements. They should keep at least one if 100 staff or more if bigger. The reaction time to issues is so so much faster and more knowledgeable with dedicated staff.

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shmitzboi666@reddit

Quick install Crowdstrike

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Better-Strike7290@reddit

And LastPass to secure their stuff

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xinorez1@reddit

Wait, did something bad happen with LastPass? I don't use it but it's one of very few such companies I can remember offhand.

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AttackonCuttlefish@reddit

Restore the broken update and reboot.

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COMPUTER1313@reddit

Make sure to also not have a backup of the Bitlocker keys.

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Jumpy_Option_6558@reddit

It happened to me several years ago: the department of 20 axed everyone, and then the outsourcing company brought in 10 or 11 of their own people from India and hired 5 of us back with an 18% raise. For the next three months, we worked with the outsourcing company's people. then, at the last minute, they could, they terminate the 5 of us(last day of mandatory probation). From what I have heard from friends who still work there (not in IT), there are 2 staff from the outsourcing company on site; everything else is at a call center in India.

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

You probably knew that the reason they hired you is so that you could train their incompetent cheap labour, right?

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Aquitaine-9@reddit

That's why you train them all wrong on purpose.

As a joke.

And also as an FU to the company)ies)

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RickMuffy@reddit

Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, killing is badong. From this moment, I will stand for the opposite of killing: gnodab.

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xinorez1@reddit

-And someone who does wrong is a badonkadonk. An ass.

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

💯 I would do exactly that, stretch as much as I can, be always late, train them wrong so on and so forth.

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Kijad@reddit

I mean what are they gonna do, fire you early?

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

Exactly, accept the gig, don’t do shit, get paid and focus on searching for new job. Most important - don’t train their cheap labour, this is for our common good - we need to see these outsourcing companies to fail miserably.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

Eh, life's short. I would just look for another job than put any energy into them.

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th3t0dd@reddit

If you've got an ass I'll kick it!

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punklinux@reddit

No, not train them wrong, that's too obvious. You train them in the most obtuse and difficult manner possible. Gaslighting, talking in obscure ways, giving vague answers like "what do you think?" instead of a direct answer. Claim it's to make them "think critically on their feet." Forget to tell them "exceptions," like "this works all the time, except if there's 5 Mondays in a month for some reason we never looked into."

Source: been the recipient of this abuse.

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Pneuma93@reddit

"If you've got an ass, I'll kick it!"

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ckwalsh@reddit

At that moment, the Chosen One learned a valuable lesson about iron claws... they hurt like crap, man!

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Jumpy_Option_6558@reddit

yes, 4 of the 5 of us figured that was the plan, I do know some shit hit the fan after, as we didnt give them everything they needed. IE.. to do the year-end, several scripts and programs had to be modified every year to run the required report. well, the year-end was April 30th, and we were let go on March 30th. I wasn't one of the programmers; I was on the hardware side. But I do know that they were in Fortran and Lisp. And we NEVER mentioned that it needed to be done to outsource the company. Sure it was mentioned on a page of one of out procedure manuals. but doubt they read that

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

100% they didn’t read it and you guys did good. This is for common good, train them wrong on purpose.

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N01kyz@reddit

gif

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Tzctredd@reddit

They aren't incompetent, they are inexperienced, you may not like it but they are as ready as you are and willing to learn.

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Suspicious-Stay-6474@reddit

you would be surprised to the amount of people who lack even the basic level of awareness

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Silver-Scallion-5918@reddit

Indians are terrible devs and sysadmins in my experience. They don't learn shit. They just wanna learn enough to escape Slumdog status. Even the ones who end up as CEOs do shit jobs. Look at how terrible the Google CEO has been.

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riDANKulousH4x@reddit

thats why you make them sign a contract guaranteeing your employment for a minimum of 12-24 months. Dont forget, you hold the cards here, not them. Who needs who?

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degenerate_hedonbot@reddit

I feel like India is the biggest threat in terms of our quality of life in the West.

They may not be the biggest geopolitical threat (threat to the elites), but they are the biggest threat to middle class lifestyle in the West

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WatchDogx@reddit

As scummy as that is, it sounds like they saved a bunch of money, it's no wonder it keeps happening.

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BoltActionRifleman@reddit

I don’t know who’s worse, your former management or the outsourcing company. Either way, they both reside on the upper crust of the scum of the earth.

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Additional-Coffee-86@reddit

Management, can’t complain about people wanting a better job.

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Better-Freedom-7474@reddit

"Upper crust"? You're being generous.

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A_Coin_Toss_Friendo@reddit

That is extremely scummy. Donald Trump levels of ethics.

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commanderfish@reddit

Just use the time to find a new job

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ispcolo@reddit

This happened to me a while ago. In our case the former employer had an annual bonus component of compensation, and stated it would still be paid for staff who received an offer from the outsourcing company and chose to take it and remain on through at least the end of the year. So, I took it, got the bonus, then quit. It was very clear that the way this arrangement was intended to save my former company money, while still making a profit at the outsourcing company, was to only retain a subset of the former staff, and have us pick up all the prior work. We'd also be training new or moving hires to do the same work, at a lower salary level; so this was also a way for both companies to wipe out the heavier salaries en masse.

Today's market is a bit different, so I'd take emotion out of it and do what keeps you employed, give it some time, and then decide what to do after a few months. The outsourcing company in my case was not a horrible one, and there were opportunities at other client sites with them, some quite good, but they would have required moving which I wasn't willing to do.

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CoCoNUT_Cooper@reddit

Take the job while looking for others

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JustAPieceOfDust@reddit

If it helps you while you look for a job, why not take the money? A job is a job. Does it matter that they are using you and plan to let you go? All companies are using their employees.

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riDANKulousH4x@reddit

tell us the company so I can put in a lower bid and hire you back.

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ItsInmansFault@reddit

This happened to me working as a mainframe operator for Payless Shoes when they first started drowning. Due to the critical nature of my job, I was given three months notice where others were given none. I spent that three months training my replacement over the phone and Skype, who was in India. Some people were offered contracts with the outsourcing company, but at a fraction of their current salaries. I just spent that three months looking for a new job whenever I could, considering my third child had just been born three months prior to getting my notice. 🙄

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IronVarmint@reddit

The outsourcing company may want to keep you on for a transition, milking you for info, and fire you later. Don't count on them until you can.

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GoodbyeIPv4@reddit

Holy smokes, if you work in NYC and work at my firm, sorry! This just happened to a bunch of individuals at my job and I feel bad.

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bg999000@reddit

You got bills to pay, take the job

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BidensBottomBitch@reddit

Take whichever option maximizes your severance. Return only under your own terms. It's not that hard to set yourself up as an independent contractor. Take a huge consulting fee. Do the bare minimum while looking for your next job.

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CruisingVessel@reddit

Years ago my boss's boss the CFO told my boss the CTO that he was thinking about outsourcing IT.
CTO: That's a great idea!
CFO: It is?
CTO: Yes, as long as you let me bid on the contract, because I will hire all of our current IT staff and give them (and myself) big raises, and my big will still undercut all other competitors by a huge margin.
(CFO changed his mind). [sorry, not helpful to your situation. take the lifeline and maybe keep looking]

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jakejones90@reddit

Met my current best friend/boss and they happened to him in a way. He took the job and that is where we met, we both have moved on to another company. Might be worth the lifeline and social networking. Just make sure they don’t pull any shady stuff like making you sign non competes

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BaconEatingChamp@reddit

Just make sure they don’t pull any shady stuff like making you sign non competes

That doesn't even matter anymore thanks to current administration. Screw those non competes.

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Illustrious-Count481@reddit

They give you severance, pretty sure if they lay you off without x amount of notice they're supposed to give you x amount weeks pay.

Oh. And F them. They'll find out it was 'cheaper ta keep her'.

Outsourcing looks good to bean counters and a bottom line...but its horrible for the employees that relied on you guys.

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Coldwarjarhead@reddit

It’s not that uncommon. In fact, I spent 12 years working for a company that provided outsourced IT staffing and management… When we picked up a new client, one of the first things that happened was going over who on the existing staff we would bring on. Their knowledge of the existing systems can be invaluable.

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FakeNewsGazette@reddit

Was there a rule of thumb on compensation which usually attracted the desired existing staff to come onboard with your company?

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Coldwarjarhead@reddit

I have to confess I don’t recall exactly what the rule was… I left that company for my current position almost 15 years ago.

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YouFook@reddit

all of my department got cut (except for me ????? )

The good ones were hired back by the company we outsourced to. Many of them still work for that company now in leadership positions.

The difference is that company wasn’t outsourcing to another country.

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Alternative-Wafer123@reddit

You're paid to do your job, mgt are paid to fire you for cost cutting, you don't owe them anything like knowledge transfer. Fk them, and update your cv.

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mcmatt93117@reddit

Yup - same thing happened to me about 6 years ago.

Outsourcing company (GAVS - Indian based) even offered me about $30k more than I was making.

Noped outta there quick, no thanks. Took 6 months severance and moved on.

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outwardwander@reddit

I have typically they NEED people, excpeially people, with the exact experience you directly have. And you'll start working on contract for same company that just let you go. It never hurts to take the Job (Id personal would counter offer their offer if you think its safe to do so) and don't like how the jobs going start looking for another job. This happened same way for me one day was working for company next day told Wed be let go and got offer from new company I ended up counteroffering for 35% more salary then they offer initially but didn't like the company I was working for so left for a job that paid me little less but prefer much more.

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Illnasty2@reddit

You didn’t get fired, you got “rebadged”. Happens to me, it sucks. You’ll basically be training your replacement or quit with no severance.

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h2kmagicman@reddit

As others have mentioned, they likely aren't interested in you. Had something similar happen, was working for an MSP and then another MSP took over my largest client. Client wanted new company to hire me to keep things afloat, but when the offer came in it was a contract job and they admitted that they "would see how things go". Never took it as I had another job lined up that week.

That said, I've been on the opposite foot, where we took over IT management as an MSP and hired internal assets to remain onsite, but would be subject to our policies and procedures. They received a nice raise and went from being a single person IT shop to having 50 support members to aid them.

Your case could go either way, but I personally would not take the idea that they would can everyone with no notice and with little explanation. If they were walking you through the process and assuring your concerns and helping to answer questions, I'd maybe take a look. Since they didn't, they can shove off.

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rubikscanopener@reddit

Companies use "re-badging" as a way to avoid paying severance.

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Free_Performance1037@reddit

I got stuck that way. I was offered a job at the outsourcing company that the current company considered "comparable", so it was either take the job or leave with nothing because they weren't going to pay me severance with the "comparable" offer made. I got lucky in that I was truly invaluable, and kept getting promotions and learning new software. It wasn't the same for the others that got rebadged. As soon as the outsourcer learned what they needed, they got laid off.

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nsvxheIeuc3h2uddh3h1@reddit

I worked at a company long ago that did this.

Picked my brain for knowledge for 2 months, then shit-canned me.

Then that Xmas, they changed their business name overnight and all employees were out of a job - just like that.

And good luck to the "previous" employees getting their pay and stuff, because technically the business no longer existed. "Take us to Court", they said (knowing that most of the low-paid employees that were living week-to-week couldn't).

The Australian Government later made changes to the law so businesses couldn't do that again here.

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ParkerLA@reddit

This happened to me very recently. I actually happened to be relocating right when it was happening. The MSP offered me a job 100% remote and paid me more. I was very upset with how our HR and the MSP’s HR handled our transition but now that the dust has settled, it worked out for me (so far). Just depends on the group taking over. Sorry to hear you’re going through the same thing. I would look for other jobs but keep them in your back pocket until you find something. Good luck!

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Individual_Fun8263@reddit

Once had an employer let an outsource company (HCL) take over all IT operations. Their goal was they wanted to keep all the existing regional IT staff, since many like us were way far away from the city, so replacements were hard to find. The cost savings was supposed to be more on the helpdesk side. Finally found out HCL was just hiring imported labour for a job and then "assigning" them to these remote locations. So became a "move or else" situation and it still backfired on them.

Where the deal backfired for HCL was the contract was on a "per device" rate. So as soon as the company could, they started having us identify and decomission unused or underused devices, then covid hit and company cut a lot of jobs, which meant even less devices. So HCL started losing money on the contract, so had to lay us off under the excuse of financial issues.

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badlybane@reddit

The job market is not uncertain. If you are in a financial state that you can just accept your unemployement while you job search do that. Otherwise, take the new job but you hold the cards get what your worth. Meanwhile start looking for a new job. The outsourcing company will likely be around for a year or so before it was determined to be a horrible mistake and bring back the department with all new people.

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andrewpicazo@reddit

This happen to me, I declined the job but offered myself as a consulted, after 2 weeks of back and forth, both companies ended up paying me. 5 years later, I bought the msp I worked for. Took a leap of faith. 🔥

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mangoman_au@reddit

Imo don't burn your bridges. Swallow your prise and use them if it's to your benefit. If you are any good a new organizational structure could open doors for you.

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dodgedy2k@reddit

This happened to me but I had some idea it was coming. It was early in the great recession when the process started (2008). I got offered a job with the outsourcer, accepted it, and made up my mind to still perform just like before. My co-workers still needed me to do my job, our customers still needed me to do my job, and I still needed a paycheck. So for the next 14 months, i saved cash, picked up some new skills, and then decided to go. It took nine months but I got a great job at a company I am happy to work for.

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docholoday@reddit

Same, last November, right before Christmas. We had a 6 person team. They "cut overhead" and axed everyone but 1 guy to essentially keep the lights on.

I don't have any words of advice. I just used the time to job hunt, renew a couple certs, and eventually found a place, but it took 6 months. My savings is toast.

That said, it came back to bite them in the ass this week. "Outsourced" can't help them when all their local machines have a BSOD because of CrowdStrike. The 5 of us that were let go kept in contact and we all got a good laugh out of it.

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Tricky-Service-8507@reddit

Stop being emotional, take the job offer and move on

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BeltPuzzleheaded7656@reddit

Only take TOP DOLLAR from them. If they're not talking any money then the conversation is over. They just got the contract and can lose it and they know it.

The only other MAJOR question is do you have enough in personal savings to play hard ball and are you willing to just walk away from the table and weather the job market storm and fyi, the job market is raining BULLSHIT sideways right now.

Rough choice.

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Technical-Message615@reddit

They're just trying to maximize their onboarding success. Make them pay you for it. You know you're gonna be let go for cheaper labor once everything is on rails.

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sparkyblaster@reddit

I would take the job but keep looking and any time they want you to do something related to your old job, perform like you have never seen their infrastructure before and say you don't know because it would be a conflict with your past contract to take resources with you.

"Hi boss, can you tell me where to find thing that is obvious to a previous employee? I have no idea according to my last contact"

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TechBurntOut@reddit

Take the job, but get your resume out there. And network like crazy. Treat that job like a contract job that you'll soon be out of.

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coolade32@reddit

Advice.

Next time unionize your job.
Take the new offer, cash out while looking.

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theITgui@reddit

Had a similar situation at an old folks home where I did IT. They decided to outsource to a local MSP and they'd decide which out of the 12 of us would be offered work with the new company. Everyone had to interview for their jobs, straight out of Office Space. Explaining what we do, etc. I believe myself and one other were offered positions. Mine would be 24 hours instead of the 40 I had been getting and health insurance would take most of my pay.

Got told this on a Monday with 10 days notice, gave notice effective immediately on Friday when I accepted another job. They asked me to work out the rest of the day so I did.

They ended up bringing things back in house because the MSP wasn't getting it done. :)

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WhosThatGurlE@reddit

Yep. I worked at the county as a job banker which means I just work hours with no benefits. They all promised our jobs would be converted to regular soon. Then they decided to get rid of all job bankers, and have a staffing agency come in, offer jobs to only a few people, and those jobs were doing exactly what o was doing at the county. Basically I’d just keep the job I had, but be working for the staffing agency instead of the county. It was a HUGH slap in the face and pissed me off. I took it, worked for the god awful staffing agency, and looked for another job. Now I work somewhere else!

