Westminstenders: Don't Panic!

[RedToothBrush]

It's official

Brexit is like an episode of Dads Army with the government, being Captain Mainwaring's trusty band of elite forces doing battle against the evil Mr Barnier.

Yesterday Parliament gave back control to the executive as it surrendered parliamentary sovereignty to Janus faced May. Grieve, it has to be said, truly did look like a broken man as he gave his speech in the commons. Not that we should have too much sympathy. After all he did just put party before country.

So where are we now? The ERG are happy. They have successfully bullied enough until everyone else gave up and folded. They now have no incentive to compromise, as they know that no one can stand up to them. They want no deal, and it's no deal they will force.

The EU are thoroughly fed up and it's difficult to see them do anything but cut us loose saying Brexit means Brexit, this is what you wanted. They have stepped up planning for no deal and their plans were already much more advanced than ours.

We go into the next round of talks with a solution to the Irish Border looking further away than ever. Not helped by the fact that brexit nationalism is restricted to England alone, with many being happy to let NI be sunk into the Irish sea and the favour the rebuilding of Hadrian's wall in order to keep out the foreigners.

It's hard to resist simply sitting down wailing "we doomed". But try to resist and keep saying, you are against this crap. If only so history books don't just say we all agreed to this clusterfuck.

Here have a fluffy bunny to help comfort you.

The idea that the UK government - the Home Office in particular - can manage to deliver an "app" before 2025 is laughable.

However, lets wait and see the contracts flying. Capita ? ATOS ? Lockheed ?

That last might prove problematic, if the EUs data protection rules come into play. Remember, the UK has to do all this while still a member of the EU.

I bet the phones in Mumbai and Bangalore are buzzing right now.

This is from an mner from a few years ago.
Some may find it helpful.
austerityhousekeeping.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/the-crisis-diet-when-the-cupboard-is-bare/

Oh my sides are hurting from laughing at the idea of an app before 2025 involving contracts with Mumbai and Bangalore.

Nothing could possibly go wrong. Nothing at all.

It'll be FIIIIIIIINNNNEEEEE red

(Goes and rocks in corner)

involving contracts with Mumbai and Bangalore.

I wonder how many screens they'll get with fuck all code behind them ? Like the change I requested years ago when I ran offshore teams. We mocked up a page, showing where the button was to go, and what it was to do. Two days later they checked in a new form with the button on it. By then I was wise, so I had a shufty and confirmed my suspicion that there was no code attached.

Apparently they thought we were going to write the code, and their job was to make the page ...

I was bought in after they had written the contract ....

Mr Javid's plan sounds at least quite well thought out and has the benefit of being A plan.
The stumbling block may come when Mrs May gives him £50 from petty cash to implement it, which is of course all you need for a plan that should have been underway over 2 years ago.

That's the issue isn't it?
The EU has been preparing for 2 years!
TM and her goons were banking on the EU getting a wobbly lip and begging us to stay at any cost...

But, yes. It's a plan at least...

DH's experience with developers in India has been something similar. He's not terribly complimentary about contractors in India. His general feeling is those who are good are able to get visas to work abroad.

He has worked with some good Indians who have come to work in the uk. However, he has found a particular cultural problem...

What he found was the Indians he worked with were culturally taught never to say they can't do something. Its quite a nice 'can do' attitude but has a very real draw back.

It is best highlighted by the example of when you are asking "Can you complete this project by the deadline of Thursday?" He only discovered that the answer to the question is ALWAYS yes after averting near disaster on a major project he was working on.

Once he knew this was a cultural issue, he was able to effectively 'deprogram' his colleagues from this mindset and teach them how we work in the UK and that its culturally ok to say, "No that deadline is not realistic unless I have some assistance with it" without any loss of face nor admission of failure.

Now imagine if you didn't know that...

...now apply to Brexit contracts...

As I say, what could possibly go wrong?

India is not alone with that cultural 'quirk'. I think Japan is another and although I can't remember which there are actually quite a lot.
Saying this, are there any traces of this in some of the government members, looking firmly in one particular direction?

DH's experience with developers in India has been something similar. He's not terribly complimentary about contractors in India. His general feeling is those who are good are able to get visas to work abroad.

I think it's more likely they were snapped up very early by IBM and Microsoft. I've had to deal with both over the years, and the difference is startling. The last person I remember speaking to - about a Microsoft issue - had better English than some native Brits I've worked with, and was totally competent.

My experience is that they are very good as saying "yes, of course we can do that", without ever finding out what "that" is. You also need to rate them as 50% efficient compared to an in-house developer and (crucially) add extra supervisory/oversight resources to keep a close eye on daily builds.

I pity the fool that throws a 6-month project out, gets all the lovely positive daily feedback, but never bothers to check anything.

Things go in cycles, but my last experiences with off-shoring was that it was starting to cost more than on-shoring (digs out bullet point list he wrote in 1999 predicting the same). Which is perfectly understandable. As offshore hosts develop economically, they'll want to buy more shiny. That means prices rise. Especially when they cotton on that you have to get your coders somewhere in the East, since you got rid of all your ones years ago.

I occasionally do an online course through EdEx which can lead to a certificate of completion - as these are from institutions like Harvard, UCL, Babson, they can be worth having. In order to get the certificate you have to "verify" your identity by sending a a scan of your passport and uploading a photo of yourself taken using the camera on your device through a special web page. I'd guess that the HO proposes a similar process for EU citizens?

