A whole country with a work ethic below mine
 

which is hard to accomplish. i hired a Filipino 3 weeks or so ago off oDesk, he begged to do my project, so I gave it to him. i paid oDesk half up front, 275 dollars, they in turn pay the Filipino. a few days later he's worked up because 'where's the money? i need money very badly lights going to be turned off in the studio', i told him how oDesk works, he's begging 'you can pay Western Union now please?' and i tell him i already paid him, whatever has gone wrong is between him and oDesk, he goes off and does some back and forth with oDesk and he still seems confused and wants me to help as if I have some power with oDesk, so I contact oDesk and they tell me his payment went out not long after I paid oDesk. It turns out the bank account number he gave oDesk doesn't exist. I tell him to get to work on my project as it's already 2 weeks and I've seen very little progress, I'm concerned he's not doing shit until money hits his bank account. He promises 'every day I am working on the project!'. So I left him alone for the past week and this morning messaged him to ask for an update, see how far he's progressed.

his response:

"its holiday here and its christmas time with my family!..no worries!animation is in progress!!!merry christmast and advance happy new year to you!"

my response:

"um ....... it's Christmas NEXT week. are you also celebrating it this week and through New Years? Enjoy your holidays and please keep me up to date on your progress on my project."

his response:

"yes, even christmas working on it! but you know here in the philippines our culture is kinda diffrent and dec is super close to family and its celebrating early to wait for christmas!!!"

translated; "I have your money now fuck off rich american capitalist pig"

Sounds familiar, but some guy will reply here and telling you outsourcing is the way to go.

Sounds like every freelancer i have hired

Dont you guys read the reviews? Only 1 of 10 have been really bad for me. :upsidedow

I'm a freelancer :)

Mutt, he sounds like trouble. Can't you get the money back through oDesk?

Don't deal with Filipinos unless you or another westerner is managing them personally. I'm Canadian and lived in the PH for a year managing 10 Filipinos, my friend managing around 30 in the same building.

You always have to keep your foot on their neck to make them work. They like money & despise work,(the most retarded calling in sick excuse i got was "it was my first time drinking powerade last night and it made me sick") you're 100% right when you say "an entire country with a work ethic below mine".

In terms of holidays, they have one every 5 minutes, it got so ridiculous when I was there that I had to go by American holidays only. I hope you didn't pay him much, your best bet would be to cut your losses and fire him right away (his excuses are most likely the beginning of a never ending string).

If you're interested in cheap and managed Filipino labor hit me up and I will see if my buddy can sort something out.

Didn't you already tell this story from your Johnnyclips user name?

you think Christmas is bad, they take practically all of October off for Haloween.

Kurtov is right, you can get a lot of stuff done there, but you have to find that 1 guy who is willing to work, then he has to manage an office of these guys, otherwise you will get nothing but invoices.

if you can find 1 solid worker over there, you can open and furnish a small office space for a few of them to work in for practically nothing.

You know i did not mean you, you are one of the few that work flawless on time and do amazing work :thumbsup
i should have put the people ive had off freelancer.com and gumtree
The writers/designers/coders ive hired on here have been good

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Hire from India or Pakistan, they don't celebrate Christmas :1orglaugh

if possible never hire asian (indian, paki, filipino whatever) as outsourced proggrammer or similar. Most of them will be disappointment. Thats proven truth. Its like every one that knows "some" code is a programmer there and a "good" one.
While if you hire eastern europen if he is on any of those sites chances are he is way better programmer than average asian. Plus work ethic is way better on average.

So try to avoid asians on freelancer sites. Its hit and miss, for 1 good asian you get 9 bad ones (either in quality or in work ethic)

those reviews does not mean a lot, most of the time you go wondering "how did this guy manage to get good reviews". Probably they begged for them "please do not write me bad review"

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:1orglaugh

How does Filipino work ethic differ from Japanese?
http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question...3022843AAjFDrJ

"Japanese people don't spread gossip in their working places but Filipinos do it.
Japanese helps one another, Filipinos would kick you to the side if you don't serve any purpose for them.
Japanese patronizes their own products which gives their products a well-resounding name to it which shows on the cars they built.
Filipinos work if someone watches them, if not they will lax all day long."