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philefluxx@reddit

It really depends on who the outsourced company is. I was in this position 15 years ago and ended up going with the outsourced company's offer. Stayed with them for 10 years before making a career change. My job remained the same, but I had better pay, better insurance, more time off etc. Probably the best part was that I was moved into a larger team which meant more coverage for when I took time off. Something that I didn't have before.

But on the flip side it could just be a trap too.

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FlyinDanskMen@reddit

As a consultant I can say there are two types of consulting jobs. Great ones and toxic ones. Ask if they bill hourly. If they do you’re going to up to your ears in micro management and bosses breathing down your neck for billable hours.

My company “rebadged” 3 people from a company that turned to us 10 years ago. 2 are still with the company. It can work out, but only if the new place is a good place to work.

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realtravisshyn@reddit

People don’t understand THIS is going to continue to happen until all-of-us stand together to stop the corporate greed. The CEO making 1000x times the average salary is stupid. A company profiting billions of dollars only to lay off entire departments is cray.

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hanna_1199@reddit

Recently I got an email in which hr wrote that simply saying “-15% of my salary or we will find someone else” So yeah it is tough despite Im not a bad employee I mean have good reports and so on.. Reason - probably because there is a new manager and almost all team works in east Europe and Im not so my salary little higher just because of my location..

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djinnsour@reddit

I worked for an "outsourcing company" in the 90s and early 00s. We offered contract desktop, server and network support and management big companies. All local talent, on site doing the job a regular IT department would do.

Mostly good guys and I enjoyed working for them. If you were good at what you did, kept your certifications up, and helped mentor the new kids, and did what you could to protect both the client and the company, you had a path up the ladder. In the companies I've worked for since, unless they had a huge IT department, most people would find very little opportunity for advancement. The outsourcing company treated the talented people like royalty. It was easy to lose them, so the pay was high and they did everything they could to keep them happy. Without talented IT people they couldn't survive, so the way they treated their employees was a lot different from anywhere else I'd worked before or since.

When we took over for another company, we'd often hire the top talent. It made the transition easier, and often we'd find some technical talent who were actual rockstars that the client company had overlooked. We NEVER drained them dry and cut them loose if they were talented.

My suggestion is to take a close look at the company. Especially how they treat the employees they are bringing in. You might find it is an opportunity you'll regret not taking.

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asmokebreak@reddit

A coworker of mine at a former job had this happen to him. The MSP I worked at took his company as a client, he was laid off, the MSP hired him on.

These are the reasons I'm happy i'm now in the public sector.

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Library_IT_guy@reddit

I'd take the job - make sure to negotiate for good pay because they likely really want you there to get them more up to speed with their new client. But keep looking for a new job in the meantime, because they will probably dump you once they are comfortable with your systems.

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DramaticErraticism@reddit

This is pretty common, unfortunately. It is also cyclical, for many companies, especially large ones.

I started with a fortune 500 about 6 years ago. They outsourced 26 years ago and it turned into a giant nightmare mess, for them, over time.

I am waiting another 10-15 years before they see the IT bottom line and they have all new leadership and they want to save a lot of money and I'm right out the door, again.

There aren't many white collar jobs where every worker is at risk of their entire department being outsourced like this. It's a constant fear for all of us.

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MyFirstDataCenter@reddit

Just as an aside, do you consider IT work to be white collar work? In my opinion we are blue collar workers. Yes some of us has salaries that resemble white collar, but at the end of the day we are support staff. And to the people who pay the bills we are computer janitors.

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DramaticErraticism@reddit

haha, we may not get more respect than janitorial staff and act as janitors sometimes, but I've always worked in white collar environments. I tend to figure most jobs that require sitting at a computer all day, as white collar, I could be wrong tho.

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agent_fuzzyboots@reddit

dude, don't get the job at the MSP, take the unemployment benefits and look for a new job, let them dig their own hole.

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jglien@reddit

My brother and I both have long multi-decades careers in IT/computers. At one time my brother's employer (a corporation ranked in the world's biggest 600, based on market cap), around 2005 outsourced their entire IT staff worldwide to a large consulting company for a 7-year contract. It did not go well, even though the IT employees were promised: same duties/titles, rotation to gain experience between the corporation's other sites/factories, same salary, similar health benefits and pension plan. One of my brother's co-workers quit, then started his private consulting business and was hired back doing his old job at same desk/chair, with a higher contracted price (though no health benefits or pension plan).

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troubledtravel@reddit

Yep be caerful. Give it time and the new company will probably fail and original one will be asking for your help.

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udi112@reddit

Take the effin job dude, its a bloodbath out there

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GreenEggPage@reddit

Back in 2010 most of the IT folks at my company (a giant company) got traded to the other team. They told us that our jobs had been outsourced and we could accept the trade or be laid off. Most of us drank the kool-aid and switched. After 5 years with the outsourcer, we were finally laid off.

My advice, take it as a short term job while you look for a new one. The outsourcing company doesn't want onshore people for too long - we're expensive.

Also, don't take it personally. Companies have no loyalty to their employees (no matter what they say), so you should have no loyalty back.

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iHeartAtmosphere@reddit

I went through this about 4 years ago and took the offer. They needed me the whole time, yes a lot of work was put on me and I had to carry the department. I ended up getting an offer to go back to the company payroll and off the out sourced vendor. We still have the out source vendor and IT members in house. Every situation will be different so take everyones comments with a grain of salt and just take the offer until you get another job.

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PeterPlotter@reddit

Not a sys admin but my one of first jobs was the same, it was a publishing company and they had websites for a few of their popular magazines. Anyway, we were all Microsoft/ASP and it was costing to much so one day they just decided to switch to php/linux because of the cost and also because the writers/bloggers back then only knew those CMS packages. Was two weeks before Christmas as well and they fired everyone except my manager because he knew how get data from the database.

Luckily I lived in a country with actual worker protection so my lawyer managed to get 4 months severance out of it.

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Techguyeric1@reddit

My position was "eliminated" this past November, I had a new job by Thanksgiving.

My desktop tech has been doing everything by himself since then.

This past Friday they let him go to outsource all of IT to an MSP 4 hours away in LA.

I spoke with him yesterday and HR has been blowing up his phone and email asking him how to manage the door entry codes since no one is able to remove temp workers codes or his, they are up shit creek.

I told him to just ignore them he owes them nothing.

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menckenjr@reddit

"Sorry, per my NDA as an ex-employee I am not allowed to say anything. Best of luck and have a blessed day!"

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Techguyeric1@reddit

But it's HR, they should have had their ducks in a row before they fired him.

I'm just laughing my ass off this company is a $40 million company and leadership is a fucking joke

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19610taw3@reddit

I worked for a company that had $50m in revenue each year. Non-CEO C level is where the smarts stopped. CIO, CFO, COO ... all were pretty competent and managed their departments.

However, the President, the CEO and various Vice Presidents of divisions were entirely useless and so incompetent I often found myself asking if they were really that dumb or being malicious.

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Aquitaine-9@reddit

HR ducks in a row

lol

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Techguyeric1@reddit

Oh yeah I see it now lol

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menckenjr@reddit

In theory yes, but the s**t doesn't fall far from the horse with HR and "leadership".

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Techguyeric1@reddit

Leadership is the worst, the turnover rate since they got the new CEO (about 2 years ago) has been staggering, I've never seen a company that went through c-suite level employees.

There were 3 IT managers between when I was hired and I was given the spot a total of 1 and a half years, and since I've been gone this past November they are on their 2nd IT manager

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Miklonario@reddit

"You know, I could help as a consultant but then I'd have to form an LLC and get E&O insurance and really that just sounds like a lot of work, and honestly I don't think that culturally you're the best fit for what I'm looking for right now.... but I thank you for your time and I do wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors!"

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Last_Painter_3979@reddit

i'd charge them triple hourly rate for the solution.

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mercurygreen@reddit

Damn - when that happened to me it took two weeks to for them to find a "friend" that still worked there that would call me wanting to ask a "quick question" (Sorry - I can help you with your personal stuff, but not about the former client.)

He left two months later.

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

He should give them his per hour rate with of course a 4 hour minimum per engagement.

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Techguyeric1@reddit

He's as done with them as I was. It's a shit show, they can go with the vendor who has a 4 week turn around for any support issues, that's why I learned the system and taught him it

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Tzctredd@reddit

I refused to take a job with the same company after I was fired, not exactly the same situation but hey.

If you feel exploited in any away you probably are, in which case I would look elsewhere.

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Ducaju@reddit

accept it on the condition you get to work mostly for your old company. now go there and charge them exuberant amounts of money per day for the same guy doing the same job lol.

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rcp9ty@reddit

If you're an American make sure you sign up for unemployment. The employer is still paying you, and if the outsourced company isn't paying you what you used to make it's unemployments job to pay you the difference between the two so it's the same pay still and the company is still paying for you. Not to mention it keeps you working while you look for a different job.

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Raz0r-@reddit

The employer is still paying you, and if the outsourced company isn’t paying you what you used to make it’s unemployments job to pay you the difference between the two so it’s the same pay still and the company is still paying for you.

There is no unemployment insurance for people who are still employed.

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rcp9ty@reddit

If the job you have does not pay what your old job paid you can collect unemployment will still be employed I have been laid off from the IT world three separate times my most recent time was 2 years ago just because you don't understand how the system works doesn't mean you should comment on how it works. Unemployment will pay up to 50% of your former salary so if this outsourced agency hires him and pays him 80% of what his former job paid him he can still collect unemployment for that additional 20% to make him 100% of his old job it won't last forever and it's only temporary but at the same time it allows them to keep their full paycheck screw over the company because the company has to pay unemployment benefits to him through unemployment insurance through the government but it does make its way to them and he gets a paycheck from this other organization plus this organization has never worked with him before he could give them 50% of his work capacity and still collect the paycheck.

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rcp9ty@reddit

I have a business degree along with my management information systems degree and two parents with mbas plus I have been laid off plenty of times in this industry don't talk about what you don't know just go away.

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GeekboxGuru@reddit

Yes. It's a horrible situation.

The job market sucks and they are using it to repress IT staff wages.

Joining the outsourcing company is worse than what you get now - usually the minimum for vacation as an example. They are ruthless in their business practices - they will know the legal requirements of your local labor laws but they will push you around so you have to advocate for yourself just to get what the law says you get...

Good luck finding a new gig

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jfarre20@reddit

Yep, exact same thing happened to me. Entire department got outsourced - but they wanted to keep me. Said no thanks and got a job closer to home that paid 3x better.

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Satkz@reddit

My father works for an IT company that provided support for Company "B". Two weeks ago, Company "B" decided to outsource my father's position and department, causing him to lose the job he had held for over 30 years. He was the team leader and the one who developed and created most of the infrastructure there (it was a 3-4 person team operation). Now, the IT company has moved my father to another project where he is miserable (more working hours, more difficult managers and entitled people, same pay). I'm encouraging him to try to get a better job in cybersecurity, but it is hard to change an older man's mind. I'm trying to update his CV and create a website portfolio for him. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be laid off like that. It was his first and only job.

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tacosandbeerforlife@reddit

My first IT job did this. This was about 12 years ago now. I was Tier 1 service desk at a very large video game company with a horrible rep. They outsourced all internal IT support to India and within 5 years they were insourcing again.

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somesz@reddit

I don't but a couple of my former colleagues did. All of them resigned when the company decided to outsource them. And all of them found a better workplace. I left the company earlier so I wasn't effected.

Truth to be told that was during covid and post-covid when the job market was full of IT related jobs. Nevertheless the company regretted their decision and those who stayed were taken back to the main company and outsourcing was ceased. I know it sounds like a fairytale but this is how it happened.

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WskyTngoFoxtrt@reddit

Had this happen years back. I followed to the MSP, made a bunch more money, but was miserable the whole time. Granted it got me a bunch of cloud experience which I used to get my current job that I really dig.

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Techn0ght@reddit

Company I was with lost the contract because someone in the state govt agency we supported wanted to give the contract to another company. That company then proceeded to try to hire every single one of us to continue to provide the same level of support. Only problem was the agency was fucking toxic, it was our management that protected us from it and made it livable. Even offering huge raises everyone turned them down.

My advice is take care of yourself don't worry about bridges at that place. Take the money and start looking hard for a new job. Give no notice and do as little as possible while there.

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PrestigiousSheep@reddit

It's normal for the outsourcing company to keep some of the original staff to assist with the transition in both training their own staff and instilling comfort for the comfort. This is commonly written into the contract, usually for a specific duration and the duration can be extended during contract negotiations. For example, you may have been written in for one year and extended when the contract is up for renewal.

One other thing to note. If you end up managing the outsourcing team, they can, and usually will, rotate their off shore staff off of the team at a scheduled pace, such as every 6 months. This sucks because it means that the individuals that become the most familiar with your environment are always being lost. This is part of their work culture (assuming it's Indian). Keeping some of the best people on staff instead of letting them rotate out can also be negotiated into the contract and usually a lesson learned when managing this type of relationship.

Look for another job. Indian companies don't like to pay US salaries as that defeats their whole business plan. They will be looking to drop you as quickly as possible throughout the engagement even if your sole reason for being their is to train your replacements.

Good luck!

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Rocklobster92@reddit

Geez, usually you're offered a job before they axe the department. If they didn't want you then, don't take their offer now.

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andytagonist@reddit

Uncertain job market?

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seven20p@reddit

Wait until they slide the offer over ... take it or toodles!

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Cranapplesause@reddit

Where I work, 11 years ago the entire IT Dept was removed and outsourced to an MSP.

5.5 years ago, the MSP stationed their hired back in house.

And that’s how the people stationed from an MSP now work at this company.

We all left the MSP and went to work directly for the company 😏

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ThiefMortReaperSoul@reddit

Key rule :

Don't let your ego cloud your judgement. Take your job offer. Ot will give you a standing ground.

Don't get too comfy and learn stuff. Either climb your way from there onwards or go for new opertunities.

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monkeymagic2525@reddit

I'd turn the lights off on everything on my way out the door.

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SirIWasNeverHere@reddit

Firstly, I'm a Systems person who just finished a job hunt this May.

Two big things:

The market for sysadmins is red hot. Don't worry about picking up a new job, probably at a hire pay than you were.making. The demand is high all over the country and remote jobs are there for the taking as well.
Secondly, I'd get together with your other department friends and VERY quickly make a pact: no one takes a job with the new company unless they offer one to EVERYBODY and at twice their salary.

You walk out the door without telling anyone any password. No info about logins. Don't write a single piece of documentation period. Don't destroy anything or change anything, just absolutely refuse to do lift a single finger for them from this instance onward.

You don't owe them any "professional courtesy". Period. They want to shitcan the whole IT department? Let them find out how fast it destroys the company. DO NOT HELP THEM IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

And no, it won't somehow come as a blowback on you. Trust me, it doesn't. I know from direct and vicarious experience over 20 years.

If they want help, it's $500/hr on c2c contract, paid upfront in weekly amounts. End of discussion.

Oh, and refuse to take any phone calls from the company or outsourcing company either. They can negotiate everything in writing in email.

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aside24@reddit

Yikes, good luck man

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guybrushthriftweed@reddit

So sorry to hear that!

I manage an infrastructure team that keeps the servers & network running for over 30 locations. I have people in my team that have 25 years of experience and built the company from the ground up.

I will lose my complete team to a company that is basically an Indian IT sweatshop... I can't fathom how they will keep the business going with the same service quality, it's just not possible. My most senior team member knows all the quirks of our network and is basically the most skilled person I have ever met.

