(S02E02) I think a better title for this episode would be "Outsourcing--Where's the Outrage?"
As we all know, many jobs in the United States, mostly in the computer programming and telemarketing sectors, have been outsourced to foreign companies, mainly to India. Outsourcing continues to be a hot topic in this country, and I think it would be safe to say that the majority of American workers abhor the idea of an American-based company outsourcing American jobs to another country in order to save on labor costs and increase their own profits. I'm sure there are plenty of people who say outsourcing is a good thing, but I haven't been able to find them.
In any event, the story focuses on Chris, a 37-year-old programmer from New York who lost his job a while back when it was outsourced to India. Things haven't been going well for him--bills are piling up, he's had to tap his savings to make ends meet, and on top of that he and his girlfriend just had a baby boy, so that makes it even more complicated.
To see how the other half lives, Chris accepts the opportunity to spend 30 days in India with a host family of which a couple of them work for a company that does outsourcing work for an American firm. After Chris takes a 23-hour flight (!) to India, he goes to Bangalore, the "outsourcing capital of the world." He's struck by the number of shiny new office buildings rising above some of the worst poverty you could imagine.
He goes to the house where he is to live, and two of the brothers work for an outsourcing company. One (Shashi) is a programmer, the other (Ravi) is a call center manager. Ravi's wife Soni takes care of the house where the extended family lives, but she is dreaming of working and making something of her life other than serving meals and cleaning the house.
Chris manages to get a job at a call center after going through extensive training, such as learning to converse with Americans over the phone. (Imagine that!) It turns out that call center jobs in India are considered very prestigious--an employee can make about $1,200 a month with incentives. Chris makes the point that in this country, telemarketers aren't looked upon very highly and that those jobs aren't held in very high esteem.
We also get a good look at the economic and social conditions in India. Although there are many more jobs coming to the country, there is still quite a large chasm between the haves and the have-nots. A quite vivid example is a man who is the manager of the call center's janitorial staff of over 60 who lives in near squalor in Bangalore.
Chris seems to be resigned to the fact that jobs are going to be outsourced to India and other countries no matter what, but my thought was how come he isn't more angry about his own situation? Here's a guy who had a good job and was able to provide for himself and then suddenly he's left with nothing and the millionaires who ran his company or able to inflate their bottom lines? I guess I expected him to be more confrontational than he actually was.
After seeing the city shut down after a riot over a famous actor's suspicious death, he learns that American-based businesses lost millions of dollars because of it, and he surmised that the business leaders will not stand for such a thing. However, they're saving so much money by outsourcing that it seems they can handle these hits on occasion.
At the end, Chris feels that Indians have it much tougher than us, but he adds that for him, there is no replacement for being in America. He returns home, but we never find out whether he's acquired another job or what his life situation is like now. I'm certainly curious, and I'm sure others who watched the episode are wondering that as well.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-03-2006 @ 4:06PM
Captain Obvious said...
While I will continue to watch this show, I really don't like it that much. Spurlock's political agenda is just too much for me to take. I'd like to see last week's episode combined with this week's episode, so we can see the effect that illegal immigrantion has on Americans losing their jobs. If Spurlock does that, I will be very impressed. It was mentioned in passing that Rigoberto will work for six dollars an hour in the same job that pays $30 (or so) to an American worker, but I want to see that fleshed out some more.
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8-03-2006 @ 4:42PM
superbagman said...
I used to work for a Teleservices company that was a call center for incoming infomercial orders. Over the years a lot of the company's informercial work was outsourced to India, while the American site started focusing on very specific products instead of the hundreds that the India sites handled. My job was in Quality Assurance, and I had the opporutunity to test call the India site numerous times. I would often times try to trip them up by using American slang. For the most part the agents at our India site were top notch. It was the company's policy (It has since changed) that when an agent at the India site was asked where they were located, they were to respond with Reno, Nevada. One time I asked an agent how the weather was in Reno, he told me that he had not been outside since he came to work 24 HOURS EARLIER! I was so shocked I broke "character," said "Oh my God" and hung up the phone. I've since found out that the company provides bunk houses on the premises for the operators.
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8-03-2006 @ 5:50PM
MrsEldubya said...
I was looking forward to this episode but was disappointed when it was over. Chris was boring and really didn't show too much emotion about anything. This could have been much more interesting with anyone else.
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8-03-2006 @ 5:57PM
Monty Montgomery said...
