The New Face of the Silicon Age

Wired Magazine ^ | February 2004 | Daniel H. Pink

[optik_b]

Meet the pissed-off programmer. If you've picked up a newspaper in the last six months, watched CNN, or even glanced at Slashdot, you've already heard his anguished cry.

From top: Aparna Jairam, project manager; Kavita Samudra, senior software engineer; Aditya Deshmukh, project manager; Srividya Kanan, technical architect; Lalit Suryawanshi, senior software engineer.

[optik_b]

Interesting piece from new issue of Wired on the massive outsourcing of tech jobs to India.

[sarcasm]

ping

[sourcery]

[Happy2BMe]

QUOTE:

Gottfredson's team paraded out a variety of charts and graphs that all boiled down two simple options: a) become competitive again by sending jobs someplace they could be done better and cheaper, or b) face a slow death. The CEO ordered a complete efficiency audit, at the end of which Gottfredson recommended outsourcing all call centers, manufacturing, HR, IT, and back-office operations.

Exasperated, the CEO relented and has since trimmed $130 million from his expenses. What's left of the company? Whatever it is, it's leaner and more competitive, and, most important, it's still alive. Gottfredson is utterly unapologetic. "The beauty of our system is that we've always had the ingenuity to come up with new things to do," he says. "This country has an endless supply of initiative and drive." Easy for him to say.

UNQUOTE

Hey guys - are you buying a Dell? Gonna shop for a new credit card? Looking for some "tech support" on that new PC you bought at Burp Buy?

.

Jessica Wynne
From top: Aparna Jairam, project manager; Kavita Samudra, senior software engineer; Aditya Deshmukh, project manager; Srividya Kanan, technical architect; Lalit Suryawanshi, senior software engineer.

[Elliott Jackalope]

Back in the 80's I was letting everyone around me know that the move to "offshore" our manufacturing industries was going to come back to bite us in the butt. However, I worked in hi-tech and no-one around me wanted to hear it. They said "they'll learn new skills", "you're a protectionist", "we're just shipping off jobs that nobody wants to do any more" and other homilies like that. I told them "what will you do when it's YOUR job that gets outsourced?" What did they say to that? "It won't happen".

Well, here we are, twenty years later, and it HAS happened. I saw the writing on the wall years ago, and so I'm in a much better position than the people I knew. Most of them are now losing their jobs, losing their houses, their marriages are falling apart, their kids are in trouble, some are turning into alcoholics, others are near suicide, some have probably already killed themselves. But they didn't want to hear about it when it was manufacturing jobs being lost. Now nobody else wants to hear about it now that hi-tech jobs are being lost.

Face it, America is a "Devil take the hindmost" society. And now the Devil really is taking the hindmost, along with everything else. And nobody cares. It's all about "I've got mine, Jack" and "To heck with you".

I'm really starting to feel like I'm on board an out-of-control train that is racing towards a washed out bridge over a thousand foot precipice, and everyone else on the train is drunk and partying and fat and happy. I guess the only thing to do is to go up to the club car, order a brandy and enjoy the pretty scenery whizzing by. Goodness knows that if you even THINK about reaching for the emergency brake cord the Pinkertons on board will beat you to death.

[B4Ranch]

""These cats will lie through their teeth," Emmons says, referring to incumbent members of Congress like the one he's trying to oust. "

Two years from now Freepers will be promoting the idea that we should re-elect those in office .........because there is too many unknowns with the unknown candidates. "At least we know who is working against us, so lets keep them" will be the cry. "We can always work to make them change how they vote." Yup, we sure can, folks. Just walk down the path to the unemployment office.

[Happy2BMe]

Here we are twenty years later. Wonder what it will be like in 2024? (BTW: This nightmare didn't start with George W. - but it sure hasn't ended with him either . .

"Back in the 80's I was letting everyone around me know that the move to "offshore" our manufacturing industries was going to come back to bite us in the butt. However, I worked in hi-tech and no-one around me wanted to hear it. They said "they'll learn new skills", "you're a protectionist", "we're just shipping off jobs that nobody wants to do any more" and other homilies like that. I told them "what will you do when it's YOUR job that gets outsourced?" What did they say to that? "It won't happen".

Jobs Americans Won't Do: Voodoo Economics from the White House.