Luckily due to our country's strict laws no one can just get fired - they will keep their tenure years and salary and have guaranteed jobs but as I hear it nobody really wants to take it.

It's a shame and deeply disappointing.

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andyr354@reddit

Happened to our department of 4 six months ago.

One of my coworkers on the help desk was offered a job and took it to get by. Has not been good for them.

It has not been good for my former employer either, at least not from customer satisfaction. I get calls from former coworkers about how large parts of the system are offline for days or some things have never worked since we left.

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segagamer@reddit

It really surprises me that even after the Crowdstrike situation, there are companies that still believe doing this is a good idea.

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themadcap76@reddit

I just recently went through this in February, difference is that corporate thought we’d all accept the transition to the MSP. We were offered severance in exchange for training our off shore “team”. It was painful and working for an msp can be good or bad depending on who it is. Best of luck. I’d recommend looking for a job.

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flsingleguy@reddit

This makes no sense to me assuming you want a functioning organization. IT isn’t like the pest control or AC repair company where you use an outsourced service. IT needs a seat at the table. IT should be involved in senior leadership and addressing needs, opportunities and ways to operate more effectively. Plus there need to be a technology strategic plan managed by the internal IT department. An outside firm doesn’t understand the daily operational issues and challenges of the business because they aren’t one of them.

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ImmediateSentence460@reddit

IT is not a source of income, as such disposable. You are correct on all points, but corporate is only looking at the bottom line. They do not care about 5-10 years from now.

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rotoddlescorr@reddit

IT can be a source of income, it just depends on how the company is structured.

For example, Haier structures all their departments into their own business unit. The IT department can technically become an MSP for other companies.

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volster@reddit

Not disputing it isn't a thing, but I've always found that mindset to be exceptionally irritating since.... By that logic neither is literally any part of the business other than sales.

Production? Nothing more than COGS required to fulfil the obligations created by sales.

Marketing, Accounts receivable, or hell even the entire c-suite? .... Merely another administrative overhead to be minimized.

Somehow IT seems to get lumbered with being branded as a "cost centre" and given shit about it on a level they wouldn't dream of doing with any other part of the business. "Go on, go tell HR and legal how they're an unnecessary and expensive burden.... I dare you!"

As for not being a source of income "m'kay, let's turn off the website, email and CRM then see what effect that has on the bottom line then eh? - After all, sales managed just fine back in the 60's and 70's with rolodexes and parker pens!" 🙃

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whiteycnbr@reddit

But you can generate revenue without IT.

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TaliesinWI@reddit

So is every staff but the sales team (including accounting), but somehow they never get outsourced.

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International-Fly495@reddit

There's two kinds of IT depts, in managements eyes... You're either an asset or an expense.

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Science-Gone-Bad@reddit

5-10 years might as well be the time till the next Ice Age is over for those type 3 months is as far as they can see, & even that seems like 100 years

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Moontoya@reddit

Bar you won't make any income without it functioning

As crowd strike so aptly demonstrated

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WayneH_nz@reddit

IT is not a source of income, but it is a force multiplier. Used right, IT will make the rest of the staff fly...

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TheEndDaysAreNow@reddit

Unfortunately that takes more brains than management has

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mschuster91@reddit

Bean counters don't care about any of that though, all they care about is "we replaced our IT with 90% cheaper Indians", pocket the bonus, and when the shit hits the fan, exit with a golden parachute.

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hooshotjr@reddit

It's also a management promotion opportunity. Org saves money, manager gets the promo, then jumps ship before having to deal with the fallout.

I know of a dude who "lead" an outsourcing effort. Got promoted. Took a job outside the org for another promo, then quickly jumped to another company. Then spent the next 15 years doing the same thing. Come in, outsource, leave in 2-3 years.

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mschuster91@reddit

Similar to how we need a transparent tracker for the provenience of police officers to curb abuse, we need a tracker for C-level and upper management executives.

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project2501c@reddit

so.... unions?

cuz what you are describing is class warfare.

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mschuster91@reddit

Class warfare would be hanging C-levels and shareholders on the next tree.

What I'm describing is merely a tool to hold bad actors accountable.

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project2501c@reddit

I dig the gist of your gib

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Jesburger@reddit

C-Level work for private companies who can do whatever they want. Police works for and has the protection of the state. C-Level can fire you, the state can send armed men to your house and put you in a cage. That's not the same.

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mschuster91@reddit

The principle is the same: we need a transparent way to track bad actors as they move across the country.

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Jesburger@reddit

Free enterprise is free to make any bad decision they want.

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COMPUTER1313@reddit

I've seen a project manager do that.

Piping system for a new facility needs to last at least 30 years?

He delivered a system under budget and under time. Was promoted and then quickly hopped to another place.

That piping system started having major problems just 3 years in. Turns out he had suppressed contractors who expressed concerns over the longevity of the system that they were working on at the time.

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hooshotjr@reddit

Have seen similar things.

A lot of money is spent setting up a new office in a new low cost location. People get laid off or work slowly migrates there. Work is lower quality, but cost savings is happening. Then work stays lower quality and cost goes up due to demand or currency fluctuation. Several years later begin trying to move the work elsewhere.

All this work looks good in short term. Over the long term, it's kind of just promotion driven busy work where changing nothing might have had similar results.

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Camera_dude@reddit

This. Then the next management team after the crisis on shores the IT dept saying they are addressing critical business needs.

It's a circular firing squad all the way down.

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RoosterBrewster@reddit

I always wonder if they ever ask why the company has to hire expensive software developers when they could get juniors.

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AshIsAWolf@reddit

Bean counters don't care about any of that though, all they care about is "we replaced our IT with 90% cheaper Indians", pocket the bonus, and when the shit hits the fan, exit with a golden parachute.

At my current job every single person who was in leadership when they outsourced us was gone in less than 3 years.

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90Carat@reddit

That's hilarious, you sweet summer child. If a company can save some money via outsourcing, they will. An outsourcing company will take a loss on the first part of the contract, as they assimilate, learn, but take SLA hits everywhere. Then in the back part of the contract, they make all the monies. Meanwhile, the OG company might take a hit to customer service, but they are saving buckets of cash.

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WatchDogx@reddit

Really depends on the kind of business.
Many small to medium businesses can absolutely get away with using an outsourced service.

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jimicus@reddit

I won’t win any friends here by saying this but not everyone wants to run their business the “perfect” way we might envisage it in IT.

Some organisations really don’t have particularly complex requirements and would be better outsourcing it all.

It might limit their ability to scale, but if it does there’s probably a dozen other things that would have the same effect.

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flummox1234@reddit

you have to admit offshoring IT after something like Crowdstrike is pretty sus though. I kind of hope for a mini crowdstrike event just for this one company now.

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volster@reddit

I'm in that odd camp that views the vast majority of "IT decisions" as actually just being a business decision.

There are always a thousand competing demands for cashflow and sometimes "good enough" is just that.... Good enough. 🤷‍♂️

This extends all the way to having a fairly blaze attitude to things such as backups.

There's a sliding scale between just not bothering at all, and having a fully redundant hot-spare everything with 5 9's SLA's and a complete "the office was hit by an asteroid" DR plan in place.

I see my role as being to set out the options and explain the pros/cons and cost/benefit in order for an informed decision to be made.

Sticking with the example of backups, at the end of the day they're an insurance policy - Both in terms of the length of downtime, and the potential to have to re-create lost work, all of which has a cost involved.

Don't bother at all "well, when the proverbial hits the fan you might as well just close and restart the business from scratch" - but actually.... a weekly, or even monthly backup to a usb fob and gdrive might be "good enough" for a small firm with a relatively static customer-list that doesn’t offer credit. 🤷‍♂️

Say they're a [shuffles cards] local dairy - For them, a couple of days of IT downtime could be an irritation rather than the end of the world.

The cows will still be miked regardless, and the van drivers already know their route and the orders are all standing - Anyone who does end up falling off the schedule will phone up to demand to know why they didn't get their milk in short order anyway.

Provided it's one that's been made consciously rather than simply blundered into - I have absolutely no problem with a firm deciding that the expense simply isn't worth it for them and they’re willing to risk it.

The other side of the coin to that is i view the systems at work as "cattle, not pets" - I don't take it as a personal slight if the ivory tower isn't as perfectly shiny as i'd like it to be, this is their system… Not something my sense of worse is personally invested in.

As such, there's a production outage at 4:59 on a Friday with nil failover in place? The doors gonna flapping in the wind along with everyone else - I won't be staying late to figure out what went wrong, much less slaving away all weekend to have it back up on Monday morning.

I'll be enjoying my weekend without a care, and whatever it was can be investigated and remediated within my normal working hours… "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency for me" and all that. 🙃

"Shouting at the IT nerd" isn't a substitute for spending money and i won't be the one losing everything if the business goes under.... I'll just have to find another day-job.

I make this very clear to the powers that be as part of the risk/reward proposition when it comes to deciding not to bother - Provided they're OK with that, so am I. 👌

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mercurygreen@reddit

You're right - and C-suite often doesn't care about tomorrow's costs when they can save today.

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FuzzTonez@reddit

lol

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Science-Gone-Bad@reddit

Anyone outside IT thinks it runs on FM

Fucking Magic

Once had a manager claim that I could set up a rack of Linux systems for Space communications by plugging them in… period

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bigredone15@reddit

I think this all depends on scale. A company with less than 10 in IT are probably better off outsourcing to the right partner.

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CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit

You’re assuming they want to function in any other way than people at the top making money.

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Vixinvil@reddit

I would accept that job to just "have something", in the meantime I would search for another job. If I find enough great positions, I will leave it. 👀😄

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walkasme@reddit

If you do take the offer, respond to every question they ask to legal to see if it violates your NDA...

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liquid_profane@reddit

I'm guessing this is in the US? but I know in the UK, they would have difficulty just sacking an entire department, especially if its to just outsource. That's unfair dismissal It can cost a company a lot of money to do something like this.

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Otherwise-Remove4681@reddit

Make sure you get shit ton of money. Once the original company realize their fuck up for not having their own deparment and everyone useful is already employed at the outsourcing company, you can ask almost anything for compensation.

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Zer0kbps_779@reddit

Take the job but actively look to get out

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stinkyt0fu@reddit

Unless they actually have or create a department for your group. If they only hire you (I.e. as a consultant) then you better question them hard about what is your long term prospective at this outsourced company. None of this maybe temp to hire after 6 months BS. I know people who work their tails off before the end of 6 months and the company still had to let them go due to budget concerns.

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LordNikon2600@reddit

I been warning people for months now but I keep getting attacked.. they are sending all the tech jobs to India and Mexico and thrown all their security out the window… look what happened to knowbe4 hiring North Koreans

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psb_41@reddit

Not sure where you are in the world. But uk we have a process called TUPE.

This protects things like this happening.

But think it may be a Europe thing to protect employee and employer.

As people say see if you can negotiate a nicer wage if you’re going back doing the same job, to help level up their team your in demand and you never know the company may turn out to be good.

And you can look for jobs while still getting a wage.

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goochmonster@reddit

It doesn't always protect you. They'll first look to see if they can fit you somewhere else in the company in a similar role.

I was 'transferred' to the sourced company through the TUPE process. This did protect my work benefits like PTO and wage so those had to stay the same.

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psb_41@reddit

Yeah it’s a lot deeper. But the general rule it protects you, and you retain as many benefits as possible through the consultation process.

I went through it one and it was ok. But company ended up being a bit crappy. But there is a lot of negotiations that need to happen through the whole process.

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gurilagarden@reddit

Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

there's a new post about this every week, for at least the last 15 years. I started my own company after been through this. That was 20 years ago. My advice? Take the job, find a better job.

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swan001@reddit

Less pay?

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anders_hansson@reddit

Good luck to your old company. Seems like an ill adviced move based on some finance analysis. Could be a sign of a sinking ship?

I have not experienced this exact situation, but similarly drastic measures, and they were always signs of things going south and management making bad decisions.

My advice would be to not put too much faith into the job if it turns out that you get to work with your old company, and rather look actively for other opportunities.

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alelop@reddit

pay differance?

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blizardX@reddit

I think you can take the offer but only as a temporary measure because you will quickly develop resentment towards the old company.

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JohnnyricoMC@reddit

I've actually received a job offer from the outsourcing company.

TBH this is an opportunity to negotiate a serious raise from that outsourcing company. That job offer is no coincidence: hiring you benefits them considerably because you're already familiar with the client's environment.

They flat-out stole your job, if they now want your help it should cost them dearly, at least a serious increase of your wage + at least all the benefits you enjoyed up until now. Meanwhile remain on the lookout for better opportunities, because either that outsourcing company is trying to avoid needing to train staff, or they're just looking for someone to train the cheapest workers they can find. Don't trust them to keep you on their payroll after training/handover is complete.

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Honky_Town@reddit

Calls for a raise. +20% and you work for conditions of external company. If not, too bad they fired the walking documentation

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Geminii27@reddit

Is the offer from the outsourcing company significantly less than you were currently making, or missing intangibles, or other factors?

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undercovernerd5@reddit

Hello, Crowdstrike? Is that you?

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90Carat@reddit

Yes! My whole division was outsourced in the middle of Covid. The plan was just to let us all go. Except two poor bastards to train the India folks. The outsourcing company came to their senses, and hired all of us. Some, like myself, stayed for a bit, then left. Some are still there. The transition sucked at times, though, the job market was as dogshit for a bit, so we just put up with it.

I am sorry that you are going through this. It is awful, and hard.

And fuck you Genesys, you are a bag of dicks for letting people go in the middle of a pandemic.

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superblick@reddit

Same thing happened with Ascension.

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ricblah@reddit

Get the job to find a job, do the absolute bare.minimum to not get fired but for God sake don't train those fucks. Let them train by themselves. Be full of "i don't know some other giù did that" and "mmmh don't Remember" and "of course, 30 minutes and i'll be there" and NEVER show up, or show up and deliver poorly. Your only job now Is to look for another job.

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LarrikinWallabyWaloo@reddit

You got a job offer from the outsourcing company so that you can train them. That lifeline means nothing when they’re just going to kick you to the curb. Look for another job. Let them figure it out on their own.

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Specialist-Pea-2474@reddit

Get payout from existing company. Get contract with new company 2 x salary and 12 month contract that is payed out with 3 month notice period.

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StringLing40@reddit

A couple of things I have seen play out on repeat….

Once the IT is outsourced then it is no longer under control of the management. Typically it’s a 5 to 10 year contract sometimes paid in advance….best not to though. The company doing the IT does a phœnix at some point to ramp up the prices. When your servers are down and off, good luck trying to do anything. Now you have to sign a ten year contract or lose everything. You now have a foreign jurisdiction and foreign courts and your servers are where? And another new company can access them? Knows the passwords?

Many of those Indian IT workers believe in Karma and what goes around comes around. I have had approaches from Vietnam, Philippines and other Asian countries that have offered much lower rates than the Indians.

The bosses don’t care. Investors move in, they get the company to borrow money, outsource everything, strip the assets by leasing them back from another company they own, pay each other big bonuses, sell the “new” version of the company to dumb investors with an IPO which looks fantastic on paper and then sell there own shares and stakes before it crashes.

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MuthaPlucka@reddit

Keeping you on for the knowledge transfer then TTFN, suckah.

Advice:

take the offer. It’s easier to get a job when you have a job.
Don’t tell your current employer… if they know because the outsourcing tells them, ok. But you have been fired: make sure you get any holiday pay owing you and whatever settlement / offer provided. Who you end up being hired by is none of their business.
Get another job ASAP.
Don’t give any advance notice. You’re now working for the outsource company and are likely under “probation” so can be gunned without notice or compensation. As can you leave without notice
Time your quitting so they owe you the least amount of money possible.
TTFN morally deficient employers. 🖕

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

But most importantly - don’t do KT, fuck it up on purpose, stretch for as long as possible, train them wrong. For example, don’t tell them how your scripts work, give them 2-weak slide course on an unrelated scripting language , be always late etc etc etc

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nihility101@reddit

Scripts? What scripts? I did all that by hand?

