A news article by Charles Assisi on Times Of India makes me wonder seriously, has the ex-editor of CHIP-India gone senile early?? Did he really resign from his editor’s job at CHIP-India or was he kicked out because he’s lost his marbles??
As per him, there are about 100,000 freelance Indian programmers taking jobs from websites like Rentacoder.com where they are raking in thousands of dollars. As he put it
On the lower side, a small tweak here and a line of code there can fetch $45. Larger projects can rake in as much as $3000.
Really?? What the f**k?? Does he even know the dick he’s talking?? $45 for a small tweak & a line of code?? Hey Charles, do me a favour, send these jobs over to me, I’ll split the $$ with you on a 50:50 ratio & if you are able to send atleast 20-30 jobs/day regularly, I’d even quit my regular job & work on this only, it’ll pay me more than triple of what my current job pays!!! And if that doesn’t sound appealing to you, then why don’t you learn some programming yourself & get these jobs?? It’ll sure be way too much more than what your current job pays!!! And learning some programming won’t be tough for you as you are a tech-reporter, and getting clients won’t be tough for you especially as you know how to bitch quite well!!
He states out an example of someone called Vikas Sethi who’s apparently booked for projects till mid-2008 & he works on the rate of about $15-$45/hour, and works for about 17-18 hours a day.
Here’s how he reasoned the “billion-dollar economy” in the print edition of the newspaper:
Approx. number of Indian freelancers = 100000
Avg. amount charged by freelancers = $5/hour
Approx. daily income(working for 7 hours) = $35
Approx. yearly income(working for 300 days) = $10500
Approx. earning/year of 100000 Indian freelancers = $1.05 billion
That’s simply outrageous!! Has that idiot ever visited Rentacoder.com??? Does he know that even freelancers in the US don’t get $3000 projects regularly, rarely should I say, considering the avg. common freelancers!! $3000 projects on Rentacoder snapped up by Indian freelancers, sure, its an oil field & we are all richer than Bill Gates!!! 🙄
Those amounts are outrageous. Why would somebody like him say that ? I can’t guess !!!
well, I can do better than guess & I know why he writes that kinda stuff(its not the first time). He simply doesn’t have anything else to write except showing his idiocy & ignorance in such a grand way!! I think that he might be pleased with his TOI job as he gets a wider(& more stupid) audience than what CHIP offered!!
He wrote some idiotic comments about Microsoft & its business practices in his editorial last year in June or July CHIP & I wrote a lengthy email to him. Apparently he confessed in the reply that he targetted Microsoft only because its the bigger fish in the pond, there are also others with those business practices that he didn’t mention!! 🙄 And my email was published ofcourse in the next issue, in a summarised form!!
Hahahha .. Oh Heck .. Amit .. When you get those project hire me for the documentation and testing .. I’d be happy with 25% .. 😀
Yeah sure, no problem!!! 😉
Hey Amit, so much malice in your words make me wonder. The rentacoder story — truth, half-truth, or imagination does not take away Charles’ abilities as an editor for IC CHIP or otherwise. The tech magazine has lost a good talent — the magazine is a pale shadow of what it used to be.
I’m not questioning Charles’ ability as an Editor, but as a reporter as to what he writes!! He might’ve been good at managing the magazine or editing, but surely he isn’t good at writing stuff, that I’ve come to conclude.
When you’re a part of the press & you write something that’s read by hundreds of thousands, you don’t write mindlessly without doing your homework!! There’s a responsibility on you towards your readers which should make you write truth, not mindless rants just to create a sensation. That’s expected from those third class Page-3 reporters, not from someone like Charles.
Given the content & the impact of the article, I think that the words I used are justified, they reflect what I felt after reading that article!!