Ones I had a guy whose mother died 3 times in a year. On this moment I like Pakistani, very good results with them.

A friend sent me this when i first started managing Filipinos, the shit on this list is mostly un-exaggerated, true and quite fun to read through, enjoy.

So You Want To Manage / Own A Business Huh?

Jobs here are done ever so slowly, as the thinking of the workmen is, if we finish the job, there will be no more work to do. In any other country, of course they know if they fiinsh quickly, they can move onto the next job and their reputation for doing the work fast will help get them more work. Let’s examine this further:
On a daily basis, many comments are uttered, sometimes in a constructive manner, sometimes just as a complaint or expression of frustration directed at foreign business owners and managers, as to job performance or customer service. I wanted to shed some light on the “WHY” of “why can’t this place be run professionally”.
You may come to the Philippines from ANY backround in ANY business, military, entertainment, human resources, whatever. You have NEVER run into what you will experience here.
Believe me or don’t, as a business owner or manager you are dealing with a whole new dynamic, and whole new set of rules in dealing with people, that you cannot fathom. At first you go into denial, then shock, and usually fall into apathy when trying to accomplish the simplest compliance to RULES and REGULATIONS with Filipinos.
I’m generalizing here and there are exceptions to this. And I generally LIKE Filipinos and hold no ill will against them.
You, coming from any western society, have some basic tenants. After getting the job, you show up on time. You work while you’re on the job. You learn as much as you can about every aspect of the job so that you can handle anything that comes up. You make suggestions to make the workplace, product, delivery, and customer service aspects BETTER, etc, etc…You strive to make your customers happy so that they wil return again and again, and you do all of the above in an honest and pleasant manner, and take pride in doing so…
Ok, now THROW ALL OF THAT OUT THE WINDOW.
Imagine living and working in a society where they have not learned these things, and do not necessarily agree with them, or even understand why you would want to act in that way, and in fact, it’s DISCOURAGED!!!!!! You know that little talk your parents gave you when you were about 9 years old, about growning up and acting like an adult? THAT NEVER HAPPENS HERE.
The Filipino work dynamic goes more like this:
1. Having a job is the goal….not actually performing any tasks.
2. ANYTIME, is PLAYTIME.
3. It is perfectly acceptable to lie, cheat, steal, bare false witness, even sabotage the workers, and the workplace if you feel in ANY WAY, you have been insulted or asked to DO SOMETHING beyond or different then what you (or others before you) have been told in the past, or if being told makes you lose face, in the slightest way.
4. If you DO a good job, you will be told you are boastful, or a showoff, and you will be alienated from the rest of the employees, and attempts will be made to get rid of you.
5. ANY CHANGE is immediately rejected and complained about.
6. Getting the salary is the MOST important aspect of having a job, with no thought to earning it, or deserving it.
7. Show up late, if at all, then take a meal, take as many breaks as you can get away with, and sit on your ass as often as you are not being directly supervised, then leave work early.
8. Do not find out about, or learn anything else about your environment, so you will have fewer responsibilities.
9. When asked ANYTHING, say YES, or OK so you will stop being asked, with zero intention of carrying out the thing asked of you, or knowledge of what was being asked.
10. There are no consequences for doing things that would normally get you fired in western society, so do whatever you want to.
11. The BIGGEST CRIME you can commit as an employee is RAT OUT ANOTHER FILIPINO for doing something wrong.
12. Yelling ANYTHING across a room is the norm.
13. Interrupting is normal and the next person to say ANYTHING misdirects the conversation or task. If called to task for interrupting, saying “excuse me” FOR THE PURPOSE OF INTERRUPTING will now be standard.