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HealthySurgeon@reddit

In the US, you are required to always be compensated for what you have actually worked. Always. I don’t know if that’s clear and it sounds like you suggest otherwise, so I just want to make it clear.

I honestly assume you just said it weird and you already know this.

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JoeLaRue420@reddit

severance is optional.

may companies have switched to "unlimited" PTO to ac void having to pay it out.

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JustinHall02@reddit

I found out the hard way that while you have to be paid for them, in Georgia there is no law that says when you have to be paid. If you’re currently employed there are laws for that. But not one about your final paycheck. I had to file suite against one former employer for that final check when he laid off 1/2 of the SMB. He bought a $100k car the same week while NOT giving people their last paychecks on time.

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redlotusaustin@reddit

Unfortunately this is not true and it comes down to state laws and occasionally even the company handbook. I.e.; the state may not require paying out PTO but, if the company policies say they do, then it IS required.

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HealthySurgeon@reddit

What does “what you have actually worked” mean to you?

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

Sure, if you can afford lawyers and waiting years to get paid.

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HealthySurgeon@reddit

Fortunately, the Department of Labor stands behind this pretty strongly, no matter who you are and the ones who tend to get robbed usually make way less than we do, so it’s not a ton of bullshit.

This does NOT include benefits. It’s purely about wage.

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

Never done this have you?

I even had a court order, bank told me you can't deposit that. So you can afford to wait and a lawyer, so did I. Not a huge help.

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hunterkll@reddit

A fair amount of states don't require them to pay out PTO or holiday pay or anything like that, and severance offers also aren't required in most of the country, so i'm pretty sure that's what he's talking about.

My company will pay out it, but they're not required too, just big enough that a nationwide single policy that complies with every state requirements makes sense.

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DiseaseDeathDecay@reddit

Time your quitting so they owe you the least amount of money possible.

Think this is what they were referring to.

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hunterkll@reddit

I'd take that to refer to burning all your PTO before having to separate, so they *can't* take it from you in states where they don't have to pay it.

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Mammolytic@reddit

Luckily in Colorado, earned PTO is considered pay, so companies have to pay it out if you earned it, and they can't "use it or lose it".

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BattleHardened@reddit

This is the way. 100% will work.

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Reinmeika@reddit

This is 100% the best plan. I did say it’s up to the person and how they feel, but if it’s me, I’m using them as much as they’re using me and just dying to drop them like a bad habit when the time comes.

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horus-heresy@reddit

Sir but you did not do the needful as a contract says. Can I call dear?

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Mediocre-Ad-6847@reddit

I used to work for one of the largest outsourcing companies. My job was to review environments and make systems upgrades as part of the takeover. Sudden takeovers were rare, but hiring the best of the original staff was a standard practice.

People would get very upset, but I'd explain. This decision was made above both our heads. You can show your indispensable and get a new job with my company, or use your time to find a new company. Being difficult or sabotaging the process will just get you a bad name in a very small industry.

OP - I'm sorry you're going through this. Give a serious look at the offer. If it sucks use the transition time (if any) to find a good position somewhere else. You did nothing... this is some C-Suite jerk "saving money." Usually, it winds up costing more in the long run.

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just_change_it@reddit

very small industry.

lol what? unless you're already making fuck you money, you are dispensable and easily replaced.

If you're truly doing a role that has very few people doing it and you aren't making fuck you money odds are any other IT role is going to pay just as well in any other industry/company.

The only reasons to stay would be to keep an income/job while job searching.

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Mediocre-Ad-6847@reddit

It's smaller than you'd think. Especially if you're not willing to pick up and move to another city or state. I keep running into ex-coworkers. YMMV

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gfsincere@reddit

Much smaller. Me and a dude that ran in the same infosec circles as me both moved to New Zealand within 6 months and ended up at the same company. He’s heard of me and vice versa but we had never met before we got here.

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nlaverde11@reddit

Never been in that situation but if it were me I would take the job to keep an income and start looking around.

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mwerte@reddit

Be careful, a friend of mine took the stopgap job and kept looking around. He couldnt get hired because the place he was trying to go to had just fired that MSP, so they were contractually prohibited from bringing on anyone who had worked at the MSP, which my friend technically had even though he wasnt an MSP employee at the time of their work with the other client.

This was at a law firm and my friend wanted to stay at law firms and this MSP specialized in law firms so they were all over his potential employers :(

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ghostalker4742@reddit

I've been down that road, and it's one you don't want to follow.

They might pay you a little better... but they'll work you to the bone trying to extract all the knowledge they can from you as quickly as possible. When they got what they want, you'll be fired.

I've seen it happen to storage engineers, network architects, system admins, etc. Didn't matter if they were in the middle of a big project, or traveling for work, etc.

Always remember that you're just a line in a database somewhere, and HR gets points for trimming it.

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Smelle@reddit

Happens daily in our world, IBM comes in and tells my customers, the CFO normally, they can save them $$$, so the CFO tells the IT management can you do it for this budget, if not we are outsourcing TATA does it, HPE or what it has become does it, Compubong does it, everyone comes in, makes claims and gets them signed up to an impossible contract. Workers being forced out are given a package, and tells them to train the new guys or forfeit the package.

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bronderblazer@reddit

I would cool down first and then decide. do I want to revenge or do I want to come out on top of this situation. I would take the offer AND keep looking for another opportunity and leave when a better one comes up.

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Jaime-Starr@reddit

This is the way.

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iSeeCacti@reddit

Just wait a few years until they realise in-house is always better and go back for a ridiculously high amount of salary.

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SiLeNT-KKK@reddit

Are you eligible for compensation ?

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FL370_Capt_Electron@reddit

I used to work on the V-22 program as a Lead man I was union’s version of an assistant manager and engineer. At a meeting discussing potential foreign customer an engineer stated that we could not show the cockpit to our new customer because it was secret. I interrupted the guy with a cockpit picture on Google. Hah

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mjwillz4@reddit

In my company the ones who taught the new contracting company lasted a year before they canned them. Fun fact... they are firing the third party IT group in Nov lol

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Skill-Additional@reddit

Here’s a cleaned-up version of your text:

—

I’ve been fired plenty of times. If you struggle to find a job, then create one. Take the job unless you don’t want to. It’s quite common for outsourcing companies to take over, as it limits the liability of the owners and removes a headache, or at least that’s the perception. Additionally, it can save costs, though I don’t necessarily agree with it.

—

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Dry_Inspection_4583@reddit

I would be pushing and writing my own contract, which would be inclusive of punitive dismissal, aka. If you fire me for any reason in the next 3 years you owe me x amount. I'd even go as far as getting a lawyer to vet the contract before doing anything. This just feels too much like, hey come train our team for pennies on the dollar, we'll get rid of you once we have everything.

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IsThatAll@reddit

What makes you think the company would even take the time to look at that sort of contract? They will offer you their terms and conditions, take it or leave it.

Sure you might be able to negotiate a better rate of pay / days off etc, but good luck even getting them to read your contract, let alone accept it.

This just feels too much like, hey come train our team for pennies on the dollar, we'll get rid of you once we have everything.

Because that's exactly what it is.

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Dry_Inspection_4583@reddit

Thank you for the feedback. You're absolutely right, it's stupid to negotiate from a place of authority. I'll stfu and be quiet now. Thank you for pointing that out

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IsThatAll@reddit

You're absolutely right, it's stupid to negotiate from a place of authority.

I agree that if you are in a position of authority, you should 100% negotiate, However unless OP is a 1-in-a-million SME on some obscure technology, then they have the same level of "authority" as everyone else so their bargaining position is probably quite low.

The company saw fit to get rid of them in the first place, so obviously didn't value their skill set or value to the company very high in the first place.

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the_syco@reddit

Take the job, and start applying for other jobs. When you get one, walk away from the outsourced gig with no notice.

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nut-sack@reddit

Are they offering you more money? If so, consider a weird way to get a promotions.
If not, gracefully decline and look for a better opportunity assuming you have savings to keep you afloat.

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phatm1ke@reddit

What confusion?

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habitsofwaste@reddit

I was a sub-sub contractor at an oil and gas company, everyone else on my team besides my boss were employees of the oil and gas company. Then one day they decided to outsource them to SAIC. It worked out a lot better for me since I got a big fat raise and benefits. I’m not entirely sure how it worked out for the company employees but I didn’t hear them complain too much. Sadly some were offered severance and retirement. That was the boss of the team. He was awesome. I did not care for the saic boss that replaced him. Anyway, most people I think ended up doing ok.

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Theedon@reddit

I have lived through it. Left my original company for a Partner. Partner did layoffs bit had called my Original company and arranged it so I would get my old job back. I got unemployment for 6 months until a position opened.

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ashley_au@reddit

honestly yes, I feel for you.

found myself in the same position close to 20 years ago when I worked for a three letter acronym. happened when we started a family. my only advice under the circumstances is to stay only if there's a retention bonus on offer. if not gtfo, as the intention of the employer would appear to be cost reduction. in my lived experience even the 'retained' roles go eventually

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FooDoDaddy@reddit

Many years ago, 1990s BC/BS outsourced to EDS. Was the best thing that ever happened to me. Good Luck!

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jbrooks84@reddit

Your stock will go up

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Small_Balance_6270@reddit

L3Harris did this with over 400 corporate IT employees. 'Sold' them to Accenture. I can only speculate that the job functions were pretty boutique... Custom apps and such... Which isn't a core competency of an it department. So maybe leaning on Accenture expertise to run it better than they can. Accenture may also have a lower overhead rate so they bill back cheaper... Not likely. Guaranteed, whatever or whyever, it looks good on the books but is not likely in the long term interest of the company. It will certainly encourage attrition but they are risking a lot of undocumented knowledge walking out the door.

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asdfg27@reddit

I worked IT in a company. They decided to outsource all the IT to IBM. We all knew what was coming. They acted like we were going to be employees forever but we knew we were there to train offshore employees. about 2 years after we were hired we were all laid off.

My advice is take the job and keep looking. as soon as you find something different bail.

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Mesquiter@reddit

You have one play and it is as a group. Get everyone together and if you all decline the offer for the job you can request a golden parachute to train the new group. Bare minimal...ask for 6 months salary if you stay and help with the transition. I say this because "IF" they let everyone go, who is going to create their logins, permit access, and give them the lay of the land. So, who has the keys to their kingdom?

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fatherosam@reddit

I've seen it happen here, one company outsourced and in sourced 4 times over 10years. One guy did the same job through it all, just negotiated a pay rise each time, and hisn pay came from different people each swap, otherwise no change for him

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Reasonable_Love_8065@reddit

Guess them minimum wage hikes do cause layoffs

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GeorgeWmmmmmmmBush@reddit

Just for clarification- is it being taken over by a local MSP or by IT support in a third world country?

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teej2379@reddit

Yes. Take the outsource job, and start looking. Working for an outsource company can be good or can suck. But I decided not to be a guest in my own house. I went to another role after 4 months with the outsource company. That role got killed by COVID. I wondered in the desert for a few years, and my old boss where I was outsourced called me back and offered me an in-house. Shit works out, just keep postive and moving forward. good luck!

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teej2379@reddit

You most likely will get severance from your old company, and have a job lined up with the outsource company. Sock away that severance as your emergency fund.

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rsysadminthrowaway@reddit

Happened to me a little more than a decade ago, a few months after I had started a new job. I think 75% of the IT staff got 3 months notice that their jobs were being eliminated, and 25% got job offers to be "rebadged," doing the same work in the same place but as an employee of the outsourcing company. They sweetened the offer with a retention bonus if those who accepted stuck around for a while.

Big surprise, it was a shitshow. The offshore support was utterly worthless. On the plus side, working for the outsourcing company I was non-exempt, so working late to clean up their messes was very, very lucrative- I added $10k worth of OT to my salary 2 years in a row, and paid off my car a couple years early as a result.

Several years later, when the contract came up for renewal, the company severely cut back how much they used the outsourcing company, and hired a lot of us rebadged people back as full time employees.

My advice would be if you can find another job quickly or you have some "fuck you" money saved up, GTFO. Dealing with those offshore fuckwits was not worth the aggravation, and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't stay.

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Kardolf@reddit

Not quite the same, but close. I was part of an in-house IT team that was built by a Senior VP that was unhappy with the support provided by MSP that corporate used. We had existed for about 10 years by the time the axe fell. They brought us into HR one at a time to discuss severance, and out of the entire team, I was offered a position with the MSP with the comment that "if I took the job and didn't want it, I was taking it from someone else". Yes, the SVP was a real work of art. It was during the recession, and I was pretty freaked out, so I took the job. Lasted another 10-ish years before getting caught in a 1500 person layoff (I saw it coming and figured I would be ok, so I rode it to the end to get the big severance). It was a good option for me at the time, but I had lots of people telling me to run. Made some friends and good work contacts.

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pinkfloyd8973@reddit

This is a strategy called re-badging. Pioneered by the Morgan Stanleys, JP Morgans, and hedge funds.

The outsourcing company’s intent is to replace, but remember they mostly suck and 98% of their people are retards.

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htmlcoderexe@reddit

HCL?

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SuperDerpfake@reddit

Good news, your former boss and his cock sucking underlings just got a massive increase in their pay!

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AnalogJones@reddit

take the job. if you aren’t happy you can take your time and start a job search and still have cash flow. any advice that suggests you approach this from a perspective of you have negotiating power is risky at best. why?

well first the company reorganized all of IT. they either did that because they realized the team had too many poor performers to deal with another way…including bad managers who didn’t have the wherewithal to fix the staffing issues the right way (document poor performers, put them on PIPs, terminate those who don’t improve)…or the company is losing money and they are looking to save quickly.

when we get let go we think about the most immediate loss: the cash…but they see you all as “compensation packages” where medical, prescription, retirement matching, and any other benefits cost the company dollars that you don’t see.

dumping an entire department means they only have to pay a flat rate for bodies…and the contracting company wins if they can rehire former staff who know the environment.

But make no mistake…this was all about money and/or money vs perceived value of IT people on salary…and either way your bargaining power right now is crap….the only exception is if you were a star performer…your year end review puts you ahead of everyone else; you always make yourself available to people; someone in leadership told you not to worry about the manger who is a bully because “we always protect our performers”…if any of that is in your past the negotiate artfully.

If you were not a star performer just take what they give you, do the job well (because now you can be let go really quickly) and search for what you want to do next.

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Any_Particular_Day@reddit

Accept the job from the outsourcing company, take their money and spend some quality time looking for something else. Always easier to find a job while you’re employed since there’s not so much pressure to take the first thing that comes along.

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ntrlsur@reddit

Been there before. A Previous company outsourced my position. The outsource company was willing to give me the exact same salary and benefits as the company I worked for. I told them no. I needed an extra 5k (this was in the early 00's) as the reason I took a low salary was because I actually liked working for the company I was employed by (specifically my boss at the time). The outsource company denied my request and I went job searching. My boss at the time hated the decision so he gave me time off paid (without using PTO) to find a new gig. Found a new position right when the outsource company deadline passed. They reached out and asked me to fill out paperwork for their onboarding process. I reminded them they denied my request so I was going to work somewhere else. The parent company was in shock that the "rookie of the year" and the "employee of the year" 2 years running was leaving. After the 5 year contract they brought IT back inhouse. My old boss wanted me back but fuck me once shame on me. Fuck me twice...

