Interesting experience with manager today

[karim0028]

So, i had a meeting today with my second level manager, kind of a get to know you after multiple re-orgs, you kind of rarely get to know the manager above your current team....

One of the questions he asked me was; what to do you find as the most challenging thing to getting your job done?

My reply: The current work schedule around multiple time zones, in particular malaysia and asia in general.... It is not really conducive to a work life balance, i have meetings with European customers at 6 am and meetings with team counterparts in malaysia at 6 pm....

His response: Malaysia is not going away They are gaining more prominence within our organization and are taking leading product development roles that would not have been given to them several years ago....

My thoughts on what was said:

Essentially, this tells me that most of the work is really being concentrated in malaysia and the US is now really going to be a support team No one comes out and flat out says it, but looking at trends can mean a ton more than spoken words... In other words look at a persons/organizations actions rather than what it spells out for you; as actions speak louder than words... Almost all of our hiring is now in asia...

Major nextgen products/projects are now being driven out of asia and malaysia, where as 3 years ago THEY were the support/legacy/sustaining teams and now , we are the "support"/sustaining teams...

Several years ago, counterparts in malaysia used to accomodate our time zone, now we in the US are being asked to hold meetings at 8-9 pm US time...

Colleague's in the US seem to have the mentality that the US will always be the "innovator", they see through rose colored glasses.... Once asian counter parts have some more experience under their belt i have no doubt they will be able to innovate the same as the US, if not better... They hunger to climb the ladder, while in the US we bitch and complain and have an entitlement mentality

Colleagues in Malaysia truly have no life, they work over 12 hour days, are always online and always strive to show that they add value......

Living standards will go down in the US and living standards will rise in asia. If nothing more than for pure economics, why would i hire 1 engineer here, when i can hire 4 hungry, well educated, driven engineers in asia.....

Welcome to the new US reality

[LargoWinch]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Living standards will go down in the US and living standards will rise in asia. If nothing more than for pure economics, why would i hire 1 engineer here, when i can hire 4 hungry, well educated, driven engineers in asia.....

Welcome to the new US reality

I guess it would not be such a problem if the cost of living in the Western World was comparable to Malaysia.

I mean, pay me $100,000 under a "burn rate" X or $10,000 under a burn rate of "Y" and I could not care less.

ex: Daycare alone in Toronto is $60+ per day.

[ViC78]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

This is probably a dumb question, so please bear with me. As far as I can understand, companies have increased their profits via the margin between the slave labor prices in the third world and the price at which they sell the goods in the first world.

So, if the living standards in the first world go down, they will not be able to afford the prices at which goods/services are sold currently. Additionally, as the labor prices in the third world go up, this reduces the margin from the input cost end. How does this help corporations in any way? Or do they just move on to the next cheaper destination - Africa?

[jk]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

karim, it seems that he was also saying "screw your 'work life balance.'" you talk about the extreme work hours in your asia operations, but you also say you have 6am to 6pm commitments, sliding into 8-9pm meetings. if work life balance is a concern, he said - in not so many words- you'd better look for another job, because it's going to get worse, not better.

[bcassill]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

So, i had a meeting today with my second level manager, kind of a get to know you after multiple re-orgs, you kind of rarely get to know the manager above your current team....

One of the questions he asked me was; what to do you find as the most challenging thing to getting your job done?

My reply: The current work schedule around multiple time zones, in particular malaysia and asia in general.... It is not really conducive to a work life balance, i have meetings with European customers at 6 am and meetings with team counterparts in malaysia at 6 pm....

His response: Malaysia is not going away They are gaining more prominence within our organization and are taking leading product development roles that would not have been given to them several years ago....

My thoughts on what was said:

Essentially, this tells me that most of the work is really being concentrated in malaysia and the US is now really going to be a support team No one comes out and flat out says it, but looking at trends can mean a ton more than spoken words... In other words look at a persons/organizations actions rather than what it spells out for you; as actions speak louder than words... Almost all of our hiring is now in asia...

Major nextgen products/projects are now being driven out of asia and malaysia, where as 3 years ago THEY were the support/legacy/sustaining teams and now , we are the "support"/sustaining teams...

Several years ago, counterparts in malaysia used to accomodate our time zone, now we in the US are being asked to hold meetings at 8-9 pm US time...

Colleague's in the US seem to have the mentality that the US will always be the "innovator", they see through rose colored glasses.... Once asian counter parts have some more experience under their belt i have no doubt they will be able to innovate the same as the US, if not better... They hunger to climb the ladder, while in the US we bitch and complain and have an entitlement mentality

Colleagues in Malaysia truly have no life, they work over 12 hour days, are always online and always strive to show that they add value......

Living standards will go down in the US and living standards will rise in asia. If nothing more than for pure economics, why would i hire 1 engineer here, when i can hire 4 hungry, well educated, driven engineers in asia.....

Welcome to the new US reality

Ah, the benefits of globalization. Just see what happens when China implodes (with the resulting geopolitical fallout). I wonder if your company will think it's such a good idea then. Then again, I would invite them to move to Malaysia if they think it is such a great place. Best of luck to them.

[don]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

So, i had a meeting today with my second level manager, kind of a get to know you after multiple re-orgs, you kind of rarely get to know the manager above your current team....

One of the questions he asked me was; what to do you find as the most challenging thing to getting your job done?

My reply: The current work schedule around multiple time zones, in particular malaysia and asia in general.... It is not really conducive to a work life balance, i have meetings with European customers at 6 am and meetings with team counterparts in malaysia at 6 pm....

His response: Malaysia is not going away They are gaining more prominence within our organization and are taking leading product development roles that would not have been given to them several years ago....

