A business case riff on ducks and technical support

Do you know anyone who understands duck?

yes, as in Mallard.

I have a friend who works at this company who recently outsourced their support department to India. Even as that project took flight some senior executives evidently thought even Indian support workers were too expensive and cried fowl, so that's what the company gave them instead. The shareholders were elated because they worked for breadcrumbs and management liked the low overhead since their cubicles fit 8 high in a standard 9-foot ceiling. The whole department fit in one cubicle with room to spare.

Still, all I hear a bunch of quacks, and I don't mean the ducks. They're as genuine as ever. Just ducky. A tad bit of a challenge since the dialect has a twinge of Swedish mixed in -- that's right, these are the Mallards from Ballard. They went local to mitigate fears of offshoring well defined skilled technical jobs.

While working on a project with my friend I had a problem while onsite and went down to present it. They chewed on it for a little while and they seemed quite content to keep chewing on it indefinitely. I can't say the problem has gotten any better but they've certainly made their mark and it'll never be the same. Despite their lackluster technical prowess I can't walk away completely disgruntled. They recognized their efforts came up short and didn't bill me, though that might also have something to do with me being faster on two legs than they are.

I roasted one for incompetence in front of his manager and he frankly agreed with me. He said turnover was high and he really had to keep the heat on. The extra costs involved for training and salad weren't budgeted for, but it was always a treat to meat them. The cost and size of theirbreadcrumbs in light of the scope creep associated with hiring ducks for technical support was rising exponentially. My friend asked if I would pass the ketchup.

"when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." In this case, life gave my friend's company ducks. They're looking for a good chef. Do you know one that understands duck?