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drmischief@reddit

There are many cases where a company will outsource only to find out it's a disaster and reach out to former employees to help fix an issue or potentially come back.

If stuff hits the fan and they ask you to help, charge them well over $100/hr for your services.
don't go back as a FTE. Period.

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IsThatAll@reddit

If stuff hits the fan and they ask you to help, charge them well over $100/hr for your services.

Meh for that sort of nonsense you charge consulting rates, not contractor rates. $3000 per day ($375 per hour), charged in 1 day increments.

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jamenjaw@reddit

Charge min 150/hour with 2 hour min

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igiveupmakinganame@reddit

tell them all the wrong info for the job, then quit

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Ready-Ad-3361@reddit

Just leave, tell them all to hug nuts and bail asap.

You’ll thank me later

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bl73b0b@reddit

Has happened to a few people I know before. They will likely use you as a contractor until you train someone cheaper. Take it if you need the cash

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cbelt3@reddit

Sounds like the C level did the needful. To benefit themselves.

Sell your stock because it’s gonna hurt them. Always does.

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adolfo425@reddit

It has happened to our team.

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ecnahc515@reddit

Ask for severance from the new employer to be written into your contract if they let you go with the first 2 years.

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Alternative_Ad_3443@reddit

When I saw that in the past the hired company hired the internal IT just long enough to get the tribal knowledge then let them go.

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duckat@reddit

If you can't find something similar immediately, get the job. Then start looking for a another and as soon as you get it, leave. At least you'll continue receiving a paycheck while you look for another place.

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jeffrey_f@reddit

Since you are suddenly in a predicament, take the job. Weigh your options once in the new company.

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frizzer69@reddit

My company had a long outsourcing contract with a large client (almost 20 years of renewals). Then the client got new management and went out to market. We didn't get the renewal. The kick in the teeth was that we had to handover to the new provider i.e. training our replacents. Some of us were picked up by the new mob, a heap were made redundant and even fewer, high performers, like myself, were retained and put onto other accounts. I'm still with the company today, 27 years after signing my original contract. The client immediately regretted using the new crowd as they had a very specific contract and everything not covered in the contract was additional cost and delays. Which isn't how we worked before that. We had more of a give and take relationship with our client. I still miss working for that client, especially in hindsight. But there's no stopping the bean counters unfortunately.

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dapopeah@reddit

If you can weather the lack of employment, I suggest you do that and find another job. If you do decide to play ball, make sure they are paying through the nose. Take what you were making and double it, negotiate from thee.

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mwcotton@reddit

Take the job with the outsourcing, do nothing and use the time to job search. Be smart take the money and run.

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bamacpl4442@reddit

That happened to me almost two years ago. I came home from vacation flaith my wife in Ireland to a text from the VP wanting me to call him Monday morning.

They had eliminated the entire department while I was gone - even though we were saving them right at a half million dollars per year vs the outsource contract they had been paying, and we had dropped ticket time by 75%.

They gave me two weeks severance and a good luck wish.

Take the job, I say. You can always search while you have a job.

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pee_shudder@reddit

I charge $350 an hour or a minimum of $1500 a month for basic AD and Exchange administration with a hybrid deployment. Understand your value.

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rip-tide@reddit

I would join the new firm just to poison the well (if you know what I mean :-) )!

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Willispin@reddit

I see this rebadging happen all the time. I don’t know what kind of deal you’re getting but it’s up to you of course. companies just want IT of their balance sheet. Depends on what their version of this is. You don’t have to go to market, but are the options or opportunities the same?

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j1xwnbsr@reddit

And in five years your ex company will realize that outsourcing IT is a terrible thing and bring it al back in house. Speaking from experience.

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techtony_50@reddit

This happened to us in 2015. We had a team of 8 people - all let go, but everyone of us was asked to apply at the take over company to assist with the transition. We all stuck together and refused. The new team had no idea how anything worked, had no idea where files were kept, how our highly specialized software worked, etc. A month after we were all let go, the new team started calling us for advice. It was awesome to say, sorry man, I know you are in a tough spot, but I cannot help you, I am too busy looking for work right now. It took them literally 2 years to get things settled down, and in the end, they ended that contract and went back to an inhouse team. Stick to your guns and teach them NOT to do this again.

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RDR2GTA6@reddit

Oblig https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8c/20/cd/8c20cdde3d9e02c06226bd65b826b344.jpg

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Puzzleheaded-Act181@reddit

I’m gonna share an unpopular opinion:

It’s easier to get a job when you have one. Paradoxical, I know. Take the offer and ride it out. It’ll take at least 60 days for them to realize you’re not doing much.

I’m really sorry man. That’s especially bullshit because of what we went through Friday. I’ll pour one out for you.

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gadhalund@reddit

The problem with all this outsourcing is that the spineless turd managers are located tokens far away to take a crap in their desk drawer I would decline that offer on principle, as others have states they just need to hoover up your grey matter and then let rajid and sanjay continue at 1/3 the pay Let rajid and sanjay figure out for themselves

No offence to rajid and sanjay intended, im sure they are good at cricket etc

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Chemical_Cheetah4273@reddit

I’d sign on as long as the pay is similar, but feign ignorance the whole time, and ignore institutional knowledge in your head and pretend it’s a fresh network.

They’re trying to fuck you twice and your option is to fuck back or find another job. So it really depends on you outlook in all this.

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Damolitioneed@reddit

Gen Z boss and a mini

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SergioSF@reddit

Same role at the company? Scab on and pay your bills and leave before you get comfortable.

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drzaiusdr@reddit

Take up the opportunity while looking for a new job, the only way.

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EastcoastNobody@reddit

had it happen had to re apply for the job.. took a 20 cent pay cut (when 20 cents actually meant a 100 bucks a month that i DEARLY needed at the time)

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PacketMayhem@reddit

Sort of been there yeah. Entire department(except for the unfortunate) was moved to the outsourcing company essentially and I sat there and did the same job but with more bs. The entire team was moved back to working for the company when the contract ended 5 years later after they realized they just got worse service at a higher cost…

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frankiea1004@reddit

Come as a contractor for a few months if they willing to pay at least of and half your salary. Meanwhile keep looking for a job. Stall the documentation.

Remember, their problems is not your problems.

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flummox1234@reddit

Outsourcing an entire on site team after Crowdstrike. That's some C suite level thinking. Best of luck, OP! GTFO of there ASAP.

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Indierocka@reddit

How big is your dept? Sounds like you guys could all agree no one talks to the new company without them giving you a substantial amount of money to get them up to speed. You guys could probably milk them

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ATFLA10@reddit

The exact same thing happened to me. I worked for Company A for a little less than five years, and they outsourced my department to Company B in January 2023. When this was announced by the CEO of Company A, he specifically mentioned me and my three co-workers that we would still be working for Company A while reporting to the president of Company B.

On 6/30/23, the CFO of Company A, who was retiring that same day, informed us that our positions were being eliminated that day. Me and my three co-workers spent two days at Company B’s office in March and we weren’t told this was eventually going to happen. We were hired as 1099 contractors. We still worked in Company A’s office. This was supposed to be for one month, but they repeatedly extended me.

To add insult to injury, I got Covid for the first time ever last September and missed three and a half days of work and didn’t get paid. When I left Company A, I had over 61 hours of sick leave but they don’t pay out sick leave for any reason.

In October 2023, Company B hired a new manager. Weeks after that, I discovered a job posting from Company B which included Company’s A’s office address I worked at. They were looking for someone bilingual with 2-3 years of experience and a pay rate between $12-17.50 a hour, much less than was Company A was paying me and Company B continued to pay me.

At the end of November, Company B offered me a permanent position. I started looking for a new job immediately when I got let go by Company A but had difficulty finding anything, so I accepted the position with the intent to leave as soon as I found something better. I discovered that Company B has only 5 PTO days a year, 6 holidays and no retirement plan. At the same, they had open enrollment for their health insurance. The basic plan is $164 a paycheck.

One week before Christmas, Company B hired someone new to work in my office. He showed up unannounced and I had to scramble to find a computer and office space for him in addition to training him.

Just five weeks after becoming a permanent employee with Company B, the new manager called me and said things aren’t working out and I was getting let go. By then, two of my three co-workers were also gone. One found another job, and another was near retirement and likely decided to call it a career. The one remaining co-worker is still there but I wonder if he will eventually get cut too.

Company B has massive turnover because of their poor pay and benefits, plus their micromanagement. There was a time clock app that tracked my every move. I sometimes traveled for work and the map on the app showed blue dots where ever I went. Also anyone who was not logged into their system to take calls by 8:30 am got a call asking where they are, though they stopped doing that.

I also found out that my replacement left a few weeks after I did, and my old job was reposted four times. By now, I bet they gave up and decided not to hire anyone at all. As for me, I was out of work a few weeks before finding another job.

The lesson I learned is if I ever work for a company that outsources my department, even if I’m told my job is safe, it’s time to start looking for another job.

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Threnners@reddit

It's very likely they want to hire you to train their staff, then they'll cut you.

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Nice_Beat7500@reddit

Take the job give misdirection so they don't learn how to do thing passed the 60% mark and profit. Job security is keeping your secrets or pretending to tell all. Even if they fire you later they will beg you to contract with them for higher when that 40% catches them off guard.

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BadSausageFactory@reddit

they just want to pick your brain

and you will be fired once they are done

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Fallingdamage@reddit

"Train them wrong, as a joke"

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BadSausageFactory@reddit

who hasn't done this

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PoniardBlade@reddit

wee ooo, wee ooo

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Eppsilan@reddit

"Face to foot style, how'd you like it?"

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tritoch8@reddit

THAT'S A LOT OF NUTS!

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ScooBySnaCk-SDRL@reddit

I would ask for a contract. At least that way you know your time.

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podcasthellp@reddit

Sounds like you just got a raise

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Plug_USMC@reddit

In America most employees are at will. Take the unless you have other options good luck

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Plug_USMC@reddit

Look at the market and your skill set. Take the job and if sux based on pay, find a new gig while you have a fucking job. Don’t be dumb.

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hank987@reddit

Happened to my people in my department...but not to me. Those people had a one year guarantee (Most people were kept afterwards). While they stayed they started laying off regular employees. They finally got to me...but get this...it was not for 8 months. If you stayed and you were let go, you were guaranteed a severance. If they "rehired" you...you kept your job, but could get laid off at amy time with no severance.

Most did this and then got canned weeks later. I grabbed a job in the meantime and was lucky to get out

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Plug_USMC@reddit

Negotiate

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alloygeek@reddit

Happened to me three times. They will let you go once they've gotten their guys up to speed.

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Plug_USMC@reddit

Yes - consider it

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HBCDresdenEsquire@reddit

I got outsourced in January. Many places I applied were sympathetic to my circumstances and I was provided several immediate offers and expedited interviews to speed up the hiring process. Just don’t let it drag you down and keep momentum.

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TheFluffyDovah@reddit

In a case like this you wish your company would get crowdstriked

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schnauzerdad@reddit

Happened to me last year after 16 years at a company, it’s business don’t take it personal.

Take the job, negotiate salary for more money, you bring intimate knowledge of this company that cannot be hired off the street, I ended up making more money with the MSP. I gave it a chance, took my time to find a position I wanted instead of jumping into whatever was available and started a new position 5 months later.

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TrainAss@reddit

Damn, I'm sorry Op. And when the inevitable shit hits the proverbial fan, and they back pedal, they'll have trouble finding people locally that want to work for shit pay and they'll bitch and moan that "no one wants to work".

Hopefully you can find a new gig soon!

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sedition666@reddit

If the outsourcing company has a good reputation then might be an excellent way to get your foot in the door of a better company. Sucks though for sure.

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Kyrox6@reddit

My company axed their whole IT department around 2012. They then provided all the contact info for all their employees to the new company they spoiled up to contract the work to. A majority of the folks didn't want to take the pay cut. The rest spent 10 years training replacements in PR and India. Almost none of the original employees are left.

The execs who made the decision got paid bank for eliminating all the clutter from their quarterly reports, but it cost significantly more to pay for the contracted work. Now we are at the point where nothing works and we've been coasting on the systems left running since 2012. It's all a stupid sham. Investors don't give a shit about it because they get the quick bump and dump the stocks before it all burns down completely.

If you take the job, start planning for your next move. You won't be there long, you won't enjoy it, and you'll just suffer along with everyone who relies in you for their work. If you manage to be one of the few who don't just train their replacements, your company will fall apart within a few years anyway. Don't sweat it if they do. They made the decision to ruin their future.

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jkw118@reddit

I wouldnt do it unless their was 2x the pay and a gaurantee 5 yr retention.. Which they wouldn't accept..im sure... I did get that for one place but with a 1yr retention. I left after 6 months.. just couldn't deal with their bs.. and by making them pay me more for a short period made other companies realize I was worth more..

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shaggyGooseabum@reddit

If you have the fortitude and skills, organize your other teammates and create your own outsourcing company and pitch your dervices to allbof the companies in your área! Including the one that fired you! Ping me if you need any help

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shrewdlogarithm@reddit

Some years ago a friend was let-go after 15 years of service with the local council as they were 'outsourcing' her job.

Around 2 years later she was freelancing and noticed a freelance role was available with - you guessed it - our local council, doing EXACTLY the same job she'd been let-go from at a rate which added-up to FOUR TIMES what she'd been paid when working there

She applied through an agency - was interviewed by the agency - got the role - walked back into her old office and continued her job after a 2 year hiatus for FOUR TIMES more money

and the person who made that choice is likely earning WAY more again - meanwhile the roads are awful, the parks are awful and there's "no money" apparently...

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HoosierUSMS_Swimmer@reddit

Yes been through this. Outsourcing company offered me a job for a 30 percent cut and added travel to my list. I found something quick and bailed. Great part is the outsourcing blew up in their face and I got a good laugh.

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BatFancy321go@reddit

research that company really well. you do not want to work for indian tech companies or indian job placement companies. absolute garbage and they will fuck you over.

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Flashy-Ride-4235@reddit

Been there. Was the worst decision I've ever made. Love of the place made me stay. Once brought up to speed (somewhat) gave me the axe for cheaper labor.

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Dragonborne2020@reddit

When I was at Oracle, they called it Lights Out and let go over 8000 US employees in one day.

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highdiver_2000@reddit

Your pay package will be smaller since the outsourcer will need to make some money.

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evilbarron2@reddit

Join the outsourcing company, but only at 2x or 3x your current salary.

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Ottleoos@reddit

This happening very often now.

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Aero93@reddit

Same thing happened to me long time ago. The vendor offered joke money which I declined immediately. I found out they got booted before the contract ended or something like that

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mochadrizzle@reddit

If you need money asap. Take the job. Start looking for a new job ASAP because they will launch you as soon as they are comfortable. Probably around a year.

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Aero93@reddit

Same thing happened to me long time ago. The vendor offered joke money which I declined immediately. I found out they got booted before the contract ended or something like that

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BootShort9381@reddit

Data analyst, laid off last Thursday due to outsourcing.

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DrapedInVelvet@reddit

As others have said, placements like this typically are temporary arrangements and they will fire you once they are up to speed. They need your knowledge….once they have that they will let you go. If I had to choose between a placement or a decent severance, I’d choose the severance.

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d4rkstr1d3r@reddit

Outsourcing as in India or outsourcing as in a MSP?

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Upper-Bath-86@reddit

This is BS. You could accept if you need the money while you find another job.

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lordb4@reddit

I'd take the job, completely half ass it. Immediately look for another job.

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ecksfiftyone@reddit

Take the job. It might be a good job in the end, otherwise it's a job while you find something else.

I'm at a company that did a similar thing recently. It's common because people in other countries make 1/6 of what people in the highest paid counties make. (Assuming you are in one of those) The company ultimaey charges about 1/2 what you make for a respurce, but they also provide less than 1/2 the quality if even that high. .

