Just Another Rant

[harishtk1]

When I started off in SAP projects as a functional SAP HR consultant, what seems like a long time ago, I normally used to be in a team of more than one person. There used to be at the very least, a Project manager, a Basis Consultant and an ABAP consultant. There always used to be consultants from other modules like FI, MM, PP etc and even HR only projects used to have more than one HR consultant. In my foirst project, I myself was in a position of never having done anything before, Whenever I used to get stuck, I used to dig nice and deep, and if all else failed used to pester the ABAP guy to sit with me and debug the whole thing. I even used to check with the other module consultants, even if they din't know how HR works they could still point me to Su53, Sm35 and various other tricks to go a bit nearer to to the solution. The basis guy was good for a variety of stuff like learning how to transport, identifying missing transport, how to raise OSS message, even authorizations.

Suddenly it seems we are in a world in which companies send out exactly one person to a project and he will be a person who has not done a single day's work in his area prior to this project. All he has is an SAP system , access to internet and an sdn user name and password. The minute they hit a problem, they will post it into SDN and await the results.

<end of rant>

[ChrisPaine]

Came across one of these today - but I thought I'd be nice.

Little sod didn't award any pinots...

But the funny thing - click on the user id - guess which company he works for...

Thank goodness it's Friday!

[Former Member]

Could also be a cultural thing. Perhaps in China when you do a search for someone else and then post links as answers, they save face by saying thank you ( --> okay) but do not lean out the window by assigning the ping-pong-oinks?

This reminds me of a trilogy of Chinese curses with increasing severity, the most severe of which is: "May you find what you are looking for".

Rather go for: "Enjoy the weekend!"

Cheers,

Julius

[ChrisPaine]

Lol! (dear moderator please excuse me for using text speak)

@Julius - I challenge you to find those links by doing a search

If I was concerned about pinots I'd have long ago left to do more important things! (like the meeting I have scheduled at Young and Jacksons (a pub here in Melbourne) in half an hour...)

But it did make me chuckle that after the discussion here about employers dumping their employees without any guidance in front of SCN in order to deliver solution - that we find SAP is also guilty of this....

I will enjoy the weekend!

Thanks,

Chris

[Former Member]

You have it good! I only just put my socks on and am looking for my car keys.

> But it did make me chuckle that after the discussion here about employers dumping their employees without any guidance in front of SCN in order to deliver solution - that we find SAP is also guilty of this....

He is new, but hopefully won't make a habit of this. But he did say thank you, which to me means more than pinuts but less than a pint on a Friday afternoon

Enjoy!

Julius

[OttoGold]

But the funny thing - click on the user id - guess which company he works for... Derek Zhao

How comes I can see the flag in his profile but not next to his name in the forum?

Have a nice weekend, everybody!

regards Otto

[ChrisPaine]

I'm probably breaking far too many work life balance rules posting from the pub,

I wonder if the rant I had some months ago about the little SAP flag and should it inspire confidence has had any impact?

Beer is here must go

[ChrisPaine]

If a customer is stupid enough to employ a consultancy firm that uses this sort of tactic to provide staff, they deserve the result that they get.

That said, when I see these "this is my requirement, please give me detailed step on how to do it, with code examples" posts, I sometimes find it hard to justify the abuse button, unless it is very clear that searching has not occurred. It would be nice to have the forum rules updated to explicitly forbid this type of "I refuse to help myself" behaviour.

I feel sorry for these people dumped into roles that they cannot fulfil, but I'm not about to support them and further encourage this business behaviour.

In the end, the easiest response is just to ignore those questions.

My thoughts,

Chris

[stefan_grube]

As you have described, you can waste a lot of time on searching for issues when you have not the chance to ask in SDN forum. When your customer pays for the time that you waste, then this is good for you

[OttoGold]

I agree. But understand that many people around have started their "carrer" this way.

It doesn´t matter if you think they are all total freshers (don´t know a thing) or they don´t have any previous piece of experience with the team work outside the company (I got some training, but nobody prepared me for the cruel project reality:)).

Regards Otto

[ThomasZloch]

You name it, and they are hitting problems every minute.

Use the yellow abuse button on these threads, moderators take care of it (cannot speak for all forums though). My comments before locking such stuff in ABAP Development are e.g. "spec dumping, please do your own work", "please search for available information before asking", "these are not training forums, sorry", "please ask a functional consultant near you", etc. etc.

Thomas

[harishtk1]

I did use the abuse button fairly frequently at one time, but I have given it up now.

I am sure SAP has not helped by making documentation very hard to find these days. So many Media Library pages on the product pages of service.sap.com have outdated or no documentation. Hitting F1 on many of the fields in some of the new applications don't yield any information at all.

[harishtk1]

This is a case in point

The question posted is something that is very basic and should probably be known by the HCM ocnsultant before he starts his first project.

2 people have done the right thing and asked him to try and ifnd out on his own, The third has provided the asnwer and no doubt will get full points for his efforts.

[Former Member]

No he won't...

... but please use the Abuse Reports. That way mods who check it are faster!

[harishtk1]

Julius, Otto, Stefan, Thomas, Chris and many others too numerous to name individually here,

I cannot help being impressed by the immense amount of patience displayed by you in dealing with all sorts of queries here. I can also see that you start off with the belief that this whole community thing will work and on the whole is beneficial. Therefore you take lot of practical action instead of wasting time in rants. Some of it does rub off on me and I will try to be more positive in future.

Chris, Is the Young and Jackson the one opposite Flinders St Station then?

[OttoGold]

Julius, Otto, Stefan, Thomas, Chris and many others too numerous to name individually here,

not a order regarding the points, not alphabetical one... one way or the other, I am stepping back to follow the more experienced:))))

Chris, Is the Young and Jackson the one opposite Flinders St Station then?

Is this a beer offer? I wonder if you know my favorite places as well:)))))

Yes, we have kind of a passion for SAP and SCN, I believe. Thank you for the kind words:)) Cheers Otto

[ChrisPaine]

Harish,

yes that's the one

Friday evening is already far too long ago!

And yes - I do think that this whole community thing is worthwhile, I find it hard to articulate just how much I have learnt in the last few months, even though it may seem that all I'm doing is giving others advice - when I see a question I don't know the answer to I either wait for Thomas Jung to answer it (ABAP_Freak is a correct moniker) or I do a little research and try to find out myself, and by doing this/having the constant challenge - I learn.

To be in it purely for the points is losing sight of the true value. But you can certainly see that we're all fans of a good rant from time to time! (I'll stop there I could go on for far too long otherwise!)

Cheers,

Chris