Who deploys like this?



  •  I'm currently contracted to provide expert advise and support to a client who also has contracted with an off-shore consulting firm who perform the bulk of maintenance, support, and new features on the client's site. Because of my “expert” status it has been requested that I perform certain tasks which for me are trivial, but would have taken the the off-shore consultants much, much longer due to their lack of knowledge and experience with the software used by the client. One task was to setup some semi-custom rules in the database which would affect how orders would be calculated. The changes required were in the database only and were fairly easy for me to implement, but did require a good understanding of the database schema and the processes which read those tables.

    The changes were implemented as a proof of concept in the client's test environment, but just to be one the safe side the changes were scripted to make it easier to modify and eventually deploy to production. For whatever reason and without my knowledge the client requested that the off-shore consulting firm deploy the changes to production (WTF #1). The individual at the off-shore consultancy charged with pushing the change had only minimal knowledge of the changes and certainly wasn't aware of the script used to perform the deployment package. Despite this lack of knowledge this individual made the attempt to implement changes straight into production without consulting me (WTF #2). Basically, he disabled the existing rules and then started to implement the new rules where they loaded only one out of the dozens of required records in the DB. Of course, this did not work. Only then did he send me an e-mail requesting assistance in fixing the system.

    In summary: client requests party B to deploy changes made by party A. Without talking to party A , party B proceeds to attempt a deployment without sufficient knowledge of the changes which, for a time results, in the production environment not calculating orders correctly in some cases.

    I will admit that for my part it would have been best to have provided instructions to both the client and the off-shore team for deploying the changes earlier. In my defense, however, it was my understanding that the client was still evaluating the changes and that it was likely additional changes would be required. Had either of them asked or let me know that they were going to push the changes straight to production beforehand then I would have happily provided them the instructions.

    Of course the consequences weren't disastrous in this case, but it may made me say WTF regardless. I simply could not envision any experienced IT person attempting to push changes to any production environment in this manner. Why would one attempt to deploy changes without having some sort of instructions to guide them particularly if they don't know what has been modified?

    Sorry for the long story.



  • @DeepThought said:

    I simply could not envision any experienced IT person attempting to push changes to any production environment in this manner.
    I think the operative word here is "experienced".  If the offshore team were "experienced", they wouldn't have tried implementing your change without understanding it!



  • @MarkJ said:

    I think the operative word here is "experienced".  If the offshore team were "experienced", they wouldn't have tried implementing your change without understanding it!
     

    Agreed. Now the question becomes: what sort of company hires idiots like this?


  • On a slightly different note: anybody else getting errors when they try to record a tag?



  • @DeepThought said:

    On a slightly different note: anybody else getting errors when they try to record a tag?


    I'm having the same problem.



  • Clearly the off-shore guys should have asked for installing directions. However, the customer is always responsible in the end for these kind of screw-ups; they hire cheapo programmers, don't monitor the process closely, and what do you know: the results suck. No shit, Sherlock. Outsourcing is hard and takes a lot of time and effort before you start saving it.

    Seeing this, you could have been a bit more careful. Looking back, I bet you weren't too surprised this happened at exactly this customer, right?



  • Yeah, I've had it happen a couple of times.

    And if this post is not tagged 'gratuitous', then it's happened again.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @DeepThought said:

    On a slightly different note: anybody else getting errors when they try to record a tag?

    http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/t/20980.aspx I'm having the same problem.

    I'm also not getting email notifications anymore even if i'm subscribed to a thread.  It's probably better that way.

     

    Filed under: Sometimes an asshole



  •  This is almost standard operating procedure for offshore software shops.  Do NOT EVER indicate that you cannot do something, or don't know how to do something.

    If you did that, you might not get paid.  Some other shop might get the contract instead, because they said they can do it.

    Better to stall and get paid, than to admit you can't do something and get passed over.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @frits said:

    I'm also not getting email notifications anymore
    Also mentioned else-thread - not all mails appear to being sent, though if you're getting none it's getting worse.



  • @DeepThought said:

    @MarkJ said:

    I think the operative word here is "experienced".  If the offshore team were "experienced", they wouldn't have tried implementing your change without understanding it!
     

    Agreed. Now the question becomes: what sort of company hires idiots like this?
    Companies that think they can get away with hiring the cheapest "consultants" out there and still get quality work.  This is often...unrewarding.  As others have pointed out, it takes a lot of work to keep off-shore contractors in line and on task, and they won't admit ignorance even when that ignorance is destructive.  "Cheap" is usually not synonymous with "good". 


  • @MarkJ said:

    "Cheap" is usually not synonymous with "good". 
     

    Funny, if I'd been able to record a tag with the original post it was going to be something like "cheap and quick but not good"



  • @@Deprecated said:

    Do NOT EVER indicate that you cannot do something, or don't know how to do something.

    We have small number of hires in my company who come from overseas and they initially had the same attitude. I've worked hard to break them of this trait. My oppinion is that you cannot ever know everything and cannot be expected to know everything. If you don't know something then ask first before you screw something up. What made me so surprised in this case is not that they tried to hide their ignorance, but that they risked screwing up the client's production environment in this futile attempt. In the end their behavior back-fired on them. They had to admit to me and to the client that they didn't know how to do it after already messing up the production environment. You can be sure that I took this opportunity to point out their foolish and risky behavior to the client



  • @frits said:

    I'm also not getting email notifications anymore even if i'm subscribed to a thread.  It's probably better that way.
     

     

    I'm getting some e-mail notifications, but not all of the responses are showing up on my inbox and I still can't record a tag. Strange.



  • Who deploys like this? We do. Constantly. Although not as much as I would like- Our stories often include a party c that party b contacts for support when it goes wrong. And a party d. And root cause analysis when the real root cause is the end user emailed party b directly to cut corners to get things deployed faster to meet an imaginary deadline.



  • @DeepThought said:

    @MarkJ said:

    "Cheap" is usually not synonymous with "good". 
     

    Funny, if I'd been able to record a tag with the original post it was going to be something like "cheap and quick but not good"

     

     

    • cheap
    • quick
    • good 

     

    You can pick 2.



  • When you add "quantity" to your criteria (duration, cost, quality) you are at the "Vicious Square" by Sneed. And yes, it's true.


  • Garbage Person

    @frits said:

    @Ben L. said:

    @DeepThought said:

    On a slightly different note: anybody else getting errors when they try to record a tag?

    http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/t/20980.aspx I'm having the same problem.

    I'm also not getting email notifications anymore even if i'm subscribed to a thread.  It's probably better that way.

     

     

    Yeah. It is better that way, because this shitpile kept subscribing me to threads I'd replied to - even though I don't give a fuck and HATE subscriptions.

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