14. At any point from A to B during a task, the task may be interruped or even forgotten about if ANYTHING occurs in the environment, such as, a friend talking, a loud noise, a sudden movement, or anything else deemed more FUN occurs etc…
15. Tagalog ALWAYS takes presidence over ANY other language especially if there is an ongoing conversation.
16. Cutting in line, or bumping others to get to where you are going is normal.
17. The foreigner owner or manager is “RICH” so this justifies any theft or income related problems.
18. It’s all up to “GOD’S PLAN” anyway, so there is nothing one can do to change anything and ZERO precautions should be taken
19. If it rains on Monday, Tuesday many persons will be absent because of the changing weather.
20. Reasons to be late or absent for work: too much traffic, rain or puddles of water, washing clothes, it was dark, no transportaion available, no electricity, no money, dead, sick or hungry baby or relative or next door neighbor or the slightest fever, headache, runny nose, or bad mood, had to travel somewhere to give money to family, or friend.
21. Superstitions are TRUE and the REAL reason for bad performance or low income is due to whatever superstition was not observed.
22. The environment MUST be noisy.
23. If told to do the duties of the job too many times, a mutiny, coup, or strike is necessary.
24. If Friday is a Holiday, then expect things to start falling apart on Wednesday, as workers get ready for the Holiday. BTW, they won’t ALL return to work until sometime around Tuesday.
25. If your business closes at 9pm, then wrapping up work and getting ready to go home begins at 8pm-8:30pm. This includes putting the cash in the safe, so no change is available, all the way to locking the doors, or pulling down the security shutters. AT 9pm the building will be absent of employees
26. If you try to fire someone from their job, they must be given verbal warnings, written warnings, and suspensions, and all have a certain number of issuances that comply with the Dept Of Labor, or the person can sue for damages.
27. Staff is to work no longer than 90 days or 6 months on the job (depending on the job) so that they are not eligible for benefits. This explains why it’s no one knows what they are doing, since they are new.
28. Anything considered childish in Western society, is cute and fun and desired in local society.
29. Anything not chained down or padlocked is free for the taking.
30. Any new manager or owner that asks anything of any employee is now the target of gossip and rumor. Usually along the lines of, the new manager/owner is not nice, and I wish the old one would come back.
31. If employees are EVER rewarded by management, it will now be EXPECTED and comments will fly about as to management being cheap if the same reward is not repeated. No thanks will be given for the reward.
32. If something gets broken or is stolen, there will be NO witnesses. If broken in the vicinity of a customer, the FIRST thing that happens, is a long pause in activity to determine who is NOT at fault so as to avoid blame and re-payment.
33. If a regular customer orders the same item/drink/food, time after time, no matter what he orders on his next visit, he will get what he ordered last time.
34. When spoken to by management, staff really hear something similar to the Peanuts TV series when adults are talking. Imagine a muted trumpet/trombone wa-wa sound….”Ok, here is what I want you to do. Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa. Ok?” “Yes sir.”
35. Every comment/request to get compliance will be answered with a justification or excuse.
36. An argument with staff, will escalate to “Go Back To Your Country”, or “I will report you to Immigration/NBI/Police” within seconds to get you to back off.
37. If items A/B/C are sold in the store. And those items are the main thrust of the business’ sales, unless acted upon by a manager or owner, those items will not be re-ordered, or “in-stock” and no one will notice or comment on the fact that there is an upcoming shortage of those items.
Hope I haven’t left anything out, and the longer you live/work/shop here, the longer your list…
Note: To retain one’s sanity, you are only allowed to ask ONE “why” question per day…

