Loss of Human Value

The Loss of Human Value Over the last 4 years, America has suffered the loss of over 1 million jobs thanks to offshore outsourcing. Americans believe that offshore outsourcing has the potential to destroy middle-class families, their jobs, and privacy; therefore the government should take action against outsourcing. Employees that have lost their jobs as a result of outsourcing believe that their value as human beings has been taken away from them leaving them to wonder what will happen to them. One may think that we can just lean on our president for help, support and guidance. Well, think again, not only is the Bush Administration not helping families that have been affected, they believe that outsourcing is great for our economy. It 's nice that our economy is doing well, but with the loss of American jobs, how can our economy continue to grow? It is the president 's and his cabinets ' job to help protect employees, their families and consumers. That 's why we have child labor laws, crash test, safety protections in the workplace, safe food and drugs, and more. It 's up to us to make sure that the president and his cabinet is doing their jobs (Swartz 2004). According to Uday Karmarkar, author of "will you survive the services revolution, the loss of job is not the important issue here. The unemployment rate will be non-existent once the baby boomers retire. The real issue here is the loss of service and disregard of privacy. Some of the biggest job losses here in the U.S. are the customer service and technical support levels. Fortune 500 companies are now outsourcing customer service jobs to the lowest bidder. Outsourcing has further alienated the American customer from the American employee by separating the two. This is not good for American consumers because it doesn 't make any sense. One report recently showed that dissatisfaction with offshore outsourcing call centers led one in seven customers to take their business elsewhere (Fisher 2004). When a father purchased a computer for his daughter who was attending her first year of college, he thought he would be helping his daughter. To his surprise, his daughter 's printer stopped printing normally and started printing everything in pink just six months after purchasing it. Still being under warranty the father called the company that manufactured the printer. The company 's name was Lexmark. After waiting on hold for more than 30minutes, a gentleman named Chris with a very heavy accent came on the phone. It was clear to the father that he was not native to America. The father explained the problem with the printer and hoped that Chris could help. After an hour and a half of being on the phone, Chris ' positive quickly turned negative as did the concerned father. The father continued to ask Chris to repeat himself because he couldn 't understand him. Chris not only didn 't correct the pink printing problem, the printer was now not even printing. Once the printer stopped working, the father asked for Chris ' supervisor. Not only did Chris refuse to transfer the upset father to his supervisor, he was rude and eventually hung up on the father. Now the question remains. What would you have done in this situation? If your approximate wait time is forever, and you finally speak to someone in India reading off of a script who is making less than $5 per day and doesn 't care, how are you going to get your problem solved? Would you rather speak to a skilled professional who is knowledgeable about the product and is eager to solve your problem (Drezner 2004)? The bottom line, in the eyes of consumers, outsourcing is not a good business decision because of the dissatisfaction in service. The loss of customer service and American jobs are not the only thing at risk here. Did you know that the privacy of our fellow Americans is also at risk? Our financial, medical, healthcare and other private information is being shipped overseas. How about the U.S. military plans being sent to a foreign country that is the lowest bidder. These are serious implications for all of us and should not be taken lightly (Drezner 2004). What ever happened to the war on terrorism, did it end, and did we finally achieve world peace? No, of course not, so how do you feel about American military aircraft parts being built overseas? Maybe now we will have something to blame plane crashes or even our soldiers dying on other than our president. There seems to be a conspiracy here. America has always been the greatest and most powerful country in the world, but we have also always manufactured and maintained our military technology and private information. There is so much that goes on as far a "top secret" operations that Americans don 't even know about, but hey, lets go ahead and let India or China build our military aircrafts, bombs, and ammunition. Americans have the right to privacy, so next time you apply for a credit card or even activate your ATM card, remember who your calling. It could be an employee in China making only a few dollars a day who is just waiting for the right social security number to help save his or her life. Identity theft is all an all time high, maybe it will continue to grow with outsourcing. These foreigners are probably really nice people and this is nothing against them, but we are at a war on terrorism so how is this helping our country again? Good for the economy, good for businesses, good for our country not good for protecting our country 's privacy. What can you do to stop outsourcing? Use your voice and speak out. The next time your calling a company for technical support, paying bills, or making changes to your account and you get someone in China or India, nicely ask for their supervisor. Once you get a supervisor, let them know that you will not speak to anyone in a foreign country and demand to speak to someone residing in your country. It is very simple; you will only deal with a United States employee. You are the customer so you have the right to ask and even threaten to take your business elsewhere. Be prepared for them to put up several defense lines to stop you from getting your way. Uncle Sam may not be proud of you for doing this, but your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and country will be. Determination can move mountains and make all the difference in the world. Speak out America and pave the way for our next generation.

References
Drezner,W. (2004 May/June) The outsourcing bogeyman. Foreign Affairs, 83- (3), 22-34.
Fisher, D. (2004, September). Optimization through outsourcing. BearingPoint, Inc.
Karmarkar, U. (2004, June). Will you survive the services revolution? Harvard Business Review, 8.
Swartz, N. (2004, May/June). Much more than jobs being outsourced. Information Management Journal, 38(3), 13.

References: Drezner,W. (2004 May/June) The outsourcing bogeyman. Foreign Affairs, 83- (3), 22-34. Fisher, D. (2004, September). Optimization through outsourcing. BearingPoint, Inc. Karmarkar, U. (2004, June). Will you survive the services revolution? Harvard Business Review, 8. Swartz, N. (2004, May/June). Much more than jobs being outsourced. Information Management Journal, 38(3), 13.