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That-Analysis-4537@reddit

They'll keep you around just long enough to learn everything they can about your old job's setup then toss you. Take it, but keep looking.

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Dave_47@reddit

Take the job offer but put your info out there asap and apply for other jobs immediately. I've been laid off from corporate restructures a few times over the last decade and this is the most important advice. Use this opportunity to stay employed and pay bills while you search for a better place.

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dannybau87@reddit

Work on your resume ASAP

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cofonseca@reddit

I have been in this scenario.

I knew for a few months before that something fishy was going on. Management had been acting weird, and my manager decided to quit and warned us to get out of there, so I started looking.

Our CEO brought me and my team into a conference room one day and assured us that nothing was changing, and that we were doing a great job.

A few weeks later, some "contractors" showed up to "help us".

Shortly after that, we were told by the CEO that our jobs would no longer exist, but that they were nice enough to negotiate with the outsourcing company to offer us jobs.

I told the CEO to go fuck himself.

Take it if you absolutely need to, but it really is a slap in the face IMO. I would highly recommend finding a new job.

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mercurygreen@reddit

Dude, agree to work with the contractors and then when they try to get you to train them, let them know you were hired to be a worker NOT a trainer!

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Common_Scale5448@reddit

Take the lifeline. It's rough right now.

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sonotyourguy@reddit

It’s better to have a job while you look for a new one than not.

A former company I worked at for eight years got taken over. The new owners outsourced their IT. They offered me a job as a contractor. Six months later, after we ironed out all the transition plans, my contract got cancelled.

They have no loyalty to you, so be careful. But don’t be afraid to do what you need to (take the job) to put yourself in the best position

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Bulky-Listen-752@reddit

Wow, sorry to hear that. On one hand, I’d tell them to “FUCK-OFF” because you’re really saying that to the company that fired you, but on the other hand, you need to make $$$ so…

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microrwjs@reddit

Try that at a hospital I used to work at let most of IT (they kept management) go gave our salary information to the outsourcing company so they can offer us our jobs back at less or equal to what we were getting paid

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melshaw04@reddit

Be prepared to be asked to continue to do what you currently do for less pay and to get the staff up to speed . Then they’ll make you want to quit

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mercurygreen@reddit

Take the outsourcing job. You're already an expert there.

Use the time to look for the next job, because there is a HIGH probability that the outsourcing company only wants to suck your brain and throw you on the scrap heap.

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countdonn@reddit

I've worked for outsourcing companies in IT, good and bad ones. They will be surprised that after the projects and out of scope work, they may end paying just as much and the people working on their account day to day may know very little and not be especially helpful. The cheaper the labor rates and the lower the hours spent on the customer, the more money the outsource companies makes. As well, many of the services being provided by the outsource IT company may very well also be re-sold by yet other companies with a markup.

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AuthenticatedAdmin@reddit

Take the offer and look for something else.

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Emotional_Neck3312@reddit

God, I wish there was a huge tax burden for companies that outsource. Scum of the earth.

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kungfu1@reddit

Sorry you are going through this, this is total garbage and I hate the way corporations operate. Welcome to the enshittification of this world.

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akadmin@reddit

Dude take the new job you'll likely get paid more to do the same work and then you can just laugh in their faces

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flushy78@reddit

Was in that same position a few years ago. CEO announced that "internal IT expertise wasn't needed any more", then fired the CIO because they objected, and laid off 3/4 of the entire IT department.

Took them a year of rotating through incompetent and overpaid consultant CTOs, and knowledge transfers with the MSP, before they were actually willing to actually release us. The carrot to keep what was left of us around (7 people) was severance for on average 15+ years of service.

If the severance is good, take it. Polish up your resume, start networking, linger on the payroll as long as you can, then ride the severance until you find something better.

Best of luck. Don't look back. If they ask you for help after you leave, make sure you establish a consulting rate if that's not a condition of your severance package. Don't given them your labor for free if you can help it.

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3percentinvisible@reddit

Don't they have to offer you a job?

Edit: just looked it up and, assuming you're American, TUPE isn't a thing

Why does it feel like a slap in the face? Surely it's a good feeling that a company recognises you have value and actually offering you a job and not just because the law says they have to?

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Vegetien@reddit

It amazes me that company’s just witnessed this crowdstrike debacle and are still deciding to outsource. Truly moronic and short sighted. Sorry that happened to you. I wouldn’t take the job. Left them find out the mistake they made.

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SudoDarkKnight@reddit

Take the job, keep looking for a better one

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teebee@reddit

Yup similar happened to me a few weeks back. Both my boss and I (2 highest paid in the org) they let a couple kids stay on to try and keep stuff alive.

I had my peer call me crying because he knows he's completely in over his head. I just keep telling him he's the senior now and they have all the confidence in his abilities. Stuff is really starting to hit the fan. Oh well.

The market isn't terrific right now but just today I linked up with an ex-boss it looks like he might have room for me at a new place. Think I'll probably have to take a pay cut but it is what it is...

I was in decent shape and had a fully funded emergency fund I have significant time before I have a problem but this is the first time I was ever let go from a job in a career >25 years sort of hurts I won't lie. Take the offer hopefully you can find something even better in the future.

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BloodyIron@reddit

Charge $200/hr to the outsourcing company. They're only going to use you for a limited amount of time. Do not accept any hourly rate lower than that, and they WILL try to negotiate lower. You have information THEY NEED. DO NOT GIVE IT UP. THIS IS A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP NOT CHARITY.

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Puzzleheaded-Block32@reddit

This happens a lot. It is a common tactic by employers to reduce their overhead. In other words, they think you are worth less than what they pay you, and even if you're not, they are going to pay less anyway.

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TechInTheCloud@reddit

You gotta squeeze that outsourcing company for every bit of salary they will pay you, start high, real high. You got institutional knowledge they can’t anywhere else. If they pay take job and always be looking, if they won’t pay f**k ‘em.

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nycazul@reddit

What are the implications for unemployment?

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Comprehensive-Ad6201@reddit

Take the job and start working two jobs at the same time till they let you go. My guess is it’s probably Tata or HCL…

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ryoung07@reddit

I’ve been working at the same site working for 3 different companies. They just rehire me for the same job I’m doing at the time at a higher salary.

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Primary-Birthday-363@reddit

I’ve been thru this back in 2019. They let the IT department go and said we could choose our severance OR get hired by the company who stole our jobs.

Couldn’t do both. I decided to work for the outsource company because it was constant work and not my 26 weeks of severance only. There was a contract stating we could get severance but couldn’t be hired for a year after.

However some guys were able to get severance and works just a few short months after because they needed the help badly. I was so pissed. Well here it is 2024 and the company i did work for before the outsource is filed chapter 11 and closed all their Michigan locations that my current and soon to be ending job was tied too.

Now I’m looking for work all over again. I feel you on this one OP.

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Timberwolf_88@reddit

Reading shit like this make me so happy to live in a country where this is almost impossible for an employer to do legally.

I feel for you all and if you're in the US or another country with similar labour laws please find a new place asap. Use the new place as a bridge if you have to short-term. But as others have said, you're very likely just getting short-term used and then let go again.

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rbt321@reddit

To add to the confusion, I've actually received a job offer from the outsourcing company.

Sounds like a great time to try for a salary increase.

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Darkone539@reddit

Sure this isn't just a TUPE offer? We had a guy at my old msp who worked for a client and was on the same contract.

Make sure everything is acceptable, but I wouldn't turn it down. Take it and look for jobs well working.

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-_G__-@reddit

I have been outsourced once (basically sold to the outsourcer) and made redundant four times due to outsourcing or restructures in my 30 years in IT. You get used to it. Don't rush to make decisions and do the best for you and your family. Companies are not at all loyal to you.

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absolutum-dominium@reddit

Anybody interested, let me know.

I run a consulting company from APAC, looking for digital marketing and networking security cisco people. I'll pay an hourly rate.

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ThePorko@reddit

Find another job and do not train your replacement!

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JustRobReddit@reddit

Go have a look at r/overemployed

If the existing company is offering severance, the equivalent of at least 3 months salary and benefits, take that. -If not, take the role at the outsourcing company, knowing that they'll fire you within 3 months, once they've got all your useful info.

Either way, start looking for a job right away, start ASAP, don't tell anyone. Get all the benefits etc rolling at the new gig (assuming you're in the USA and such things are tied to employment) and then make a decision. If you took severance, you're golden.

If there was no / crappy severance & you went with the outsourced vendor, remember that they'll fire you within 3 months. You owe them nothing, you owe your previous employer much less than nothing. At this point, you can take PTO or unpaid days off from the outsourcing company for any time you need to be at the new gig in person, just don't show up if needed. If you can do both WFH then even better. Either way, the outsourced company will keep you on their books as long as they think they can get something from you, so put in the bare minimum effort and focus on the new gig until the outsourcing company fires you or you quit. Enjoy the extra cash, stick it in the bank for the next rainy day!

Good luck!

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garcher00@reddit

I had this situation happen to me a while back. The funny thing is the outsourcing company offered me a $25K pay increase to do very little. I believe that I was a diversity hire.

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SevTheNiceGuy@reddit

yes. recently went through this earlier this year for the same reasons.

Luckily I found a new job within that first 2 months.

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gorramfrakker@reddit

Take the job and train them wrong on purpose, then get a new job.

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texan01@reddit

We got told 6 months after I was hired that they were outsourcing the IT department at the beginning of the year.

The MSP offered us our jobs back at 1/3rd the salary. All of us walked. They finally rehired some of the old team but at that point I had found d a new job making $20k more a year and they couldn’t afford me anymore.

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eagle6705@reddit

move to the outsource company but make sure an bonus given is not spent until the contract is up. Unless you enjoy it you will want to get a new job and a lot of times the money is owed back if you leave before the contract is up.

This happened to me. Our CIO at an art auction house that rymes with chris let us go to save money.

We were given a cut loose date where outside of extreme actions they were not allowed to fire or let me go as a way to transition knowledge.

As I was doing job interviews I actually got a call from the outsourcing company for my position LMAO. Its one thing for their management to go hey this guy is good lets retain and hire him but nope they called me up and offered me my own job not realizing I had the job. This pissed off my manager at the time as he heard they wanted to retain us to save on training.

Anyway just keep looking for jobs and any supervisor or higher up you were close with use as a reference. That was 13 years ago and I"m happy where I am now.

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lpbale0@reddit

I say take it, just to have money to pay the bills, but never stop looking for a new gig and jump as soon as you find something

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Same here. Been at the outsourcing company for 16 years now, pay is 4 to 5x what I made then.

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Hacky_5ack@reddit

Did you have any clue this was gonna happen?

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WickedKoala@reddit

The market is brutal right now. No matter your skills it could be months before you get something else. Take their offer but immediately begin looking for something else.

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bit0n@reddit

Working for an MSP I have seen this work well and really badly.

Sometimes you win a contract and the customer really want to retain certain staff. You make the offer. At that point it’s really up to them how it goes. If the Customers big enough they stay as a key account engineer and do the majority of the work for that customer only but have the rest of us as backup. Some of them never even come into our offices.

Others show up and try to take over our whole company and they never lasts long.

If they want to keep you as an implant check your terms you might end up with more benefits and a bigger team to fall back on.

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Environmental-Sir-19@reddit

And what’s worse they probably end up paying more anyways now because it’s external , even worse , just do less dude , how’s the pay for the offer ? Same or higher ?

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keitheii@reddit

This is a terrible mistake on their part if they didn't perform knowledge transfer first, retaining key employees with stay-on incentives and such.

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Administrative-Help4@reddit

Take the job, then research, plan and execute an exit plan on your terms.

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mrangryoven@reddit

Lots of comments on this and likely you've already got the info you wanted. But just to add my bit.

I have been in the exact same situation as you, i was working at a school, they decided to outsource the IT Support to an MSP. Now being in the UK, this transfer was subject to TUPE. (if you're not in the UK, for reference, this is protection of employment). Basically, the outsourcing company MUST take you on as their own staff.

I was reluctant to do so, but i had no other option. I took it and this was back in 2018... I've just left that business last month, i was there 6 and a half years and its basically been a huge stepping stone into my new role elsewhere.

Although its a shitty situation, it could work out in your favour but depends what you're looking for and what their plan is.

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No_Size_1765@reddit

Shit is getting real very fast in this job market. Call your representatives.

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heimos@reddit

How big was your department? What industry and location ? Just curious

[-]

Vangoon79@reddit

Take the job and immediately start looking for something new. Just keep the paychecks flowing while you find something better.

No need to deplete your savings while you hunt for a better gig. And if the new-old outsourcing gig is toxic, just say " this isn't working out " and resign. Super easy.

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noclaffalcon@reddit

When I was active duty in the Air Force in the 80s, they outsourced my job as a flight simulator technician. I was offered the opportunity to leave active duty to work for the contractor - best decision I ever made. Better pay, and I got to eventually grow my hair long!

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ChatHurlant@reddit

Happened to me. The MSP offered all of us a "parallel" role that was "You work for us but still do your old job"

They fired one of us after 2 months. They fired me after 4. The least paid most junior person is all that's left of the old team and they're burnt out.

Take the job but use it to look for new work with a paycheck, it's not a permanent position, it's for knowledge transfer and then they'll fire you.

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coachjuis21@reddit

lol that would be a boss move if the whole firm came together created a new firm without the dipshit bosses and succeed even more than the initial company, I’m rooting for all of you guys hopefully you all find good paying jobs soon

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Bleak3er@reddit

You should go to HR and argue that it would be in their best interest to keep you employed, or at the very least, on contract. "You have a lot more control going the contract route." Argue the recent issues with the global I.T. outage and how not having at least one person on staff physically there would be catastrophic for them if this were to happen again.

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Prestigious-Hold-426@reddit

They're going to rat f*ck you for the knowledge transfer and then they'll fire your as$. I'd offer to consult for them as a contractor for a fair bit of $$ and move from there. Look for another gig while you're consulting.

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Healthy_Literature19@reddit

Well, that has never happened to me before, thank God. I worked in the public sector/government of Jamaica. It is a double edged sword though, Job security is granted yes, but it comes with LOW PAY and STAGNATION. You will never be fired from your IT position or any field for that matter, accounting, HR etc, you will just sit and rot in the same seat with your BSC or MSC. Sometimes when you get laid off it is beneficial, you get to explore and grow. Being in a system where you are kept for life with little or no growth is psychologically impairing and can damage you. Though it may seem harsh, it is better to be laid off then find a new job no matter how long the job hunting goes than working 100K Jamaican dollars per month in the public sector of Jamaica for like more than 2 decades, some more lol. Just be strong and move on/up.

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Designer-Ad4507@reddit

Myself and about 10 people built an online company from an old WP.com site into a big self hosted application that did a variety of automated things. It took 8 years. A new CEO came on, did about 6 months, then laid us all off.

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JustInflation1@reddit

Negotiate it up to more pay than you have now, remember you have leverage here. And of course keep lookin!

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abc423cba@reddit

I had this - got offered a position with the outsourcing company at lower pay and having to move to another city 1000km away. Apparently they were surprised when I turned it down.

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LuciLew-05@reddit

Is the move to the new company a pay cut or a pay bump? If it's a pay bump, hey you might be doing the same job but for more money.

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Deacon51@reddit

I worked for a company as in house support, worked through the acquisition, got a severance package when we got outsourced by the new owners, got a job with the ITSM that got the contract, and then moved over to vendor side and provided support to the same company. I stayed in the same chair for 14 years. It was a good run.

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jooseizloose@reddit

They want you for the handover. Once they have all they need, you aren't what they need any longer.

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green_eyed_mister@reddit

Negotiate more pay. The company saves by not paying healthcare etc. Take the job and immediately begin looking for something else unless the new negotiated terms are better.

