The ongoing electricity crisis in Pakistan is hurting all kind of businesses; most of all, and quite understandably, the IT industry. Recent power blackouts coupled with periodic network failures that country has been experiencing over past few years have left IT workforce starving for projects. And now the issue is getting global with leading service providers like rent-a-coder.com raising voice, and rightly so, to let their clients know about the issues governing the unfortunate republic of Pakistan.

Critical situations development blog at rent-a-coder published a message saying:

Most parts of Pakistan are experiencing severe electricity rationing, and electricity is unavailable more often than not.

  • If you are a buyer working with a Pakistini, please contact them to initiate a dialog on whether and how the two of you wish to continue.
  • If you are a Pakistani coder
    • If you started your project before today (10/24/08 8:00:00 AM EST) and are forced to cancel your project, let Rent a Coder know.  Funds will be returned to the buyer and no poor rating will be placed on your record.
    • If you start it after today, make sure to let the buyer know about the electricity situation so that their expectations are in synch with yours.

Such a warning concerning a specific community was bound to raise biasness blames and so it did. Surprisingly though, majority of comments condemned the Rent-a-coder for publishing such news and insisted that the Pakistan community on rent-a-coder was hardworking enough to meet the deadlines. Come on guys! No-one is questioning your skills or efforts you put in. They’re just letting people know about a critical issue and are very right in doing so. You should raise the voice but not against the people indicating the problems, but against the problems. If you’re concerned enough, why don’t you raise your voice to stop electricity load-shedding and put an end to stone-age era in the country?

Before you condemn rent-a-coder, put yourself in their shoes and … think again!

Image Credits: treehugger.com