I used to work at Comcast as a programmer (consultant, never worked directly for them). The only surprising thing about your story is that you were eventually able to do what you were trying to do. Software and apps at Comcast are overseen by a constantly rotating cast of executives and managers, and are mostly written by a constantly rotating cast of contractors, most of whom are provided by InfoSys (who provide workers that can only stay in the country for six months at a time). A few people here and there are competent but it makes no difference as nobody is involved with any project for long and documentation is nearly nonexistent.
I was only there for a few years, but by the end I (a consultant grunt) was constantly having to explain to vice presidents why certain things were even being done in the first place. For example, I had been put to work ensuring that Comcast’s suite of apps passed accessibility testing (mainly seeing - pun intended - that their apps were usable by blind and low-vision people). I was on my third VP by the end of this process, and she asked why we cared whether or not blind people could use these apps. Um, possibly because we faced million-dollar-a-month fines from the FCC if our apps failed the accessibility tests?
Fun fact about all the InfoSys contractors: I was there before the second Comcast tower in Philadelphia was completed, working at the company’s HQ. There were enormous numbers of InfoSys employees working in the building. You would go to meet someone to talk about some issue, and there would be 7 or 8 people working in an office meant for one person. And this was on nearly every floor in the building. The scuttlebutt was that Comcast executives had gotten mightily sick of there being so many Indians in the building (even Indian executives said this was the case) and that they had commissioned the second tower (called the Comcast Technology Center) to get most of them out of their HQ.
I used to work at Comcast as a programmer (consultant, never worked directly for them). The only surprising thing about your story is that you were eventually able to do what you were trying to do. Software and apps at Comcast are overseen by a constantly rotating cast of executives and managers, and are mostly written by a constantly rotating cast of contractors, most of whom are provided by InfoSys (who provide workers that can only stay in the country for six months at a time). A few people here and there are competent but it makes no difference as nobody is involved with any project for long and documentation is nearly nonexistent.
I was only there for a few years, but by the end I (a consultant grunt) was constantly having to explain to vice presidents why certain things were even being done in the first place. For example, I had been put to work ensuring that Comcast’s suite of apps passed accessibility testing (mainly seeing - pun intended - that their apps were usable by blind and low-vision people). I was on my third VP by the end of this process, and she asked why we cared whether or not blind people could use these apps. Um, possibly because we faced million-dollar-a-month fines from the FCC if our apps failed the accessibility tests?
Fun fact about all the InfoSys contractors: I was there before the second Comcast tower in Philadelphia was completed, working at the company’s HQ. There were enormous numbers of InfoSys employees working in the building. You would go to meet someone to talk about some issue, and there would be 7 or 8 people working in an office meant for one person. And this was on nearly every floor in the building. The scuttlebutt was that Comcast executives had gotten mightily sick of there being so many Indians in the building (even Indian executives said this was the case) and that they had commissioned the second tower (called the Comcast Technology Center) to get most of them out of their HQ.
So, the cheap assholes who run Comcast are also racist. What a not surprise.