Indian Software Developers
I have quite a bit of experience of working with Indian Software Developers.
They brought this guy all the way from India in 1993 to work on the new conversion system for Barclays Bank International in Poole. He was an amazing character.
It was on a Honeywell conversion to IBM Cobol CICS DL/I. where I was working as contractor for the firm who were doing the conversion for BBI. There were also 3 permanent employees of the software house who worked there on the project plus a team leader from the software house from Kingston-on-Thames.
Slightly after I joined this Indian guy called Peeps joined. This was a shortening of his real name which was too long to say.
He really was a very smart guy. He always finished his work ahead of any of the rest of us. This annoyed the supposed ‘star‘ of the software house permies immensely.
It turned out that he had never used CICS or DL/I before. He just picked it up by himself when he got there. He never ever had to ask for help.
Programmes Always Worked in Testing
There was never anything wrong with his programs once they were handed over for testing. I once got one of his programs to lock by doing something really stupid. However, he said that he built that in deliberately to punish the users if they ever did something as stupid as that.
I wasn‘t sure if he was bluffing or not.
Working Away from Home
I hung around with him quite a lot as, except for the team leader, the software house permies were a cliquey lot. They hung about together socially in the evenings. However, they excluded both of us even though we were all working away from home.
They actually all moved out of the bed and breakfast that they and the Indian guy were staying at en masse, they told me, because he used to eat his breakfast with his mouth open. When I arrived this was the B&B that they recommended to me, i.e. the one they had vacated. It was the one where the Indian guy was now staying by himself.
It was later that they told me why they had all moved out. He did eat with his mouth open. However, I simply said it to him one day and he never did it again.
They were a bit snooty towards him.
Software House Temporary Project
The software house were actually doing a temporary quick project for BBI to fill in whilst BBI prepared to do the main project.
The Indian kept asking if he could stay with the software house in Britain. They said it was not possible because of immigration rules, and he was sent back to India.
At the end of the successful project the software house actually bid for the main project. They were told that they could get it, but only under one condition – that they brought Peeps back from India.
They suddenly found that they could get round the immigration rules and brought him over for good. He was still working for the company last I heard although that was many years ago.
Sociallise in Evenings
As I said, I often used to socialise with him in the evenings. We used to go and watch the dog racing at Poole. Although he had never seen dogs racing before he quickly took to it and learned all the techniques for picking winners.
The last time I saw him was in the early eighties.
He said that there were lots of good programmers in India and he suggested that we form a partnership to bring over top class Indian software developers that he would pick out, and who at that time were being paid about 150 quid a year back home, and I would help place these guys in the UK or win contracts using them.
Furthermore, he also said that I could win contracts and they could write it all in India at a dirt cheap price and send it back again/.
He kept bringing it up and kept begging me to go in with him.
‘No, I couldn‘t see that working’ I said more than 20 years ago to him, and turned down all his earnest entreaties on the subject.
As I say, I have quite a lot of experience of working with Indian software developers and this one is probably the best.
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