Infinite Exposure (7 page)

A temporary high-bandwidth connection had been created so there could be one last data migration during the evening of the
cut over. A handful of staff from the bank's data center had been given operations accounts on the new system in case there
were any problems. A few consultants had been contracted by Big Four Consulting to actually partition the machines allowing
only enough of the machine to be visible to this client as they would need. They also created the accounts for the bank's
employees restricting their access. The meeting in the afternoon was to try and find out if there had been any problems in
getting the software loaded to both data centers.

It was odd to have time to kill before lunch. Kathryn had always been in the mode of flashing her body and smiling to clients
over lunch trying to find one dumb enough to actually use this firm. Today she had no lunch plans. Kent was out-of-town for
weeks and Margret didn't appear to stare at her legs or look down her top, besides Margret couldn't sign any contracts or
take them to the board. Kathryn had always been in the mode of working three to five clients at a time trying to close a deal.
All of that changed when she landed this contract.

Getting the data centers operational was considered vital to the cash flow of the company. Every moose with ears was buying,
partnering, or otherwise whoring out Indian programmers to U.S. and foreign clients. Only about one in a hundred brought into
their off-shore business was actually worth hiring, the rest were help desk script reading people passing themselves off as
programmers. Margins were so low that nobody was making squat off the commission from getting that type of work. The only
way you could boost the rates was if you already owned the client lock-stock-and-two-smoking-barrels. The only way to ensure
you owned a client that completely was to get them into your data centers.

Margins were very high for this contract. The data center in India was roughly a football field in size and cost less than
the cramped little data center First Global Bank had on a quarter floor of a high rise near where the Twin Towers had been.
Running numbers for the board had been easy. Padding the hell out of them had been even easier. Because this contract was
going to bring in so much money over the next five years, Margret was removed from all other accounts. She didn't mind the
reduction in work, but had gotten very used to expensing her lunch in posh restaurants.

Today she was eating half a sandwich and some soup from the cafeteria downstairs and checking email over lunch. There were
the usual pleas for help from the younger and newer account managers who inherited her other projects. She sent off a few
sympathetic messages and informed them they already had all of her documentation for those accounts. Had any of them thought
to buy her lunch today she would have given them her insights on the fetishes and weaknesses of each person in charge at their
client site so they could close the deals. No lunch equals no unwritten information. You could never write information like
that down, not even in your PDA. It could turn up during an investigation.

Finally she got to the message Kent had copied her on. At first she wondered what she had done to piss Kent off. He knew damned
good and well that Margret didn't like Big Four Consulting. After his previous email with respect to the follow on project
she thought they had a good rapport. True, she hadn't been there much the past couple of weeks. Communication was mostly via
email and phone calls, but she did leave a bunch of young skirts and heels around to keep his libido going, apparently they
weren't flashing enough. It was back to slit skirts and see through blouses once Kent returned.

Maybe things wouldn't be quite as bad as they seemed. She could bring some young hunky guys over to meet with Margret and
offer to leave them there for additional information. Perhaps she could even take everyone to a late lunch tomorrow and pump
a few glasses of wine into the girl to loosen her up.
Only one way to find out,
she thought as she picked up the phone.

“Hello Margret, this is Kathryn. I just got done reading Kent's email and it sounds like we are going to be working together.”

“It would appear so.”

“I have some assistants working with me on this to help coordinate all of the details. Perhaps we should all get together
for lunch and make certain everyone knows what everyone else is doing?”

“A restaurant is probably not the best place for such a meeting,” responded Margret.

“I was thinking you could come over to our offices and I would have lunch catered. There is a great little Italian place which
delivers here and we will probably need access to overhead projectors, white boards, etc.” responded Kathryn. “How does tomorrow
at 11:30 sound? If we allow for two hours that should be more than enough time to cover everything.”

Two hours to tell me what your subcontract
or is doing? You really do know how to work it!
thought Margret. She looked at her calendar and it was open, so she agreed.
If nothing else, at least I'll get a lunch.
Kent had been bellying up to the free lunch trough since he got here. The only free lunches Margret got were catered in conference
rooms during working meetings. Kent usually stopped by long enough to get some food. God forbid he actually participate in
the details of his project. Margret pondered if she was going to be shown the same tits and legs Kent had been drooling over,
or if there was going to be something provided for the straight side of her life.

Kathryn finished out her day meeting the team that had gone to Bangalore. They were all positive about the experience, mainly
because they had stayed on the campus and few had ventured out into the squalor of the surrounding streets. They did report
some of the contractors treated them like idiots and beverage fetchers while they were working, but that everything had been
installed and reports from the U.S. systems managers made it look like everything was a go. They had even tested both a full
month-end and quarter-end job cycle, so all jobs would run. The remote printers and email had been blocked to capture the
output and avoid a nasty media story.

Judging from the sheepish grins she saw and some of the meeting comments, at least a few of the guys had ventured over to
the Red Light District. Kathryn made a mental note to get them terminated before they got diagnosed with full-blown AIDS or
passed it on to some of their female coworkers here. Nothing would kill the “sex for sale” marketing tactic like an outbreak
of AIDS at the firm. She had seen the reports about how over 80% of the brothel girls had full-blown AIDS and were still working.
Anyone who did the math could see that shipping IT jobs over to India would effectively halve the population inside of a decade.

IT workers were paid more in a day than other workers made in a week. The culture there was such that you didn't need a big
house or any car to have prestige, so the male workers spent much of their money in the Red Light District. This was the main
reason they had partnered rather than buying outright. Inside of seven years the bulk of the IT workforce would begin dying
off from AIDS. Already there had been some quickly hushed reports from companies that had been there the longest. Few still
had any senior people. Everybody blamed it on talent poaching to hide the truth. The talent poaching scam worked pretty well
given the 200+% turnover rate most companies had. Still, it was only a matter of time before the truth started coming out.