In these countries they don't care much about the work and celebrate every holiday or every religion possible.

There you can be poor and nothing wrong with that - it's always warm, fish from the ocean, fruits from the trees...

I switched all my staff from filipinos to serbians

My serb staff is hard working, on time and very talented. I have 0 issues in serbia like i did in PH

Mutt if its animation you need hit me up i have a few good animators in Serbia

most of what you described isn't unique to Philippines, it takes place in western countries too, especially in low end jobs... it's probably not as bad as Philippines, but getting there...

I always remember the filipino chatters from back in the day. Scamming mofos lol.

Thanks for posting that kurtov, nice read :thumbsup

Thats what me and others are advocating :thumbsup If possible never go asian route.

Never ever pay these people upfront.
And you can see their work as they need to log on every minute they do their job.

miss them :(

i took a risk on him, his portfolio was much better than anybody else's who bid on the project. Filipinos are good at animation, a lot of big animation studios outsource to the Phillipines.

oDesk is not an easy site to figure out - when I agreed to pay half upfront i thought i was paying it to oDesk and they would hold it in escrow until the project was done, then release it and the balance payment at the end. that's how it should work but it doesn't.

Yes it does.

I can think of many GFY developers who fit this story above, & many are NOT from 3rd world countries.

:disgust

that's funny i have the same problem hiring people to get work done on my property in Thailand. i pay 2-3x the rate for any work - construction, landscaping, cleaning - but i can't get people to show up.

there's a 20-yo unemployed kid who lives in the village with his family. the dad is the only one with a job. household income is under $200 a month. i offered the kid $100 a month to be my fulltime gardener. easy 6-hour days trimming bushes, cutting grass, watering plants. he worked 3 days and didn't come back. i drive by his little hovel sometimes and i just see him sitting out front staring at a tree or sleeping. most younger Asians are pretty lazy.
#

Exactly... And most have the same excuses. I have been trying to get a side project going since May. I've hired 4 persons to do it. Two from GFY, one from oDesk and one from the old Scriptlance site.

Each had a decent reputation.

Each was given a 50% deposit.

Each started off good.

Each had a "hard drive failure". Then weeks went by without contact.

Each time that was followed by either their own medical problem or a person in the family having a medical emergency.

Each time when I tried to cancel and get deposit refund they stopped answering emails.

Its like the assholes have a sheet of bullshit excuses they read from. I wonder if its in some PHP classes or manuals to use that sheet?

What I now know is that PHP programming must be really tough on hard drives, that PHP programmers never back up their drives, and they takes at least two weeks to replace broken drives, and replacing those drives must be very stressful because they, or family members, always end up in the emergency room as soon as the replacement is installed, and that after the replacement is installed it must not work because they can no longer reply to email.

They can post on GFY looking for more work...

But, they can't finish what was ordered.

if you went through 4 programmers for the same project and didn't get anything delivered, i would take a second look at your project write-up and expectations. maybe its impossible to build based on your description. i know it always takes me a lot longer to build a project if the specs are vague or keep changing. every click and page should be illustrated in detail before work begins - and not change until delivery. i dont even accept changes until the original specs are signed off and paid for.

in general, you are almost always better off finding software that is similar to your project and hiring the software developer or someone they recommend to customize it. if the programmer fails, at least you have a known platform you can pass to the next guy.
#

What would the project specs have to do with hard drives crashing or personal health issues?

I'm confused... Are you trying to blame the victim? The guys should be able to (1) keep deposits and (2) lie about why they are doing so if they simply can't complete the project?

As you suggest - it was a project based on a pre-built script. The very first emails between them and I included all the details, access to server / script and all they needed to see if they could do it, and make a bid.

The exact same thing is going on right now with a design project:

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1081453

Guy was paid, started off good, sent a decent draft, got broken hard drive, had "health issues", refund requested, stops answering email.

Its the nature of the beast these days - very hard to hire good people, here in the USA or outside.

i dont care about the "victim" or the "perp", i am just explaining a likely reason your project didn't get done and how to actually get it done. if you had that same angry, aggro attitude with your programmers, i can see how they stopped responding to you. take offense at my advice if you want, or take the advice and get your project done. up to you. my projects get done, so i could care less...
#

Who were the GFY guys?

Back to the subject at hand...

Its hard to hire good people.

I can't get some simple projects done and you can't get your yard work done...

Overall, in the same boat - way hard to hire reliable and steady people worldwide these days. The economic situation worldwide would be better if people would work.

It seems that you and I both have money to spend on hiring people (no matter if its simple design or PHP work, or picking up dog shit in the grass)... but we can't get the people to do it in a steady, realiable, consistent manner.

Got a buddy 2 blocks away that has a small pizza place, beer, live music on weekends, etc. Years he was hoping to expand and praying the place next door would move so he could take it over and double his size.

Last 18 months he can barely keep the current version running smooth as both cooks and wait staff are unreliable and often just plain fail to show up. November 1st the space next door opens up, but now he is afraid to invest and expand because he fears he wouldn't have staff to handle the extra tables / customers.

Right in my office I have a 24 year old guy. He is an ace at tracking down copyright violators. Does DMCA work, has fake profiles on tons of forums and talks like a trader until we figure out true identities, etc. Kid is great at it... like a damn private eye.

But, refuses to work more than 24 hours a week. Turns 25 next month, still lives (and always has) with his mommy, and will not work if he needs to be in office before 11am or stay past 5pm, more than 4 days a week. Just has no ambition to grow out of mommy's house, her food, her doing the laundry.