This was a lousey choice for a 30 Days episode. Well rather a lousey choice of person to experience the difference. It should have been a CEO or EVP of a tech company or such, to give them a perspective. It hardly works for a dude that was a normal programmer and laid off to experience how the other half lives. He still has to go home to no job and bills.
I setup a graphics production department in India that my company was outsourcing too. It certainly opened my eyes to how this country lives, but once I went home three weeks later, I still went back to my 10hr a day job and personal problems.
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8-03-2006 @ 9:32PM
Federico said...
I don't think CEO or the head of a company would have worked. It would be interesting to see. Mostly due to the fact the they would be able to see how much money they can save their company.
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8-04-2006 @ 1:54PM
Jim Puetz said...
Chris shouldn't of showed anger towards them ...its not their fault. It is the douche bag CEOs and VPs that send the work over there, they are just willing to take it...
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8-04-2006 @ 2:47PM
corbett said...
There's really no reason for Chris to be angry at the Indians he met or worked with because they have jobs that cost-cutting corporations sent over-seas. The Indians took the jobs because they were offered to them.
Any anger or resentment for what is happening in this country shouldn't be directed at the Indians who fill out-sourced jobs; rather, it should be at the CEOs and Boards of Directors for the US companies who feel that shipping the jobs to India is just the best way to do business.
Personally, I found Chris to be very engaging and level-headed. I have to say though, that I hope he was able to find a new job when he returned home.
I also have to say, I really don't see any or much political bias by the producers or Spurlock in this show, as others have hinted at. The episodes go where the participant takes it, and I certainly don't perceive any liberal or conservative slant to the show as it simply attemps to tackle important or hot-button issues of the day.
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8-05-2006 @ 3:47PM
John Smulo said...
I think that the show deals with life as it is. And I like that 30 Days covers issues and differences that people are struggling with in a real way. We spend too much time dividing with people over differences before we've had a chance to walk a mile in their shoes.
Of course even after we've experienced things from a different perspective, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to change our mind--the 30 Days show on immigration is an example of this. However, at the least we'll get to understand both sides of the issue in a personal way--the 30 Days show on immigration is also an example of this.
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8-07-2006 @ 4:28AM
zavo said...
"Where's the Outrage?" Did you miss the point? Who should we be outraged at? Not even the CEOs warrant our outrage since they're just trapped in a system that demands they make the most cost-effective decisions regardless of the human impact.
The takeaway point of the show for me was that Americans are fortunate to have such abundance (of jobs, of housing, of food, etc.), and losing a few jobs to a country that desperately needs them is no big deal.
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8-16-2006 @ 8:37PM
amit said...
"Any anger or resentment for what is happening in this country shouldn't be directed at the Indians who fill out-sourced jobs; rather, it should be at the CEOs...."
I must say that I'm pleasently surprised by your perceptions. I'm an Indian and though I haven't worked in an "outsourced environment" I was under the impression that most Americans abhorred Indians for "stealing" their jobs.
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8-20-2006 @ 5:32PM
Rob Lanphier said...
I'm of the camp that outsourcing can be a really good thing, if it doesn't result in the degradation of living conditions.
Here are some of the biggest reasons why India is cheaper than the U.S.
1. The supply of skilled talent is dramatically greater
2. The cost of living is drastically lower
3. The ability to exploit those workers is much greater
People who get outraged about outsourcing should focus on #3, because that's where the problem really is. Outsourcing can be a tide that lifts all boats, but only if there is an emphasis on human rights and human dignity.
If we can push to ensure global rights of workers, the market wages will quickly equalize.
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9-19-2006 @ 6:30PM
Suresh said...
{{3. The ability to exploit those workers is much greater}} - Here we need to redefine exploitation. When the standards of living are entire different (that's why we have lower cost of living which faciliates producing "dramatically" high number of technical graudates).
What Americans and other "developed" nations take for granted are, in the perspective of a developing nation, unneccessary comforts (starting from SUVs to casinos). So the idea of eploitation is not well-set like in the case Nike employees in Indonesia. The technical professions, as some might think, are not your blue collar job just because they are paid in the scale (well, actually a little lower).
There are no human rights reports of an NGO assessment that suggests that service industry employees in India are "exploited". Of course they work, night shifts, fake accents and assume pseudonyms - all these, presumably, have negative effects on their psyhce. But the very idea of work has a negative effect on your psyche! There are enough studies that suggest that computer programmers (and other white-collar professionals alive) experience sever mental distress and fatigue just like blue collar workers. Now is that exploitation too?
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