Jobs Americans Won't Do: Voodoo Economics from the White House.

[optik_b]

That was a great post. I love the image of drinking brandy on the train heading off a cliff.

[Soren]

The invisible hand is giving him the finger.

LOL. Good line.

[Leisler]

Europe does a good job of fighting this stuff. That's why they have had zero job growth in a decade and economic growth is measured in tenths of a percent for a year. No children, old population, way way heavier debts. We should follow their model.

Logotec makes all its mice in China. Most of the product value comes from American made chips, optics. Almost all flat screens made, of any size, use Corning Made in USA product. We should stop this. We should follow the Cuban, North Korean model of total independence. Matter of fact we should kick out Honda, BMW, Toyota, Sthil and all the evil manufactures that are making Americans unfairly slave in their greedy American plants. Even forbidding the importation of various drugs and medical equipment. Better the old folks die.

Well, there's a lot to do, we better get to it. Long live the new Hermit Kingdom.
This way we won't end going anywhere near the growth rates of Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.

[the invisib1e hand]

free markets are things that people yak about but few understand. you see, the sword cuts both ways in a free market. you know those safety nets the liberals are always using as an excuse to tax you? There are none in a free market. in a free market, you have to stay sharp and adapt.

most people will piss and moan, like the guy in Tampa who sits home all day reminiscing about charging $115.00 an hour (and that was back when a buck was a buck!) to write code.

it was a boom. it came and it went. it was a gold rush. can't blame the President for that, or for his refusal to prop it up.

face it. the better product is made overseas. if you want to capitalize on it, buy property in India. Go organize the programmers into a union. i'm sure I'm not the only set of ears that's tired of the whining.

[Happy2BMe]

"Logotec makes all its mice in China. Most of the product value comes from American made chips, optics. Almost all flat screens made, of any size, use Corning Made in USA product."

Links?

[Orangedog]

The race to the bottom is heading into the final stage. I think the only thing that surprises me is that the usual group hasn't arrived to tell everyone to "walk it off" or start throwing around the "bigot" insults.

[Brellium]

Hopefully I never find myself on the recieving end, and have to train a replacement. Although, I fully expect lawyers to be in trouble with Indians doing their work (Nevermind I know quite a few). My response based on that one fact would be to turn the offer given to me with any refrence of my having to train a replacement crossed with the explicit threat of having to find some part of "common law" to sue them under. While I would fully expect to lose, I would leave the lawyer with instructions to get on every talk show to discuss my case against my previous "employer". The sheer fact this one action would make any PR department in the company cry like little babbies would make it all that much more worthwile.

Either that or as a chemical engineer I'll leave 20 or so uniquely designed explossive devices scattered around the headquarters.

While a programer can cause quite a bit of problems for his "employer", a chemist (with a lab) can level a city block.

[optik_b]

"if you want to capitalize on it, buy property in India."

I don't know about that, Indian property laws are a pretty wierd. However it might be wise to buy index funds that track the emerging markets like India and Korea. I put some money into Vanguard Emerging Markets Index Fund. They have racked up gains of 50% and 60% in the last year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=VEIEX&d=t

[Orangedog]

Goodness knows that if you even THINK about reaching for the emergency brake cord the Pinkertons on board will beat you to death.

The emergency brake cord has been cut. That's why the Pinkertons got off the train at the last stop.

[A. Pole]

Jairam's annual salary is about $11,000 - more than 22 times the per capita annual income in India. Aparna Jairam isn't trying to steal your job. That's what she tells me, and I believe her. But if Jairam does end up taking it - and, let's face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight.

Of course she "isn't trying to steal your job". This is not the point. The point is that it is very hard to survive in America for $11,000 a year (unless you get government assistance). And this $70,000 is red herring, most of engineers do or will work for much less.

[A. Pole]

Turner's bill passed the state senate by a 40-to-0 vote. But it got bottled up in the assembly, thanks to the efforts of Indian IT firms and their powerhouse Washington, DC, lobbying firm, Hill & Knowlton.

Hill & Knowlton?!

[neutrino]

And this $70,000 is red herring, most of engineers do or will work for much less.

You're so right. I know experienced PhD's in the tech fields that would commit serious mayhem for that kind of bucks. California wages are a tad different than the rest of the country....