Back to Mutt's main topic - Work Ethics. My experience, like his and your's (yard boy) is that people do not want to work these days. Ambition levels are low.

I don't start public drama, name names and that stuff because I always hope to work it out and get the dollars back or project finished. I did post in one thread where another GFYer was having same troubles.

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=953032

man I hate dealing with filipinos and inidan guys just about anything...
they lie, cheat and steal without ANY problems...
and they will always ask/beg for more money...

yea i went through about a dozen freelance marketers in the last few years for our marketing biz - www.marketmofo.com - all with the same problems. claim they can do it, accept the project, then keep giving me excuses until i do the job myself or reassign it. a majority of our problem was that most of the guys didn't want to do repetitive work, even though they accepted the work. the other problem was someone accepting the work when they didn't know exactly how to get it done.

the way i solve that problem is now i hire people that have already been doing the work for little or no money. for instance, when i needed a new tgp guy, i trolled gfy to find an affiliate that wanted to make more money for the work he was already doing. when i needed a Facebook guy, i found a popular page and sent a message to the page admin. same on Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, etc.

back to the subject (again), there is a general laziness in the world today. not sure if it is a result of the recession, or the recession is a result of the laziness. all i know is i make a lot more money by being the guy who ISN'T a lazy fuck lol

:1orglaugh Yea, construction here can be a real nightmare. They are farmers with hammers. You literally have to be with them every minute or they will take a short cut or mess something up. One project we were working on, I couldn't even go to 7-11 without these idiots going off the plan and messing something up in such a short amount of time. It was unreal. Had a polished concrete floor put in another place. It took 3 different contractors and a total of 8 times they had to break it all up and start again.

When the first crew broke all the tile out, three of them had to be rushed to the hospital for deep cuts on various parts of their body. All working in flip flips, no eye protection, breaking tiles that were flying all over the room and laying about like razors. Pure shit for brains.

If you want basic Thai style, they are decent at that. But western or modern style... sweet Jesus. You better bring a lot of Xanax.

Agreed.

We have a few huge ($XX,XXX) projects going on right now, and it's been a bear to find someone who is a professional.

By that I mean, once you have provided them the basics of the project... you have went through the back and forth Q&A to make sure they have a full understanding.... they then work up a formal contract/bid with payment milestones, projected date to completion, and all of that jazz. Assuming you get all of that handled, the next step is communication and updates along the way. Even if only 1-2 times a week to report progress. Followed by you delivering on time. If not, explaining why not and new projected ETA.

That above in very hard to find. Once you find those sort, hold on with two hands and pay them whatever they ask for. You want to keep them. Right now we have two who are kick ass, and we are keeping them busy. But over 2012, we've had literally 6 others who have failed to meet expectations, or been insanely difficult to work with. Blow their own projected deadlines by a mile, disappear for weeks on end, etc..

:disgust

lol yea when we built our house it was supposed to take 6 months. at 6 months there wasn't even a roof, so i moved into a hut on the property and managed it the rest of the way, with my wife translating via speaker phone from her job. they were pissed to have a farang micromanaging their work, but i could give a shit. the final product was pretty good altough i had to redo 70% of the plumbing myself, rehang all of the doors, and do quite a few other things. i don't mind tho, it gives me an excuse to buy more tools lol

who is that chick in your avatar? very nice :D
#

What is your contact?

what you paying them? how did you find them ?

White People Are Lazy, 9 outta 10 are pampered bed wetters, the east indians here in bc measure up to my expectations, atleast where I worked.

Sir, pinoys have more holidays than France and the US postal service five times over, sir.

I lived in another predominantly Catholic country, and those fuckers start celebrating and Christmas in early November and basically don't go to work at all in December.

50 lazy fucks

I think the problem is PH has been fished out.
Some of my best guys are from there but I hired them 8 years ago.

The ones now are the left overs who jump from gig to gig and also there is rampant fraud from the employer end to. So many people not paying them for work done


I would love to hear from people who have suggestion of other places to hire from. I need man power bad

Did you expect him to work in the dark? He's already telling you the lights are out. And what about buying booze to celebrate the holidays?
A bit shortsighted on your part isn't it?