Early Tuesday morning this week, Gretchen began receiving calls requesting a telephone consultation for Chutiyarandikalarka Kukarchod Jalantaka, president and CEO of U-Cum-First Technology Services, Mumbai, India. She was finally able to find a slot for him in my schedule on Thursday at three o’clock, by which time, judging from the tone of his voice, the waiting had apparently driven him to utter distraction.
Jalantaka: Hello! Hello! Who is this? I must speak with Tom Collins, immediately! Immediately, do you understand?
Tom: This is Tom Collins.
Jalantaka: Yes, yes, very well, then! The vamanakarana has been hitting on the fan since Tuesday, I am telling you, and only just now am I obtaining the necessary consultations!
Tom: And which vamanakarana would that be, sir?
Jalantaka: My company, U-Cum-First Technology Services, has a presence not only in Mumbai, but in many other places around the world, including the United States, I can assure you. And our offices in the Reston, Virginia, technology corridor, have as their clients, the Mitt Romney for President campaign.
Tom: Congratulations on you success.
Jalantaka: I am thanking you very much for that, Mr. Collins; and many you are welcomes to you also.
Tom: I’m sure. So your problem relates to the Romney campaign somehow?
Jalantaka: Indeed it does, Mr. Collins! For it is the Mitt Romney for President of the United States campaign which contracted U-Cum-First Technology Services to develop mobile applications promoting him and his ideologies.
Tom: And what, do you suppose, were the motivations for choosing your company?
Jalantaka: If you ask me, Mr. Collins, there is only one answer – our formidable cost effectiveness features!
Tom: Such as?
Jalantaka: Well, firstly I would say, that in the United States, we have only one person who works for us who is a US citizen.
Tom: Only one?
Jalantaka: That is correct – my brother Tattisirachakra, whom our family sent to the United States on a student visa to attend the University of Massachusetts with in-state tuition, there to study computer science so as to get a job with IBM and then become a citizen and sponsor his wife, his children, my children, my other brothers’ children, my sisters’ children, my cousins, my cousins’ children, and so forth and so on, to come to the United States, attend public universities with in-state tuition, get high tech jobs and also subsequently become citizens.
Tom: I see. But none of them work for your firm, I take it?
Jalantaka: Oh, no, I don’t think so! As US citizens, it would be much, much too expensive to hire them. Instead, as a US citizen, my brother Tattisirachakra sponsors low-caste coolies to go to the United States on H1B visas and work for U-Cum-First Technology Services USA at extremely competitive wages.
Tom: How do you recruit them?
Jalantaka: From our extensive facilities based here in Mumbai. Not only do we operate several commercial product customer support call centers, we also have eleven contracts for computer and network help desks and an entire division devoted to out-sourced software development. From that work force, we select only the best English speakers with the highest technical qualification to represent U-Cum-First USA in Reston under the H1B visa program.
Tom: And once they get here, work for a little while, take a look around Reston and figure out you are exploiting them, what happens?
Jalantaka: Ah, yes, that is the beauty of it – nothing! Under the H1B visa program, they cannot do anything. They cannot quit and go to work for more money at some other business in the US. Only U-Cum-First Technology Services, their H1B visa sponsor, can employ them. So if they quit – or if they don’t work sixteen, twenty hours a day for U-Cum-First Technology Services – or even if they just complain too much, then back to India they go, where I can tell you most confidently, they will be blacklisted for any technology job, that is for sure! They will be lucky to get jobs driving pedicabs after that, I tell you – and any of their relatives, also!
Tom: It certainly appears that the H1B visa program is a pretty good deal for people like you.
Jalantaka: And you can bet your bottom dollar, Mr. Collins, that there are plenty of US businesses just like U-Cum-First Technology Services contributing heavily to both presidential campaigns to make sure nobody does anything to change the H1B visa program.
Tom: So I imagine that between having the cheapest possible labor here in the US and complete outsourcing capability there in Mumbai, obtaining a contract to develop mobile apps for the Romney campaign was relatively straightforward.
Jalantaka: Why yes, it was.
Tom: Because the Romney campaign, being composed of nothing more than political hacks, would have absolutely no idea of the technical or quality factors involved in mobile application development – inevitably, they would simply give the work to the lowest bidder.
Jalantaka: Yes, precisely.
Tom: So let me guess – the problem you are calling me about involves either technical or quality defects in your products.
