Post #85,818
3/5/03 3:52:42 PM
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Sending jobs to India not all it's cracked up to be
Was going to post this in the "Jobs" forum, but I figure it'll get better face time here. [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/29578.html|Register story] Internal memo going around HP: I guess not everybody's happy with sending American jobs to India after all...
When HP began outsourcing phone support to India a few month's ago there was a noticeable increase in complaints specific to this issue. There is a growing perception among US customers that HP has become 'anti-American' as it continues to outsource support to countries outside of the U.S. in order to reduce costs. In addition to having difficulty understanding the accent, customers say that they are often treated rudely, laughed at, put on hold for an unreasonable amount of time, hung up on, etc. and agents appear to have a general lack of technical and product knowledge. Customers who have already purchased an extended warranty are required to pay $35 for an additional warranty before they can receive support. Customers challenge the "ethics" of this practice.
lincoln
"Four score and seven years ago, I had a better sig"
[link|http://users3.ev1.net/~bconnors/resume.htm|VB/SQL/Tandem resume]
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Post #85,849
3/5/03 6:43:57 PM
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The smoking gun!
Move them jobs back here! Remember, you get what you pay for. At 8 cents on a dollar, that isn't much.
[link|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey|
New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
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Post #85,865
3/5/03 7:49:32 PM
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It is IDIOTIC to export jobs
1) The more well-employed people are around, the larger the tax base.
2) The larger the tax base, the more likely we operate with a surplus.
3) With a surplus, business can make reasonable bets on future productivity and hire even more people, further increasing the tax base.
Done right, the theory of paying help well and sticking with them leads to a stable situation with low crime, clean neighborhoods, and a populace with pride in itself. A place the rich can be proud to live in.
Throwing away people is just utterly destructive of a cohesive society.
-drl
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Post #85,882
3/5/03 8:35:48 PM
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Maximizing shareholder value.
That's the only thing that counts. Short sighted or not, if a company can cut expenses, they will. The idea of future profitability is forgotten. What counts is the share price over the next 6 months.
How many lives per gallon?
--Sign outside of various churches
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Post #85,928
3/5/03 11:20:10 PM
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Six months?
What kind of dream world 'you livin' in boy?
Try six weeks, try 1 quarter. Some of the things I work on have to be coded and done in HOURS! (ie. 12 hours or less, like "finish this before you leave today" )
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Post #86,007
3/6/03 10:05:09 AM
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Good enough
get it done in 12 hours before you leave today. I don't think I could work in an environment like that, I have a family and they need to see me too. I cannot work 12 hour days and avoid my family for the sake of some PHB who wants things done in hours instead of days.
If it takes hours instead of days, expect some major bugs to be in the program. Major major bugs, memory leaks, security holes so big you could drive a truck through them, and slowness.
But I suppose if it is good enough to run a report for them to read, it is good enough for them to approve of?
[link|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey|
New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
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Post #85,990
3/6/03 9:25:23 AM
3/6/03 9:25:48 AM
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Oh, Ross..how Pollyanna-ish can you be?!?
Low crime, a well-paid workforce, sufficient tax revenues to fund the pork-barrel...Shit, man, you're speaking sedition here!
Wake up and smell the coffee, Ross! Its the 21st century. Unabashed, unfettered Capatalism, that's where it's at today. The tyranny of the quarterly report. Get with it man! Thinking that far out of the box will get you a cell, these days. Expecting the Leaders of American Business\ufffd to consider an alternative approach to conducting said business is...well, er....it's just....Unthinkable. And shame on you for even sugesting that they consider it!!!
;-)
jb4
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
Rich Cook
Edited by jb4
March 6, 2003, 09:25:48 AM EST
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Post #86,009
3/6/03 10:08:27 AM
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This I agree with you on
the Mega Corps only look at the bottom line, as in how much money it will save them or cost them. They see exporting jobs to India as cheaper and saving money, but they are not looking at the big picture.
If 20,000 IT jobs go to India, that means 20,000 less taxpayers, or 20,000 people that will be paying less in taxes as they have to get a job somewhere else for a much lower pay.
Getting an IT job in today's market is hard enough, HR gets 90 to 150 resumes a day for a single IT position and they throw most of them out.
[link|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey|
New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
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Post #85,975
3/6/03 8:45:21 AM
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Re: Sending jobs to India not all it's cracked up to be
"customers say that they are often treated rudely, laughed at, put on hold for an unreasonable amount of time, hung up on, etc. and agents appear to have a general lack of technical and product knowledge."
Heck, I got that kind of treatment from Gateway's American support jerks.
I'm not defending HP, but keeping support jobs in the State's isn't a guarantee of quality. I think it probably has more to do with the company, than in where the support people live.
Brian Bronson
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Post #86,013
3/6/03 10:15:19 AM
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Welcome to Dogbert's Help Desk, how may I abuse you?
There is a reason why Dilbert makes fun of Help Desks, you just hit the nail on the head.
But I think the fact was that HP's help Desk wasn't that bad, before the jobs got exported to India.
My wife and I just got off the phone with a Help Desk about phone cards, and the woman we spoke to had so thick an accient that we couldn't understand just what she was saying. Apparently we bought the phone card PIN and 1-800 number from [link|http://www.phonecardsforsale.com/|http://www.phonecardsforsale.com/] and the lady on the phone kept telling us to read the back of the card. We told her that there was no card, all we got from that web site was a pin number and a 1-800 number. Apparently if you don't use the card in a certain amount of time, they start taking away money from it, but she couldn't communicate this to us very well. phonecardsforsale.com sold the card, not their company, and I guess they keep the card and only sell the pin number and access number? Anyway after six months of having at least once using the card, they cancel it. After 48 hours, they charge a 59 cent fee to the card (or rather take away money from the card). But we had to have her talk really slow, to understand this.
[link|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey|
New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
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Post #86,057
3/6/03 11:44:29 AM
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Re: Sending jobs to India not all it's cracked up to be
Indian telemarketers sit in front of their computer and hit local news, weather.com, etc. so they can sound like they're right down the street. They go to schools that teach them American accents.
As far as engineers: I believe that a huge proportion of H-1B and outsourced professionals don't know anything. There was once a time when someone was brought in or sourced out if they were *really good*. Now, it's a fad and desperation move, and the other countries are catching on that very little technobabble is enough to convice the beancounters you know something.
Ever noticed the huge amount of posters on Usenet with very poor English? Asking about complicated subjects but with very little obvious understanding? I have a strong hunch that the outsourced and H-1B workers are milking the Internet for anything they can get. That double-Ph.D. with 15 years of signal processing experience is perfect for your next project...but you better not take away his Google.
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