An interesting meditation

I can't talk about outsourcing projects but I can talk about working with outsourced work components

I gained a C contract and at the time no one in the agency that got me the job told me that a large portion of the people in the agency were actually working from India.

I encountered a lot of problems and a lot of stress trying to negotiate the contract to my satisfaction. I didn't fully achieve this. The communication difficulties meant I had to resolve everything down to the simplest possible terms so that I had a hope in h*ll that the agency personnel had understood anything. Setting in down in email didn't guarantee they understood either.

Problems continued on site. The agency used UK local numbers which covered the fact their people were in India. These people could only respond by rote to questions I had about timesheets. They also didn't understand the legal and tax requirements I had as a newly formed Limited Company without VAT registration. All I got was a rote answer which implied I break UK tax regulations and there was no other solution offered. All they seemed to do was read from a script. They displayed absolutely no understanding of my position and no understanding of UK tax laws.

In reality, how can a young Indian graduate in Mumbai be expected to understand these things unless they have lived and worked here themselves?

I do understand these people are working in a foreign language and I couldn't do the same in the reverse situation but I won't be working with that contract agency again.

My view of your problem is that outsourcing may look fantastic on paper in that you may get

• another 100 programmers at 2 cents an hour
• a fantastic profit for the company

but you'll be tearing your hair out with frustration due to lack of good communication and projects will fail without that.

I have worked with colleagues in other situations who have said 'yes' when asked if they understand verbal and written communications and then have very plainly and clearly demonstrated they haven't take on board one iota of it. It didn't matter how simple the task they just simply couldn't communicate in English.

I'm sure most UK monks here have sat on the line to their bank's call center in India or even Dell sometimes and knows what it feels like not to be able to communicate effectively. I don't know if you have an equivalent experience in the US.

There may be good people out there, and you may be lucky. Or your manager might.

Take a look at some of the responses to projects posted on GetaFreelancer.com to get an indicatin of the standard of comms you may be dealing with.

If you don't spec up the project really well, completely unambiguously and down to the last myopic detail, then you have a high chance of hitting these comms problems. Clues and a rough idea simply don't work. Even if you do all that, you still may have unsatisfactory communication problems.

Good luck, whatever happens