Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

> In its revised suit, Hertz states that Accenture represented that they had “the best talent in the world"

> Hertz claims that they were far from experts in these technologies and that Accenture was deceptive in their marketing claims.

Colour me surprised.

> Accenture also failed to test the software, Hertz claims, and when it did do tests "they were seriously inadequate, to the point of being misleading." It didn't do real-world testing, we're told, and it didn’t do error handling.

> Accenture’s developers also misrepresented the extent of their testing of the code by commenting out portions of the code, so the code appeared to be working.

> Despite having specifically requested that the consultants provide a style guide in an interactive and updateable format — rather than a PDF — Accenture kept providing the guide in PDF format only

So, like always, they sold a fantasy to a bunch of executives asleep at the wheel who lacked even the most basic technical skills needed to see that it was a fantasy, then farmed the work out to the cheapst developers possible and pocketed the difference.

The more stories I hear about this, the more I'm inclined to be an executive-asleep-at-the-wheel because apparently they get paid a lot, do a terrible job, and nothing happens to them.

> nothing happens to them.

Not true! They get multi-million dollar golden parachutes when they decide they're tired of playing business and would rather play golf.

It's nice if you only consider the end state. Since it's such a good deal, a lot of employees want it. The price execs paid to get there was to play corporate politics for 20 years.

I'll take an uncertain payoff as an entrepreneur or job as a developer over that - thanks for reminding me.

Exactly this. It requires a special kind of personality + special kind of liver and stamina. All the parties and events and "all nighters" to attend while juggling all the political stuff is no easy thing to do. All of this also requires a lot of sacrifices - forget family time, personal hobbies (nobody became C level executive while fishing alone on weekends) and etc.

At one point, I got sick of interviewing for tech jobs, so I searched "CEO" on job portals and found a surprising number of very well paid jobs I nearly qualified for (just need to learn to read financial statements better).

I ended up taking a tech job anyway but once I retire from this, I'll probably apply to an executive-asleep-at-the-wheel job.

> bunch of executives asleep at the wheel who lacked even the most basic technical skills needed to see that it was a fantasy...

At some point, someone with technical acumen took stock of the situation and said "this is garbage". Why does this step always come last?

WTF. "They said they were the best, but they lied!" I bet you as Hertz had some competent technical folks who could have vetted them. You either have them inhouse (but you've overlooked them for years) or you engage an inspector/reviewer to vet the claims or review previous work. I buy a car, I can get a private inspection done. I buy a house, I get a house inspector to verify the claims.

> I bet you as Hertz had some competent technical folks who could have vetted them

They very likely did (and negatively), but no excecutive ever wants to hear that, so they just barrel ahead anyway. Because what do those lowly peons know, right?

Then there’s always the risk that the internal Hertz guys are just terrible and just trying to keep the contractors out to make sure they aren’t exposed.

From the executive side it’s hard too.

> They very likely did (and negatively), but no excecutive ever wants to hear that, so they just barrel ahead anyway. Because what do those lowly peons know, right?

I was fired from a project because I told an executive the wrong thing about how shitty a product was that I was trying to save after a contractor fucked it up, thus revealing the ruse of my boss.

> Then there’s always the risk that the internal Hertz guys are just terrible and just trying to keep the contractors out to make sure they aren’t exposed.

This was why I was hired there in the first place, so basically I was hired as the fall guy and then my boss executed on that plan.

> From the executive side it’s hard too.

I'm sure it was stressful, lucky for my boss he was able to successfully pass the buck and still works there to this day. I've also heard from customers of my current company that the company that "recylced" me is not doing well in my former bosses department, so perhaps he will not survive forever?

Either way: fuck useless execs.

> Why does this step always come last?

Sometimes comes first but the outcome is the same regardless.

I was once brought in to sit on early discussions with a consulting group. I pointed out very real problems with their ideas about how to solve our problem. That was on the morning of day 1. I was explicitly uninvited before day 2 for "not being a team player."

3 years later we were in court suing this consulting group for millions.

If it doesn't come last, you don't hear about it because it doesn't make the news

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