Recent news articles and press releases –
how often they are the same thing – have bemoaned the continuing loss of jobs
offshore. First it was manufacturing, then call centres (staffed by everybody they could find in Mumbai
called Joan), then computer programming and now engineering. So many things
that we have done in the past are being outsourced or offshored. By the way,
when I find the petri dish in which that last word was cultivated, I’ll force
its creator to eat it, tweezers and all.
Why are we outsourcing this stuff? Some
people even enjoy being engineers and computer programmers. There are hundreds
of other things I’d like to get someone else to do:
Attend meetings for me. I used to think to myself, “Can’t we stop
having meetings so that I can get on with my work?” Then it dawned on me that
for most people, this is work. This is what we do now. We attend meetings and
respond to emails, often at the same time. No-one’s got the money to employ us
to actually design or build anything, that kind of thing is done in Bangladesh
because the board has a responsibility to the shareholders to maximize the
profits; a sense of personal satisfaction at work is something we can’t afford
any more. So we go to meetings and discuss the framework, the strategies and
the quality assurance mechanisms around, through and in spite of which things
will be done by someone else. Can’t I take back the job and outsource the
meetings?
Keep my electronic devices up to date. I
bought a new blu-ray player the other day. Before I could even watch one movie,
it had to update its software. Almost everything in my house needs constant
updating of the software, the firmware or the “this has never happened to me
before, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately” -ware. I was a geek at school
and knew everything there was to know about the computers. Now, I’m a geek
without a clue. I don’t know what’s going on, I just follow along like a sheep
and don’t turn my computer off while Windows fails to complete an important
update for the third time this week.
This process takes up hours of my time, hundreds of my dollars in
purchased bandwidth and years off my life in stress and hassle. And when I’ve
got devices that really need an immediate software update – my kids – I can’t
get one. Couldn’t I outsource this?
Talk to boring people for me. I call my
bank and my call is re-routed to India. I call my ISP and my call is re-routed
to Pakistan. I call my telco and my call is re-routed to … well I’m not sure
because it’s never actually connected to anything yet. At least nothing I can
make any sense out of. I’m starting to think there’s a deep-sea octopus about
halfway across the Pacific hanging onto the other end of the line, bubbling at
me and then hanging up in bewilderment that there’s no-one there, yet
again. Clearly these people don’t want
to talk to me. There are a great many people that I don’t want to talk to.
Couldn’t I organise a set up whereby, if they called me or bailed me up outside
the supermarket, I could put them on hold for a minute and then let them talk
to Joan about it?
Cutting school lunches. My wife and I
flatter ourselves that we’re good parents. We provide a good education for our
children, make them do chores and be polite, and turn up for the ritual torture
of the “end of unit” displays in the classroom. We feed our kids well and only
use McDonalds when it’s a real emergency such as when we’re tired or hung-over.
But we hate packing school lunches. Every bloody morning. Sandwiches, piece of
cake, yoghurt, fruit, carrot sticks, little box of fruit juice. Half of it
comes home uneaten but I dare not pack less the next day in case it’s the one
day they’ve got double PE and keel over in a dead faint at the end of fourth
period for want of carbs. We hate it but we do it, we pack it and it’s healthy.
I can’t send my kids to school with chips and lollies because then I’d have
nothing to feel superior about. Is there a company somewhere that can cut my
kids’ lunches without them being seen going to the tuckshop every day?
Feeling guilty. Douglas Adams, in Dirk
Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, created the character of an Electric Monk
whose job it was to believe things for you. In a similar vein, can I please
outsource feeling guilty about the seemingly endless list of things I’m at
fault for? Warming the planet by driving a car, bloating the landfill by
drinking take-away coffee with the little toddler-proof lid on, demeaning women
everywhere by finding models in bikinis attractive, embarrassing my children by
listening to classical music in public places, not staying young forever, not
having an appropriate BMI and generally enjoying the benefits of ancestry –
being, as I am, a first-world,
Anglo-Saxon, middle-class, well-educated male blessed with a stable family and
a life-time’s supply of hyphens. I come from a Catholic background. I’m more than happy to accept that it’s all my
fault, but is there anyone out there I can get to feel guilty for me?
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