[TLI]

If we cut everybody down to minimum wage, there's still no way we could compete with India where companies can pay them 80 cents an hour. If we were to eliminate the minimum wage and pay our techs the same thing, there's no way people can live on $32.00 a week here.

Welfare is 10 time that much.

As automation comes more into vogue and we export all the technology jobs offshore, where does that leave us? Are we not planning our own obsolescence?

Damn right they are... I, and everyone I know in the business ain't gonna fix squat if I (we) wind up flipping burgers because some moron CIO "thought" of a way to "save some money." They are gonna be looking at a big fat error message on their monitor and all they will get from me is about 400 pounds of old manuals and a magnifying glass.

[Keyes2000mt]

I used to work for an outsourcer for a computer company until the outsourcer decided to move everything overseas to save themselves from bankruptcy.

I own a Printer made by the same company and I called to check on the status of a repair order, I got an Indian tech, and they couldn't pull it up because I didn't have the order number. I had to walk the Indian technical support agent through using his own tools to find an order without the order number and just by my phone number.

I pity the people who can't walk technical support through using their own tools.