[biztech-discussion] Re: Offshoring Issues
- From: <margh@xxxxxxx>
- To: <biztech-discussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 08:45:06 -0400
Hello Al.
Very nice summation of crucial issues. I offer the following from
personal experience, mostly from the H-1B influx that preceded
offshoring.
1. Hardly anybody is publicly questioning where all the "saved" money
is going. Investors seem to have the happy hope that it will end up in
their pockets as dividends, but I don't know anybody who has benefited
except the highest levels of management. Making the correlation between
management salary and stock option abuses, political corruption, and
U.S. unemployment/underemployment with corporate management practices
(including offshoring) would take some research, but I believe it's
there - not coincidence.
2. Not only is the quality of lifestyle deteriorating, the intellectual
quality of work is deteriorating also. The jobs get dumber and dumber.
Also, there is a significant increase in the number of technical
writing jobs out there (I've had my share) that pay well to clean up
the messes made by ESL employees or machine-translated text. I just
edited an installation manual for a security camera where the
word "device" was referred to as a "cell phone" throughout. Dumbing
down to current professional standards is boring, boring, boring...
3. One of the primary qualifications for the H-1B's I worked with
seemed to be docility. This perversion of the "management mystique" led
to huge cost overruns on the project we were on, because the
engineering principle of "questioning the assumptions" went away, and
managers lacked the technical expertise to make good decisions. Not
only was this non-competitive in a technical sense, it wasted many $$$
and probably contributed to the demise of a large telecommunications
firm.
4. What happened to the H-1B's who were stranded here when the dot com
boom ended?
I've been in this crazy business for many years, and I think it will
sort itself out over quality. But not before many lives are ruined by
the process.
Margherite Williams
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