My thoughts on what was said:

Essentially, this tells me that most of the work is really being concentrated in malaysia and the US is now really going to be a support team No one comes out and flat out says it, but looking at trends can mean a ton more than spoken words... In other words look at a persons/organizations actions rather than what it spells out for you; as actions speak louder than words... Almost all of our hiring is now in asia...

Major nextgen products/projects are now being driven out of asia and malaysia, where as 3 years ago THEY were the support/legacy/sustaining teams and now , we are the "support"/sustaining teams...

Several years ago, counterparts in malaysia used to accomodate our time zone, now we in the US are being asked to hold meetings at 8-9 pm US time...

Colleague's in the US seem to have the mentality that the US will always be the "innovator", they see through rose colored glasses.... Once asian counter parts have some more experience under their belt i have no doubt they will be able to innovate the same as the US, if not better... They hunger to climb the ladder, while in the US we bitch and complain and have an entitlement mentality

Colleagues in Malaysia truly have no life, they work over 12 hour days, are always online and always strive to show that they add value......

Living standards will go down in the US and living standards will rise in asia. If nothing more than for pure economics, why would i hire 1 engineer here, when i can hire 4 hungry, well educated, driven engineers in asia.....

Welcome to the new US reality

I'm curious what's the relationship between the actual production line and technological innovation. Are they increasingly uniting in Asia, as much as they are split apart in the US? Engineering innovation, divorced from the factory floor, will eventually fade away to flights of fancy. Is this the future for US engineering in our FIRE economy?

[chr5648]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

A few months ago I interviewed for an accounting position, instead of accounting or accounting functions what I would be doing is teaching a growing group in india over the internet using video software and such on how to use the accounting systems here. The hours would suck, and the pay was below what I am currently getting.

The wages in the accounting profession are getting hammered, so many people graduating with accounting degrees, there is an over saturated market with CPA's their pay is deflating, and now foreign countries are taking these jobs.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Engineering innovation, divorced from the factory floor, will eventually fade away to flights of fancy.

I agree.

By my experience, most of innovation is just good hard work by people immersed in the existing technology. From outside, it looks like a great break through, but from inside it looks like a natural extension of current art driven by a commitment to pay for research that eventually finds a good idea. I have felt for some time that the cliche is mostly hollow that the US can be the source of innovation without an industrial base. It seems natural that the innovations come from the producing factories and the community of engineers and scientist drawing paychecks from those factories, directly and indirectly.

[karim0028]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

karim, it seems that he was also saying "screw your 'work life balance.'" you talk about the extreme work hours in your asia operations, but you also say you have 6am to 6pm commitments, sliding into 8-9pm meetings. if work life balance is a concern, he said - in not so many words- you'd better look for another job, because it's going to get worse, not better.

yup, i got that part I just nodded and smiled ;) And that is why i'm considering other careers or businesses, bc i see engineering going to asia as almost inevitable.... As an employee you are an expendable asset and in asia that asset is cheaper and over the long run will usually produce more due to no protest for an actual life outside work.....

Honestly managers at our multi-national always talk about work life balance, but when it comes down to it, they dont do anything, bc like he said, they cant.... Half the company is in asia....

[aaron]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

karim, it seems that he was also saying "screw your 'work life balance.'" you talk about the extreme work hours in your asia operations, but you also say you have 6am to 6pm commitments, sliding into 8-9pm meetings. if work life balance is a concern, he said - in not so many words- you'd better look for another job, because it's going to get worse, not better.

What would you recommend?

I was thinking about bio-informatics.
or

Electronics repair?
Appliance repair?
Solar panel installer?

[MulaMan]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

My advice is as follows:

You firm obvisiouly sees "growth" as destruction of labor costs. Seems to me they have no ability to innovate. Probably because they hired MBAs from Wharton to run the firm, rather than ex-engineers that know how to innovate and build great products.

a) Obtain Health Care for your family under Obamacare and then tell your Wharton MBA run oligarchy pyramid scheme to go "f-themselves"

b) Start your own firm.

c) Make sure your kids do NOT go into an MBA program for 100K plus debt but instead borrow 100K and start a real business.

This WILL BE THE BIG TREND in the next decade as long as health care reform continues towards single payer.

[ltullos]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Karim, you've just described life in rest of the semiconductor industry (i.e non-Intel - who still retains wafer fabs in US) for at least the last 5-7 years. You should have asked him when they will be outsourcing your Finance group to Malaysia or Bangalore.

[Ponce]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

What many refused to understand is that in Asia the pay is ten times less but at the same time the cost of living is ten times less so that at the end their standard of living is the same as ours.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

Honestly managers at our multi-national always talk about work life balance, but when it comes down to it, they dont do anything, bc like he said, they cant.... Half the company is in asia....

I'm missing something here. Why is making a meeting at 6 AM with some Europeans and at 6 PM with some Asians a problem? Why can't one just work less some other time in order to get the work life balance as desired?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Interesting experience with manager today

So, if the living standards in the first world go down, they will not be able to afford the prices at which goods/services are sold currently. Additionally, as the labor prices in the third world go up, this reduces the margin from the input cost end. How does this help corporations in any way? Or do they just move on to the next cheaper destination - Africa?

Henry Ford noticed this same issue when he decided to pay his assembly line workers (the unheard of at the time) $5 per day, so that they would be earning enough to buy their own Model T.

But you have clearly disqualified yourself () from the CEO position of any major corporation these days when you started worrying (1) about how decisions now would benefit the company some years in the future, and (2) about how the combined decisions of many companies affect their general welfare. Decisions such as labor sourcing are based (1) more on present day wages, laws and incentives and less on their impact years in the future, and they are based (2) on assuming zero-sum game conditions rather than on collective merit.