One day ended and another began. Kathryn had a morning meeting with some of the upper management types at her firm and actually
had the gumption to mention that they should begin partnering with an off-shore firm or two in South Korea and in Russia.
China was already being priced out of the market with Wal-Mart and other companies setting up factory towns. The influx of
cash had Chinese companies and the various Chinese mobs snatching up IT workers as fast as they could be found. There were
still places in Russia and Poland where college education was almost as high as the poverty and land was cheap.

The first reaction from some of the management had been they didn't have the Indian operation turning a profit yet. Other
companies had tried going the Russian route and failed. Kathryn responded that off-shoring wasn't being marketed then, so
it was unfair to judge by that history. Then you had a major uphill battle to sell off-shoring. Now all you had to do was
be cheap.

Perhaps it was the fact she had overslept. Perhaps it was the fact she was now going to be making more money than some in
this room. Maybe it was simply because she had to deal with the coffee from the cafeteria this morning instead of her usual
$9 quart of heaven, due to oversleeping. Kathryn pulled out the documentation showing the epidemic rate of AIDS at the brothels.
Then she went into the story that most of the single male IT workers spent their extra cash in the Red Light District. Finally,
she dropped the bomb that she suspected several of the male 20-somethings they had sent over to India had visited the brothels
near their campus.

People were getting irate with her while she went into her oratory. The men assumed this was a severe case of PMS and began
doodling on their legal pads, trying to make it look like they were taking notes. You could have heard a pin drop after she
dropped the last bomb though. Every man in there knew those horny jocks they had hired were swimming in whatever pool they
could find. They all knew that the “sex for sale” marketing tactic would be decimated if it ever got out that one or more
of their barely old enough to shave crowd went public with AIDS, not to mention the cost of their insurance plan.

Kathryn sat there drinking her nasty coffee from downstairs and let that bomb burn its way through their brains. Finally one
of the married guys with absolutely no skills piped up that this was an event horizon they had to consider. Another volunteered
that he had two clients with locations already in Russia, so could probably pump them for some information about IT skills
in the area near them. One more said they had a manufacturing client in South Korea already and he would make some inquiries
there as well. Finally it was determined that they would quietly investigate building operations in all three of the countries
Kathryn had mentioned. Even if they didn't lose their entire IT staff every few years in India, the resulting talent drain
would push salaries up to the point it was cheaper to do the work in the U.S.

The morning meeting ran long, but ended in time for her to check email and round up the troops for their lunch presentation.
She wasn't sure why, but she decided to use the guys who had been to India in this meeting. It made sense given that they
had just gotten back from there, but she doubted Margret was dumb enough to get turned on once she found out that horny bunch
had been to a country with legal brothels and little in the way of health care or prevention.

Margret arrived right on time. Lunch was just being set out in the conference room and they all stuffed themselves while chit-chatting
about quasi-work-related things. The guys had strategically placed themselves around Margret as they had been trained to do
and the girls fawned over getting lunch allowing glimpses and brushes. Kathryn still wasn't sure which way Margret's door
swung, or if she even had a door. It was difficult to tell.

One thing which she made mental note of was Margret's prodding to find out who had ventured outside of the campus in Bangalore.
Those who admitted to having gone out at all she suddenly had little interest in.
The woman wasn't stupid,
thought Kathryn. Lunch allowed for the team to provide glowing reports about how the backups had been installed and how well
Margret's people worked with them during the process. No real details, but few were needed. Margret had already talked with
the systems managers who had done the testing. This was just a little time for mutual appreciation and bonding.

With lunch over, the team began showing off the PowerPoint presentation they had put together with a timeline for the migration
of the first two data centers. It was going to happen on the following weekend. They kept pointing out the massive bandwidth
connection which was set up just to do the final data migration. Margret's own people had written the software that would
do the extract of final data changes, then copy it across the network and load it onto the new system. The same software could
be run in reverse if a back out was needed. All in the room assured her it would not be necessary, but that it didn't hurt
to have a Plan B.

It was obvious to Margret she was being coddled to keep this golden cow putting out golden milk. She was outright pissed that
the only guys provided her had been to an AIDS-infested area and she was certain none of them were smart enough to avoid catching
it. Her summation of the girls in the room told her three of the five were too stupid to care. In short, this team would soon
be moving on in one way or another.

Since Kathryn had chosen to treat her this way, like a napkin at McDonald's instead of the full-table setting at a nice place,
she decided to drop a bomb on them and ruin their week. “This migration to off-shore is all well and good, but you seem to
have overlooked a serious recovery issue,” she said. All of the younglings leapt to inform her that the data centers were
designed to split load and fail over just like the existing centers. They also professed to having witnessed the fail over
testing themselves.

Kathryn finally chimed in saying she assured her they had tried to think of everything, but wanted to hear her concern so
it could be addressed.

“Well,” started Margret, “Every night we do incremental backups and every morning, the prior night's backups are sent to Iron
Mountain for storage. The media return in such a manner that we have two full weeks of incremental backups. We also perform
weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual backups. Each of those backups goes off to Iron Mountain as soon as it is completed.
There is a set of rules in place so we have at least the last three sets of each off-site in secure storage. I don't see anywhere
in this plan where we have included the round trip shipping cost of backup media, nor the turn around time it would take to
have the media flown to India and do a full restoration in the event of a disaster.”