The man who outsourced himself

[snopes]

Comment: Is there any truth to the story about a guy who outsourced
himself? He found overseas developers to do his work, paid them from his
salary, and turned in their work as his own. Supposedly his employer was
unaware of this (though the story was supposedly published in 'APC
Magazine' January 2005) and moreover he apparently needed to find more
work to do since his workload was under an hour of supervision.

Here's something to make you smile. There is an article in the latest copy of APC magazine (Jan 05) where this guy was paid $57,000 to do his job. He's outsourced himself to someone in India and paid him $13,000. He says he gets code back fom the Indian everyday, and just spends 90 minutes supervising the code.

His employer doesn't know any better; he thinks he's telecommuting. So he's happy, the employer's happy, the Indian's happy.

$44,000 for 7.5 hours/week! He says all he needs to do is find himself a second job and do this all over again!

[Embra]

One one level, this is just subcontracting.

The only problem this guy is going to have is if his contract with the "employer" depends on his doing the work himself, in which case he's in breach of contract by farming it out and substituting another worker.

[Troberg]

The only problem this guy is going to have is if his contract with the "employer" depends on his doing the work himself, in which case he's in breach of contract by farming it out and substituting another worker.

Or if the guy in India contacts the employer and offers to do the job directly for them, at twice what he is getting from the outsourcer, but still less than half what they pay now.

[kanazawa]

Originally Posted by Embra

One one level, this is just subcontracting.

The only problem this guy is going to have is if his contract with the "employer" depends on his doing the work himself, in which case he's in breach of contract by farming it out and substituting another worker.

If he's an employee of a company, could be a problem. If he is an independent contractor (basically paid to produce a specific deliverable or service), then it's probably OK.

From the IRS:

The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if you, the person for whom the services are performed, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.