[
My experience is that they are very good as saying "yes, of course we can do that", without ever finding out what "that" is. You also need to rate them as 50% efficient compared to an in-house developer and (crucially) add extra supervisory/oversight resources to keep a close eye on daily builds.

I pity the fool that throws a 6-month project out, gets all the lovely positive daily feedback, but never bothers to check anything.]
Let me get this crystal clear, are you referring to Software development or Brexit? It sounds a bit similar or is that a coincidence?

Let me get this crystal clear, are you referring to Software development or Brexit?

My experience of Mexico is also similar, it is a very hierarchal work environment, and people say yes because you are more senior and because they dont want to lose face by saying no. You have to get to know them very well before they feel comfortable saying no, or I need help with this. I hear Mexico touted as a place that wants to do deals with us and can only assume the people blithely suggesting we swap The Netherlands for Mexico have never actually done business in either country.

Mrs Hasenstein shows how the Home Office cock up existing systems and lose things
I expect this to continue in any new system.
The HO are not fit for purpose and haven't been for many years

....do any of you watch silicon valley?? 😁

DGRossetti, everything in that post you put about finding out what 'that' is, supervision and cost, DH has said almost word for word.

He got to the point were he was very reluctant to use offshore contractors because he spent more time cleaning up messes they made rather than getting work out of them, and that prevented him from getting on with other projects. He tried to get his employer to reduce how much they used them.

Where he works now, its less of an issue because they are utterly ruthless in who they employ; if you are not up to it, you are straight out the door, but he does have the odd problem.

We take cultural differences somewhat for granted because for the most part we aren't that different to our EU partners. There are differences but they are not as profound as with other places in the world. If we are going to do more trade outside Europe we are going to have a step learning curve on that score. In addition to variation in standards.

54321go

"Hope it gets resolved soon. While you wait you may want to ponder on possibly 20 Million other Brits making an orderly queue behind you."

My DW is an EU national, so there's only just over 3 million behind her

goodness there's a little 'we' re so good' creeping into this thread - ive worked across the world and everywhere has its quirks

• when working in asia/with asian teams its gross bad manners to put them in a position where they could lose face, asking 'can you do that in this sprint' is exactly that.

ive had irish teams not even vaguely embarassed at not meeting a delivery 'ah yes, but it was sean's birthday and the craic was great'

as for uk contractors - the number who actually have usable experience relative to what is claimed on their cv is something like 2 in 10

subjectively apart from the issues with Mumbai English it feels like i'm more likely to find decent expertise offshore.

To be honest, the most interesting thing Javid came out with wasn't a load of technobabble bollocks bingo, more the straight admission that the government had fucked up over Windrush - which can be taken as nothing other than an implicit criticism of the actions of his predecessor(s).

I'm not a politician, nor a Tory (yes, they are distinguishable ....) but I have to wonder about the situation when someone who might be tipped for higher office is put into a role where they have full oversight of the previous incumbents fuckups ?

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(and that's a big if) Javid manages to deliver some part of Brexit with a semblance of competence (bearing in mind the current benchmark) it might tip him sooner than we thought for Tory Leader.

Which suggests how things progress here are worth watching. If they seem to be going less shit that expected, there might be a credible challenger for May ?

Hasenstein I’m fuming on your behalf!

Thanks, Elements,. We're becoming inured to it now, there have been so many similar issues every time we send in the next step in the application. The only sign of efficiency is in collecting the fees.

I've now had an automated email response saying they'll reply within 10 working days, which will certainly put us outside the allowed period for submission of the biometrics. This will, of course, be our fault and we'll be responsible for the consequences, such as forfeiting any fees paid. We've been at it for just over 17 months now, so little surprises me any more.

Thnaks for that, Tambien.

I don't do Facebook, but will investigate further.

No, its more about communication issues and understanding how others work and unravelling that to get the job done. Rather than being 'better' as such.

As for UK contractors cvs being works of fiction, DH also wouldn't disagree on that one.

Having a smattering of Hindi, and a grandfather born in Darjeeling was no hindrance, either .

When my DF came to this country, none of the English people he worked with would speak to him (because they hated foreigners). So he ended up mixing with a lot of people from India, Pakistan and the West Indies. (Which meant so did I). In for a penny, in for a pound, but I was l already speaking two languages at home anyway.

One of my DFs dearest friends came from India, and started with him in the UK in the early 1960s. Sharing a room with his brother, brothers wife and (then) child. Last time I met the married brother (sadly the elder one died in the late 80s) he was visiting friends having emigrated to Australia to be with his sons family (the same son from 196x). (Did I say he became a millionaire ?) His son was a very respected heart surgeon. Really the sort of people we need in this country, rather than fleeing. But, as they said, there's only so many times you can be called racist names before the ignorance (We're from India, not Pakistan) starts to grate.

Hasenstein - there are various complaints processes that you can follow, but the most effective one for individual cases is to get your MP to write to the Home Office outlining what has happened and your concerns that the application will be refused because of a mistake at their end. (MPs correspondence gets dealt with by a different team outside the case working teams, and replies are signed by a minister - which tends to get minds focused on resolving the problem)