Jalantaka: Uh… er… yes, it does. You see, Mr. Collins, the mobile application in question which the Romney campaign ordered, had the requirement that the user would be capable of taking a picture with their mobile device, then be able to place a message banner over the image and send it to others, thus spreading the Romney campaign message.
Tom: I think I’ve heard of that. The “skin” placed over the user’s photo says “I’m with Mitt,” and displays the URL for the Romney Web site. Furthermore, it’s supposed to display, in large bold print, superimposed on the image, the slogan “A Better America.” But in the initial public release, “America” was misspelled A-M-E-R-C-I-A.
Jalantaka: Uh… yes… that was us.
Tom: Tell me, what sort of software development methodology does your firm usually employ for mobile applications?
Jalantaka: That would be the Agile technique.
Tom: Meaning, I take it, that you just make things up as you go along, without any documentation or structure, and then call that “Agile” development?
Jalantaka: Of course – doesn’t everybody?
Tom: And what sort of software quality assurance protocols do you follow – CMMI, ITL, ISO, EVM, anything like that?
Jalantaka: Oh those – yes, well, we have certifications and assessments in all of them. They’re not very difficult to get, you know.
Tom: They’re not?
Jalantaka: Not for Indian companies. Here, in Europe, or over there in the United States, it doesn’t matter; all we have to do is hire an Indian firm to perform the inspections and so forth, then pay them a bit extra under the table, just as we do for such things in Mumbai. Like magic, they hand over the piece of paper which says we qualify.
Tom: I see.
Jalantaka: Besides, it really doesn’t matter, now does it?
Tom: How come?
Jalantaka: Because everybody knows it’s practically impossible to use any of those quality management protocols in conjunction with Agile development anyway. Agile is just scrumming and coding, scrumming and coding, scrumming coding, starting right away, all the time, going on and on and on until you have spent all the client’s money. Then you deliver whatever it is you have at that point and you’re done!
Tom: And that’s what you did with the Romney “A Better Amercia” mobile app?
Jalantaka: Of course – standard operations procedure, as you say.
Tom: Okay, I understand. And you want me to do what, specifically, about all this?
Jalantaka: Mr. Collins, they say you are the smartest person inside the Route Four-Ninety-Five Washington Beltway!
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Jalantaka: Baltimore? My second cousin owns an Indian restaurant there. He says that between all the Negroes and the Jews, his waiters hardly ever get any tips! What I am asking of you, Mr. Collins, is two things – Number One, how do I get this fellow from the Romney campaign off my back? He wants us to return the money! And Number Two, how does U-Cum-First Technology Services avoid this sort of thing in the future?
Tom: Okay – with respect to Number One there, tell the Romney flack who hired you if he wants a refund for the “Amercia” app, he can sue you.
Jalantaka: Sue?
Tom: Sure. There’s absolutely no way the Romney campaign wants a lot of news media exposure about how they hired a company like yours – no offense – to develop their mobile applications. On the contrary, take my word for it, the Romney campaign will bend over backwards to make it look like that app was made in the USA. Which brings me to Problem Number Two. Given your business model, it would be completely unrealistic to expect such incidents to cease, and, what’s more, totally infeasible to change things so as to significantly reduce the probability that something similar won’t happen again. So my recommendation would be, in the future your firm should identify business opportunities, then use a US firm as a front to deliver the products – you subcontract to them. Then, as the prime contractor, they will be held responsible for the defects when one of your software development teams screws up again. They will take the heat – and all you have to do is find another sucker… I mean, US small business… to be your new prime contractor.
Jalantaka: All right, I see… but what if, as they say, word gets around?
Tom: It’s doubtful, since no individual business owner is likely to tell his competitors what a fool you made of him. But if the supply of patsies… I mean, potential new business partners… does dry up for some reason, then all you need to do is roll your own.
Jalantaka: Excuse me? Make my own cigarettes?
Tom: No, what I mean is, you find some American bozo, set him – or her – up as the president of an IT firm, then make that company your prime contractor.
Jalantaka: Oh, okay, now I understand. Very good. Now, before I go, do you have any other recommendations?
Tom: Two words – spell checker.
Jalantaka: “Spell checker?” What’s that?
Tom: Have one of your developers Google it.
Jalantaka: Very well, I will. Thank you.
Tom: You’re welcome. Goodbye.