Eastward Bound

And I stumble into yet another week. That’s two weeks down and several more to go… But time is flying past … and I do have plenty to do work-wise. Well, this thought has been on my mind a lot and I’ve been thinking about it more and more recently (I know what some of you must be thinking… “Ann thinking…eeeeeehhh! Not a good sign.”). Let me just put it down anyway.

I always wondered how people would react to Asians usurping “American jobs” so to speak. I always suspected the worst and experience taught me the rest. And over the past week I had a first hand taste of some of it too. I was waiting for someone to spit it out and sure enough they did. I wasn’t expecting a hugs-and-kisses reception at any rate, and I was warned by plenty of the growing resentment Americans have towards Asians and just about anyone who talked about offshoring jobs.

I’m not sure if it was done knowingly or unknowingly (my guess is that it was done purposely). Someone in the room struck up a conversation on how in a few years time there will be no copy editors or typesetters in America. And everyone at the table looked at me and one of them almost accusingly said “Yes, of course, Ann’s going to be doing this in India. And all of this will be done there.” I actually felt sorry for this person and tried to steer the conversation in another direction saying “In 5 years time, I may not have a job cause all the jobs are going to China, Philippines and other countries.” It must feel terrible to have the thought of not getting a regular pay cheque lurking in their minds every day.

I was sitting at this meeting recently where this 55 plus woman was voicing her thoughts and she claims is in the office grapevine (I believe her). Most of the employees weren’t sure the company would be able to give them a pay cheque the same time next year. Some of them have been in typesetting 20 years or longer and probably know no other profession. Some of them are just too old to be trained, at this point in their lives, to do something else, unless it was some unskilled task. It must hurt their egos to see their jobs go to some upstarts in a developing country if not a third-world country. To feel threatened by someone half your age, from some other race, and a developing country, must be a little unnerving. Yes, at that age I’d probably think and feel the same way. And it’s probably the older generation that is taking it hard. The younger folk will be able to train themselves, relearn or maybe take their expertise to other parallel fields.

Some openly show their displeasure. A lot of times all their efforts are in trying to save their jobs by touting the bargaining chip of quality, you cannot sell that idea for very long and I don’t think anyone is buying.

In fact, not sure of the source, a recent statistic I read claimed that for every USD10 worth of work outsourced, USD7 goes back to America. And this makes me wonder who is smarter? When you tout free market to the rest of the world, this is the price one pays.

Logically speaking, why would anyone pay a rupee/dollar more than one should for a product or service­--quality and USP apart-- from an employers and even consumers point of view it does not make much sense to pay more when you can get it for less. This is not a new phenomenon and this decade is not going to see the last of it.

An almost sadistic and juvenile part of me makes me treat this whole episode as the revenge of the developing world. Gone are the days when the West and superpower were synonymous. This is probably the only way the rest of the world can bring so called superpowers down. If the jobs don’t go East, they will go South, if you get my drift.