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chalbersma@reddit

Be sure to check your severance package language. You may have ea non-compete in there. Ensure that your new contract or hiring letter includes language that the job won't require any work that violates the severance package agreement.

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pekak62@reddit

If you are in the USA, Biden is about to outlaw non-compete clauses?

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chalbersma@reddit

I'm in California and the only time non-competes are valid here is if you're being paid by the company, so essentially during a severance period.

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vawlk@reddit

yes. I was told that an outsourcing company was being brought in to help me and I just started looking for a new job. There was a new person in charge and her husband who "works in IT" recommended they outsource.

And of course, she listened to her husband, who turned out to be some sales guy in a completely different industry, over me and I quit almost immediately. The people I was close to kept telling me how bad it was and how long things took to get fixed.

They were low man on the totem pole since they were one of the smallest customers they had.

After things like the crowd strike event happens, the outsourcing companies will be saturated with requests and they won't have enough people to go around.

Anyway, last I heard the company moved all of their data and stuff off site making it almost impossible to get rid of them in the future.

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vascul@reddit

This must be a new abominable trend. This exact thing happened to a relative who is a teacher. Fortunately she applied for and got another job.

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spin_kick@reddit

take the job whilst searching somewhere else.

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The_NorthernLight@reddit

If you can afford it, find another job. If not, take it, get as much$$$ as you can, and immediately start looking elsewhere. Find a better job without the politics. Boonce when you have a better/more solid offer.

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JC3rna@reddit

Definitely accept role after negotiating and getting confirmation on the new role requirements. However be ready to jump ship ASAP because it's rare that a new MSP would prioritize your needs over theirs.

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Jaereth@reddit

To add to the confusion, I've actually received a job offer from the outsourcing company. On one hand, it's a lifeline in this uncertain job market, but on the other, it feels like a slap in the face considering the circumstances.

They aren't going to keep you on just for the knowledge transfer.

I'd take it so you have "Seamless employment" but start looking for a new job ASAP. As soon as you get a offer you can live with leave the outsource company.

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bruor@reddit

I had this happen, 3 person team, one of us ended up taking the offer and still works for the MSP 13 years later.

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Alfordw2_in_sawmill@reddit

I was the IT manager at my previous company with two people under me. A former team member worked for the owner’s granddaughter whom was in a senior position. That employee fed her lie after lie to the point my team and I were all let go.

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gpx17@reddit

Imagine outsourcing immediately after the biggest outage showing why you need local people.

That company won't be around much longer or their leadership won't, whichever comes first.

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CertifiedNinja297@reddit

It didn't happen to me, but a manager of mine while worning for an MSP. He was working for a FinTech company that decided to layoff all the IT staff for the MSP I was employed with for cost-saving reasons. They needed someone experienced and they decided to keep him onboard as that MSP contractor. So he officially got fired to simultaneously get hired as a contractor. What made this story sad was that a week later the contract between that MSP and the FinTech company was not renewed due to dissatisfaction and he got benched shortly after. He had been with that company for 10 years. I ended up quitting a week into that MSP job after the news.

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linkinit@reddit

Take all your information and horde it

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Emergency_Ad8571@reddit

I've been on both ends of these outsourcing moves. The outsourcing firm's first priority is to try and retain knowledge, a lot of IT for better or worse is "tribal knowledge". Hiring and training, paying out SLA breaches for outages - these are what they do not want happening.

Take the job offer, negotiate a raise (they might be inclined to offer a retention bonus, that's up to you).
Take them for every penny you're able to squeeze out of them, do the absolute minimum and look for another job while you're still on payroll.

If you find yourself on a retention bonus feel free to disclose this to potential employers and ask them to sweeten the pot when time comes to negotiate compensations.

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Emergency_Ad8571@reddit

Oh and the level of effort you want to put into your job while outsourced is completely to your discretion, but make sure you have your endorsements in place and do not in any way sabotage or otherwise expose yourself to termination on account of negligence or anything of the sort.

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brokenmcnugget@reddit

take that job and keep looking. the market is real bad now.

got any additional openings?

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DCM99-RyoHazuki@reddit

Was laid off from one company got 3 job offers 2 weeks afterwards. Old job decided to hire me back (had to decline the other jobs even though they paid more but was further to drive). One of those jobs was Cinemark movie theater internationally.

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CombCultural5907@reddit

Delete all your documents

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bemenaker@reddit

Take the job, but only as a stop gap to keep a paycheck coming in while you're looking for something new. Under no circumstances do you stay.

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bluewatersailing@reddit

100% this. Take the job and start looking elsewhere.

Chances are the vendor wants to drain your brain and then they will eject you once they have what they need.

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PatReady@reddit

You want 5x the pay. If all of you ask for the same thing, they need to pay someone.

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nesnalica@reddit

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SomeoneRandom007@reddit

Take it. Learn what they are showing you. Apply elsewhere in case they only want to get your knowledge out of you before firing you again.

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NorgesTaff@reddit

Kind of. IBM bought us (most of the OS, DB, storage, network teams) out to take over the infrastructure operations of our customers. It was an unmitigated disaster. So much so, IBM failed to deliver on the contractual obligations and the whole agreement was voided and we, or at least the few people that remained* from the original 100’s, returned from whence we came.

*I say those that remained because IBM started to lay people off almost immediately and ship the job responsibilities offshore. Others quit to get away from the absolute shitshow bureaucracy we had to work with to do our job. Hence our inability to satisfy contractual obligations.

In another job some years before the above, my contract was not renewed in favour of a contract they’d made with SERCO. They replaced my position with 2 SERCO staff which cost less than I did. Fast forward 6 months and I get a call from SERCO offering me my job back for more money than I had previously. Apparently the 2 people they’d replaced me with weren’t up to it. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

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pfcypress@reddit

Take the offer, but never stop applying to other places.

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ScroogeMcDuckFace2@reddit

take the role while you find a new job as an 'employed' person

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sliverednuts@reddit

Find a job and watch your old company melt away …

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Polar_Ted@reddit

Yeah when the outsource came everyone good left. The outsource company was screwed because anyone who know how everything worked was gone.

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SpotlessCheetah@reddit

Sorry man. Good luck to your team - stay networked for the future.

Keep looking otherwise as you have some extra time until they eventually get rid of you at the outsourcing company.

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Reinmeika@reddit

General rule of thumb, since I’ve seen it a few times in the comments: if the company has to tell you nothing is wrong, there’s absolutely something wrong. When things are going good, people don’t think to reassure anyone, they just keep the money rolling in.

Any time they bring in “help”, they’re bringing in your replacement. It’s up to you if it’s beneficial to just let the money come in and do minimal effort till they cut you, while you look for other jobs. Or whether it’s more gratifying to give them the finger and walk out - different strokes, different folks in the end there.

If I were you, I’d think about how much you need the money, knowing that “new” job would be temporary - as in, I wouldn’t even plan to have it on my resume. Really, that’s a business’ bottom line, why shouldn’t the financials be yours?

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HoneyBadgerLive@reddit

Happened to my wife years ago. They fired the whole department to outsource it. The outsourcing company interviewed everyone and offered many people jobs. We survived just fine.

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Nexus1111@reddit

Oof, sorry to hear.

I’m in the other position, building up my knowledge of my organisation, hiring another admin and then booting the msp

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MrCertainly@reddit

Well, I'm confused -- zero notice? They're not paying out the government-mandated length of time, so you're able to land on your feet and find a new job without undue hardship to you and your family?

And given it was a mass layoff, how are they legally able to outsource so quickly? There's mandated waiting periods before they can rehire someone for that same role if they terminated a person as part of a headcount reduction.

Oh wait, United States. Gotcha. Yee-fuckin'-haw, kick those spurs cowboy and ride off into the sunset with a bandolier of firearms, because the only thing you're gettin' is sun-ripened cow patty! Makes sense now.

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omaewa_moh_shindeiru@reddit

Nogotiate a ridiculous salary, don't trasnfere any knoedge and then, once you get another job offer, just go leaving them with the pants down, it is the sweetest of revenge whatching all those Suits that screwed you getting scared because now thry are going to be forced yo provide a shit service for months or years until the new know how to mabage all the shit

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korgrid@reddit

Seen this twice so far.

First time they expected, for some reason, that a high percentage of the let go IT would take the outsourcing job, of the 100 or so people... 5 did. They had to scramble because then they had to ensure KT before those that didn't take it left. Some had to be hired as consultants at a high premium as part time work after that point to keep the organization functional.

2-3 years later and they're still playing catch up from what i hear, with almost nothing getting done by contracting company in the almost a year after while they got caught up.

Oh and I'm told costs ended up being higher than outsourcing said by a lot. Of course the exec that made it happen was long gone by then.

The second time i wasn't with the company long enough to have the contacts to know the fallout from those that were fired, but the contractors coming in had similar issues.

My 2 cents:don't take the job, the outsourcing company is counting on you feeling desperate. If they need KT and didn't tie severance to it, do it as an independent contractor at a high premium.

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posixUncompliant@reddit

Unless they're offering you a hella bonus to bring your knowledge to them, or at least a very healthy increase in base pay, I'd decline.

IME, the drop in quality once the outsourcing company takes over will get you nice recommendations from your former coworkers who now appreciate the work you did for them.

If you do take the job with the outsourcing company, do so only to keep a paycheck while you look for your next position. Assume that any duration clauses to your bonuses is exactly how long you'll work for them (I wouldn't expect any position to last more than 18mo, and 6 is more likely).

Last time I was sort of in that position, the outsourcing company screwed itself. To take the job the way they offered it to me would've cost me and my counterpart our stay to the bitter end bonus, and not given us even the slightest hint of a raise. We said no, and had jobs lined up before the final date.

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mikeyb1@reddit

Take the job but start looking elsewhere - they're hiring you for knowledge transfer and in 6 months they'll send you packing.

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

Assuming the old company is giving them severance (which they absolutely should in a case like this), I'd let the outsource company hang themselves when they have ZERO knowledge of the environment and have to try and figure it out by themselves.

Either that, or take the job and be absolutely useless to them while looking for a new job. And then high tail it after you find a new job and hopefully gave them zero information they needed.

Fuck outsourcing companies and everything they exist to do.

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stupidusername@reddit

Yea I'm sure we'd all love to see these awful companies get their comeuppance but people have families to feed. Calling them a rat for taking a paycheck in these uncertain times is ridiculous.

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Moontoya@reddit

There's always a rat that takes the offer

Always

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

You guys connected on LinkedIn, right? Well, when the rat asks you to give references - you know what to do 😉

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tankerkiller125real@reddit

Let the rat take the offer, the rest of the IT employees can shun them when they come crawling for a job when the outsourcing company fires them.

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FunEngineer69@reddit

A tell as old as time.

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BattleEfficient2471@reddit

Take the job, look for a new one.
Don't give them any more notice than they gave you.

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kali_tragus@reddit

Been there. I took the job, and I am still with them 5 years on. Initially they even asked if I would prefer working with other clients rather than with my former employer. But this is in Europe - the business seems more cynical in the US.

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

Slide in some really obscure scripts, stuff that is useful, so they can't say you sabotaged anything, but just obfuscate the f**k out of it including time stamps, and link it to shit that you know will be deleted once you're all gone. Make some vital shit depend on it.

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craa141@reddit

Was it a negotiated migration of your role to the outsourcer? Do you get to keep your years of service? I had that offer to go to IBM during a large outsourcing many years ago. Given the speed of the offer It sounds like it was part of the outsourcing deal.

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andrewsmd87@reddit

Take the job offer now, do the absolute bare minimum, but get paid while you look for a new job. That's on the assumption you don't have a severance clause about starting a new job

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tauzins@reddit

I wouldn't accept the job offer but to consult to them for a ridiculous fee, and then while you're doing that you look for an actual job you want.

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TheSimpleMind@reddit

Yes, after some negotiations I had a new job, a better boss, more PTO and an increased income.

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gwentfiend@reddit

This happened to the whole infrastructure side of IT at my current job about 5 years ago. The people that stayed on generally got slight pay increases, but MUCH worse benefit options. Some people immediately found new jobs and didn't transfer over. Most of the best talent that switched over to the consulting company left, lowering the quality of the services being offered to the rest of our org.

Help desk and desktop support took the biggest nosedive. Network and Sys Admin were overworked and stressed but kept their service level high.

We are currently getting rid of said consulting company and bringing people back in house.

Take the gig, find a new job asap. Feel free not to give notice when you leave since you'll never want to work for that consulting company again most likely.

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Opening_Career_9869@reddit

Take the job, leave as soon as you find what you like, never feel bad about it

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Thick_Chemistry_8822@reddit

Take the offer but do not do any knowledge transfer. I would look for another company hiring also have seen lots of companies do this and regret it later on when their knowledge leaves the company

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Outrageous_Cupcake97@reddit

Man that is so bad. I lost jobs due to automation and company relocation in the past, but due to outsourcing? It's an insult.

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VerySchmoo@reddit

This happened to my old IT department in 2021. Definitely a slap in the face to all of us who went above and beyond for the pandemic.

Our old employer gave us severance, we were all hired with the outsourcing company if we wanted to have a job. Slowly but surely they forced all of us out. The first 6 months was promises and other nonsense to get you to comply so they could get your institutional knowledge. I got out before they could fire me, but if I had known what I do now I would have left the day it happened. Good luck!

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cashishift@reddit

This won’t end well for the company. The outsourcer has no skin in the game.

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signal_lost@reddit

I worked for a MSP and plenty of customers seemed happy with outsourcing parts of IT.

We had skin in the game, termination of contract and SLA penalties. If anything my time as an in house IT worker was far less accountable. Less metric measurement, no consequences for Causing outages.

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International-Fly495@reddit

Worked 4 years as a sysadmin in a k-12 school district... New finance director came in and wondered why the district had soooooo many IT staff (it was me, two techs and an IT director for 2000 students / staff). Dude suggested to the superintendent and higher-ups they could save a ton of money by outsourcing everything to an MSP.

MSP comes in and starts calling the shots and picking our brains about everything... Promising that no one was in jeopardy of losing their jobs or anything... Even said that they would hire some of us.

Fast-forward a few months to the end of the school-year and all of a sudden I have a "surprise meeting" with HR. Started packing my shit and preparing for the inevitable. HR leader and assistant superintendent were pissed that I wasn't surprised about the layoffs. I'm like... Guys... I've assumed this for months and been preparing for it. Y'all can fuck right off... We got that district through fucking COVID and remote learning and that's what we got... Put out on our asses.

It was probably the best summer I've had in a good long while... Got to be home with my sons (one is school-aged, the other is about to start Pre-K). While it was initially a blow to my emotional / mental health, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise... I got to spend a ton of time with my family and eventually found a fantastic job with a great company; now making six figures (I wasn't making a ton of money in the school district) and have 1/4 of the responsibilities I used to have.

Hang in there my friend, initially it hurts and you'll likely be pretty dang upset (I know I was). Lean on your family and friends for support... It's not a weakness to ask for help... Everybody needs help at some point. Use this time you have to feel out what YOU really want to do, job wise, hobby wise... If you can, take some time off and relax... Travel to a place you've wanted to. After clearing your head, start up your job search and don't settle. There's plenty of better paying jobs out there with better benefits than you had. Go out there and get it. If I could do it, so can you.

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wrt-wtf-@reddit

You weren’t fired. You were made redundant. If you didn’t get a redundancy package you may have recourse. You’ll need to check your own levels on that.

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Frothyleet@reddit

I've actually received a job offer from the outsourcing company. On one hand, it's a lifeline in this uncertain job market, but on the other, it feels like a slap in the face considering the circumstances.

Take the job and the paycheck, tell them to eat shit as soon as you get another job offer.

