A Passage to India

My DSL has been out since Monday, and the short sarcastic posts that I did earlier this week were written at work.

There's nothing like having our technology taken away from us to make us appreciate it. I use the internet all day long; like the toilet, the trash can, or the remote, it's something I use so automatically that I don't think about using it--until I don't have it.

One one-hour conversation with Nice Man in India and two repairmen later, the lines are restored (at no charge to me since it wasn't MY equipment that failed) and I am back with you all.

I wonder just how much BellSouth is saving by outsourcing the customer service work to Nice Man in India and his colleagues? Part of the hour was dedicated to his waiting while I moved furniture and crawled under desks to unhook the phones so they could test the lines. And we had to wait -- not exaggerating -- about 15 minutes before Nice Man could give me my repair appointment because his equipment was so slow. On the other hand, if Nice Man's salary is low enough, I suppose BellSouth really doesn't care that it took him an hour to finish with me.

As both a customer of and a (very minor) stockholder in BellSouth, I suppose I should be happy that the corporation keeps costs low. As a citizen, however, I'm troubled by that giant sucking sound of jobs moving to Mexico, India, anywhere where people will work for much less than Americans more or less must have both to maintain a basic American life and pay the taxes that keep our war machine moving.