New venue -
by Jesse on Apr.01, 2008, under Consulting
Ok, changed venues again. Going to do some work for some smaller customers. Down side is I won’t be involved in the huge datacenter migrations I’ve done in the past, up side is that I’ll get more hands-on stick time and be able to keep the skills sharp. So far it’s a *LOT* of NAS work, which is fine by me.
One thing I noticed is that the big data centers, you know, the big Telco sites that seem to run amok in the mid-Atlantic and north-east have an inexplicable “hands-off” approach to systems management.
I was in one site recently when I found that not even the local admins had access to half the systems in the data center. They had outsourced almost ALL of their SA work to India. Even the storage manager, who had WAY above average skills in the Systems Administration arena, was not allowed to log into a box even to check the status of PowerPath.
Now there is a right-way and a wrong-way to do things. Forcing your storage guy to sit on his hands while someone half-a-world away troubleshoots a storage problem is insane. Trust your employees to do the job you pay them to do, and that includes consultants.
Nothing is worse than being in a ‘hands-off’ data center. You can quadruple the amount of time it’s going to take to get something done. The best consulting jobs are the ones where they turn the keyboard over to you and walk away, expecting it to be completed when they get back from their coffee break. Because nine times out of ten, without someone triple-checking everything you do, you can get it done in no-time flat and have time to catch a movie afterwards.
What’s worse is forcing someone to wait. It’s bad enough when an employee has to wait days for something to get done, but when a consultant you’re paying upwards of $200/hr to have on-site, don’t make him wait two days for outputs he needs to do his job – Let’s see, using the above as an example, $200/hr x 8 hrs x 2 days = $3,200….. As a stockholder in some of these companies, I object. 
I don’t like wasting other people’s money any more than I like wasting my own.
(By the way – $200 / hr falls into the category of guesses – I go out of my way not to know exactly what I’m costing the customer in the end.)
/SG
April 2nd, 2008 on 5:14 am
I hear you, but I’ll give you the flip side of the “best consulting jobs” piece: that only works for the best consultants. I’ve read your blog and I know you’re qualified to get the job done, but man, it feels like the vast majority of consultants are not blessed with that level of qualifications. (Not that full-time employees are any different.)
A few months ago I was dealing with a consultant who actually said, “Would you mind if I sat in with you while you built the servers? We don’t usually get to play with this stuff, and I’d love to learn more about hardware.” Lemme get this straight – you won’t walk down to Fry’s on your own time, but you’ll bill me $200/hour while I teach you? Right.
April 2nd, 2008 on 7:18 am
Well – some consultants don’t take the initiative to learn themselves truthfully. Myself – I *AM* the guy who will go down to Fry’s and get what I need to figure it out on my own. (Anyone who has seen my basement office will attest to that)
Don’t get me wrong – I’ve learned a lot on the job/on the fly. The first time I’d ever seen an iSCSI install was at a customer site in Texas. I guess I’ve always been good at figuring it out when presented with a peice of hardware and a decently written white-paper.
The truly good consultants aren’t the ones that follow procedures blindly, they are the ones who are willing and able to figure it out. I’ve always maintained that if you understand the underlying concepts, storage for instance, the rest of it universally makes sense, and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about SCSI, iSCSI, FC or whatever.
I guess the reason I felt the need for change is that I was beginning to get lumped in with the rest of the crowd and not being allowed to do what I do best.
April 3rd, 2008 on 7:55 am
The invisible line where the storage team claims responsibility versus the server team changes with every client. Heck, even the network team throws their hat in the ring when you start talking switches. Its a true jungle out there trying to get even a simple install/break&fix completed at most clients. I think SanGod, you are going to have an easier time in Commercial because it is smaller clients without the overhead of managers picking up their latest copy of CIO magazine and trying to implement the latest organizational structures.
As a consultant and sometimes client manager (lead of a team of consultants or resident liason), I see both sides. I have no problems with consultants learning new things on the job, but as long as it isn’t core responsibilites, like learning server hardware setup if they are a server admin. They better darn well know Active directory or user administration. Luckily, the client I am on, I told them I am not a Clariion guy but a Symm guy. They had no problem with that and I get a ton of OJT. But I know its a fine line and not many customers would allow that.
April 3rd, 2008 on 8:17 am
There is another difference. If you’re going to ask the “Hey can I watch you build this” you should add: “Let me stick around off-the-clock.”
If you’re going to admit to a customer that you want to learn something they are doing that’s fine, but don’t expect them to teach you on their nickel, in fact, make sure they know up front that you’re “punching out” so to speak.