Visible vs. Invisible jobs (Score 1)

I don't have a huge issue with a lot of things being outsourced. Manufacturing has been largely outsourced for a very long time, and that didn't kill our economy; I don't think programming being outsourced will kill our economy, either.

But I do think there are jobs that are innapropriately being outsourced. The biggest type is technical and customer support. Trying to get technical support or customer support from Hewlett-Packard, for example, is impossible--they outsource all of their support to a call center in New Delhi. I'm not sure what the issue is, but the standard of customer service I've received from the Delhi center is very low compared to the standard I've received from most U.S. based centers, and the standard of support I've supplied when I've been in customer contact positions. And it's not a fluke; out of twenty-six calls I placed to the India centers, my problem was never resolved, I was placed on hold an average of eight to ten minutes per call, and fourteen calls were disconnected, nine by the agents (not by the phone system). (To put this in perspective, I'm not an irate customer; I've done support for similar products. I'm aware they've heard, "I'm Cisco certified" or "I do networking" a million times, so I listen to what they have to say, and give them concrete examples of troubleshooting steps I've taken before we get into troubleshooting on the phone.)

I think the distinction needs to be drawn between customer contact (visible) and non-customer contact (invisible, at least to the consumer) jobs. "Invisible" jobs can, by and large, be outsourced without too much trouble. But barriers like standards, culture, and language (I lived in India for a year and I still have trouble sometimes understanding technical jargon through some Indian accents) make it simply a bad move to outsource jobs that have a high level of customer visibility.