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C64Gyro@reddit

Yep. 2006 the IT department where I worked got outsourced to India. I ended up with a better job with better pay, hope same goes to you.

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Backieotamy@reddit

We have won contracts where other companies previously held the project. We recently won a state contract for 6 years and 2 year extension from a company that had been running it for 12 years.

As soon as we won the contract we started recruiting their Middleware and application teams and just brought in our own Infrastruture and DB guys.

So, don't look at it necessarily as a bad thing but maybe look at it as you were good enough the new company got your name as a person they would want on their team.

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DeepNavigator111@reddit

Is this US based?

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HTX-713@reddit

To add to the confusion, I've actually received a job offer from the outsourcing company.

This is very common with government contracts. The company you worked for will lose out on a recompete and then will lay you off. Then the company that wins the bid will meet with everybody to try to get you to sign on at a much lower rate of course. The process is really dehumanizing.

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AsinineLine@reddit

Seems especially stupid given recent events . Doesn't crowdstrike's handiwork require physical contact with equipment for remedy?

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TheShootDawg@reddit

outsourced does not necessarily mean remote source/off site.

it just means they will no longer be directly employed by the company they are performing the support work for…. instead working for a 3rd party company that provides services to the original company…

think of the 3rd party as an MSP

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Aos77s@reddit

Dont give them any passwords, layout documents, nothing. Say you forgot the passwords.

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deeper-diver@reddit

That outsourcing company will likely have you maintaining the "client" on a short-term basis and will expect you to train someone else which will eventually result in letting you go.

So if you take the offer, it should be at a higher salary/rate. Me personally, I'd be looking at other companies. This has sketchy written all over it.

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AsherTheFrost@reddit

Negotiate hard for pay at the new company, they aren't planning on keeping you after you've trained their guys, so make what you can and spend your off time polishing your resume and finding your next more permanent gig

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SeaOfScorpionz@reddit

How much money are they offering you? Is it possible that they want you to train their cheap labour and then cut you after ?

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Prophage7@reddit

I would take the job but start looking for a new one right away. Pride is great and all, but it's not worth it if you don't have the means to support yourself for at least 6 months while you look for work.

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12stringPlayer@reddit

As others have noted, the outsourcing company will cut you loose as soon as they can.

You may want to offer consulting services at a rate that might be seen as extortion, but they can take it or leave it. Do NOT work for free! Don't take a single call unless you're still under contract somehow. Don't feel bad for anyone who may be left, don't anser anything "just this one time" - make money off it.

If you are considering the offer from the outsourcing company, make sure they make it worth your while, because it WILL be short-term. Use this opportunity to negotiate a stupidly high rate, or a nice big golden parachute when they let you go - min 6 months salary & benefits, more if you can get it out of them.

They need you a lot more than they'll let on, make them pay for it, and make them pay for the 6time it'll take to find your next job.

Good luck! It's scary now, but this is exactly how I got the down-payment on my house in 2001.

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Dumb_Little_Duck@reddit

I’m not in the sysadmim world, but in government acquisitions, this is fairly common where a company will underbid the current contractor to win their contract and then hire all the people who just lost their job from it. They call it badge flipping where you keep your job and roughly similar salary, the only change being the company that signs the checks.

This could be one of the badge flipping scenarios, but looks like the vast majority of actual sys admins here agree that this is a temporary offer for knowledge transfer only. Regardless a job is a job and is probably worth accepting while shopping around.

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CeC-P@reddit

The place I used to work, before I worked there, went from:
1 unknown contractor
Dell
Direct Hire
HCL

in that order and 80% of the staff were the same people, just making slightly different amounts each time and doing the exact same work but with weirder rules that they all ignored. They all quit shortly after HCL came in. 1 original person remained.

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IdiosyncraticBond@reddit

I hope the team "suddenly" lost all credentials and documentation.

Good luck finding another job with more appreciation

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jeo123@reddit

New company: "Where is all the documentation and credentials you used to use?"

You: "That's confidential information owned by my previous employer."

Old company: "Where is all the documentation and credentials you used to use?"

You: "I'm sorry, I no longer work for you."

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Gorvoslov@reddit

"As per industry standard practice, all access was revoked and all personal notes were destroyed. I take my NDAs seriously and promptly did my duty by spending the evening heavily drinking to forget all employer specific information."

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groundhogcow@reddit

If you don't have work take the job. Then while you are getting a paycheck look for another job.

This way you can quit the company that fired you.

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tacotacotacorock@reddit

From my experiences it could be lucrative monetary wise if they offer you a big enough raise or incentive to move to the outsourced company. However typically it's a better situation if the company is bought out, outsourcing implies they're trying to save money. They only want you for your knowledge so that they don't fail in the transition or it's at least easier on them. Almost everyone I know that's gone this route eventually gets let go or if there's multiple people they whittle down the staff until they have one person or once again no one. Once they learn the process and integrate properly they have no need for you and your higher salary.

Unless you need the immediate employment I would look for a better opportunity. Offer your skills on a consult basis at a higher rate if anything. Hopefully you're severance and unemployment are decent and you have enough savings that you can just move on and find something better. Because chances are this new company will give you a raise equal to the outsourcing offer or better if your skills and resume are in order.

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xangbar@reddit

I used to work at a healthcare organization and we were told we were going to be outsourced AND be given a job offer. Essentially we wouldn't lose our job but would switch employers and lose time in our position. I know quite a few people are still there (its been 2-3 years) but a lot of people left as the new company wasn't that great. But after all, it was the lowest bidder.

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seanner_vt2@reddit

I have a friend that this happened too a long time ago. The outsource company snapped up all of his team and as far as I know he at least is still there.

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sws54925@reddit

Without knowing if you're in an 'at-will' employment state, my approach would be two-fold. First, signing bonus payable within 10 to 15 days. That's money that you get ahead of time, paid out, for the added burden of this change. Don't let them dangle a 6-month or even 90-day bonus. Signing bonus is just that. If they try to pin it to 90 days, then no. Walk away.

Second, if you need to sign any sort of contract, make sure it allows you to leave any time. Read the contract carefully for NDAs or similar. Although NDAs may not be allowed any more, there will be lots of gray area here, be careful. If you're in an at-will employment state, then don't sign anything, and be looking immediately for another job while you're still employed by the new firm.

In the meantime, look at what other jobs/employers are out there and begin polishing your résumé to make sure you have the right skills listed in order to get past the HR bots (whether human or automated, which is a distinction without a difference for HR people).

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Homie75@reddit

Sorry to hear that, good luck to you

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RemarkablePumpk1n@reddit

Check your contract as it may have something mentioning not to discuss work based items after leaving the company so once you get paid up just ignore any phone calls and if they get shirty just mention you are following your contract and put the phone down as they can't change the contract without your agreement.

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Maybe-Im-Dumb124@reddit

im petty and wouldnt leave any documentation for systems

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anothernerd@reddit

If you are not giving up severance and don't have a job lined up just take it, then leave when you find something better. You're not a rat and your company isn't your friend. If you need the money get the money and don't worry about optics.

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Akademikk@reddit

This happened to me couple of years back. I ended up staying with the outsourcing company and ended up getting a raise in my situation. I’m not sure if this was because I was the lead to the outsourcing individuals that took over my position. I did end up leaving shortly after due to conflicts between my manager from the new outsourcing company telling me to do something and the director of the company we worked at telling me something else. That director was also my new bosses boss. It was a stupid situation.

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jwhitted24@reddit

I have been in this situation exactly. There are a lot of jobs out there right now really, if you are in the USA it seems.

But either way, try not to take the outsourced job. I did that when I was offered and regretted it everyday. I ended up training a few people and, like others say here, once done I was shown the door.

To make matters worse, the pay was less, and no benefits at the time.

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Art_Vand_Throw001@reddit

I’d take it just to keep money coming in but be looking and jump ship as soon as you land a new job. They just proved my old saying is true. You are nothing but a number in a spreadsheet to the company.

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aiiiiynaku@reddit

This has been happening to the industry for the past 20 years

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Apprehensive-Pin518@reddit

sort of. I worked on a government contract and the company I worked for lost the contract. I was then offered the same job on the new contract working for a different employer.

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hiveminer@reddit

FWIW, I think the only true beneficiary of your skills remaining at this company is the company firing you itself and by extension its customers. Therefore, weigh that in your equation in formulating your response. If it was justified(cost savings to stay afloat) and your colleagues are worth it, I say go for it, it will take the outsourcing company months or years to accumulate the institutional knowledge you posses which could mean disastrous failures akin to what we recently lived thru in the crowdstrike global outage.

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E_dmoss@reddit

That's a tough situation. I'm so sorry to hear about your department being outsourced. It's completely understandable to feel a mix of emotions about the job offer.

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Ratbag_Jones@reddit

Suffered the same scenario at IBM years ago. Was earning \~$105k/year in the job that was outsourced.

Was then offered essentially my same position by the Indian contract company to which the work was outsourced. Salary? $56k/year and no benefits.

Told them to fuck off, and never looked back.

Found out later from those who's stayed that they were only kept around long enough to train up the (clueless) group offshore.

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cmh_ender@reddit

don't forget step 3, which is report the outsourcing company to the department of labor, because they LOVE to post their open positions online, and then claim they can't fill them domestically and then get H1B visas for the team that needs to come to the US for training...

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hardypart@reddit

Companies with outsourced IT probably suffered much more from the Crowdstrike fuck up.

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fieroloki@reddit

Was probably part of the deal in outsourcing. Bring on certain people that got outsourced. Happened to me once.

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BuffaloRedshark@reddit

hasn't happened to me but it has happened to coworkers. The call center side of an MSP I was at took on a helpdesk from a company that decided to outsource it. All the initial hires were the people from the company doing the outsourcing. Later that msp got out of the call center business and just kept their other msp stuff, the company that took over the call center kept the staff

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BoltActionRifleman@reddit

This is just my advice based on my own career. Look for IT jobs that still involve a fair amount of hands on work. We handle about 60% of our job duties in office, but 40% or so is done out of the office at remote sites. This involves setting up networks, pulling cable, cameras, kiosks, displays, and the list goes on and on. My company would never even consider outsourcing when they see how much we actually physically do for them. Many of those tasks would be extremely expensive to be hired out to a third party, not to mention the workmanship would generally be shoddy.

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Moontoya@reddit

I do a lot of "remote hands" work

Those giant intl corps don't staff our little nation , so they're forced to hire local techs, cos flying someone in, sorting a car , sorting accommodation AND paying wages is a lot more than hiring a local tech to rack an edge router replacement.

The work gets done, my wages are more than covered and there's a nice profit margin in the bill.

Shit I've rolled at 2am to replace a failed drive for Asda (under Walmart tech support), that got me a nice bonus for literally hot swapping a drive.

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NemoJones@reddit

Just counterpoint to some of the folks saying the outsourcing company is going to fire everyone -- very likely, but I also have plenty of anecdotes of friends who were in the same boat and flourished under the outsourcing company, still work there. You just never can tell.

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kiss_my_what@reddit

I've been on the other side a few times. It goes "yes", "no", "maybe", "oh hell no", "oh shit there's nobody left to drive the VAX, can we undo anyone from the discard pile to keep that running?" and that was just my first week working for the first outsourcing company. There's many similarities across the board.

IIIS

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Brilliant-Jackfruit3@reddit

Of course take the job offered, make sure to read every single word in the contract before signing. This way you continue to have an income, while always being open to work elsewhere.

Stay on your toes, wishing you the best

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Obvious_Mode_5382@reddit

Lucky.

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CatStretchPics@reddit

That type of thing has been happening since the 90s

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westcor@reddit

Same thing happened to me, here's what I did (obviously got lucky). They said either go with the outsourcing company or take a 6 month serverance (HR warned of us bad pay and benefits). I signed the paperwork the next day to leave and look for something else. A few months later I got a call from the CFO saying they messed up and they want me to stay. Got a big raise, bonus, and extra time off. Anything is possible, but I would start looking if there's not a severance option.

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Naviios@reddit

If comfortable at all financially I wouldn't take the job

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LForbesIam@reddit

We are a union and our biggest fight is against outsourcing to other countries. They don’t realize what they save in cheap wages they lose in productivity and skillset. Not to mention good luck with this Crowdstrike outage not having local people.

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Stryker1-1@reddit

I would take it stick it out while looking for a job for the guarantee income

I'm searching for a job right now and I'm seeing positions with over 1500 applications.

I'm thinking of leaving the industry all together

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First-Structure-2407@reddit

Any of these examples from the UK?

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Few-Dance-855@reddit

Happened to me - I was offered a role at a lower salary. Respectfully declined. A couple of my friends stayed on with the new company’. They hate it.

Job market is crazy so I think anyone would understand if you want to take the role. Just a word of caution ⚠️

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720hp@reddit

I had been in a similar position and just took the severance and left

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Expensive_Finger_973@reddit

I'd take the other from the outsource company to buy me some time to job hunt while not being on unemployment or living off of savings.

Assuming you otherwise aren't entitles to a good severance deal that essentially serves the same purpose or the contract they are offering is not draconian.

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robvas@reddit

Sucks. In Healthcare this can happen every few years.

Fuck those fuckers.

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CorsairKing@reddit

Frankly, I wouldn't take the job with the new company if I could afford to take a principled stance on the matter. Allocate all of your energy towards job applications, and have a consulting contract ready to go if they get desperate enough to pay you a shit ton for your knowledge.

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ITguydoingITthings@reddit

I trust that offer about as much and as long as I trust the government.

That being said, protect yourself: check details of any severance on old job, and every detail of offer from potential. Like many mentioned, high likelihood that you'd be there to get outsourced up to speed, and then be let go.

Remember, you're not there to protect the company from their decision...you're there to protect yourself.

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chairborne33@reddit

Pretty much the exact same thing happened to me years ago. The main difference was that the new job wasn’t work from home.

Take the job if it’s a good fit. Even if it’s not, you can take it and keep getting paid while searching for something you like more. Better to be employed while job hunting.

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PerfectBake420@reddit

Well if you accept it, you will be remote most likely lol

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Due_Ear9637@reddit

A similar thing happened at a company I worked at. They made a practice run by outsourcing a small group to see what they could learn from it. The people who transitioned got a severance package from my company as well as a signing bonus from the outsourcing company. Less than a year later the company updated their policies so that anyone transitioning to an outsourcing company was considered a "change in control" and they weren't entitled to severance. Then they outsourced the rest of us. Working for the outsourcing company pretty much sucked. You basically go back to your old job, except everyone from the company you previously worked for treats you like shit. The outsourcing company doesn't care as long as they're getting paid. I finally left for greener pastures after 3 years. 2 years after that the contract expired and the company brought almost everyone back, but with new job titles because reasons.

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looneybooms@reddit

Once turned down helping run a well funded spam operation on principle.

Eventually noticed that 99.9% of the industry's success, as well as most individuals within it seems to be based on nefarious activities either early on in a career if not thoroughly throughout a career. Still wondering how it is any success is attained without acting like big tobacco or oil. Still poor.

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idiBanashapan@reddit

I guess you’re in a strong position to negotiate salary. They need for for what you know about the infrastructure.

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Slight_Ordinary_5406@reddit

Seems like everyone is on the same page. This is what literally has happened to my previous place... it got all sourced internally to global operations (before it was all local) they made them all redundant after all L3 knowledge was transferred... I would ask for some crazy salary and negotiate from there.

Also, keep your CV updated and apply for as many jobs as you can.

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h00ty@reddit

Take the job with the outsourced company because well we all have bills to pay. Start looking for another job right now..

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ubernoobernoobinator@reddit

Weigh your options and maybe start applying
Was there also the option of getting a severance package?
I for 1 much prefer inhouse and would never work for a MSP / outsource unless it was a very high up position and making considerably more.