Outsourcing Dishonesty

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Nearly all Americans are angry about the export of jobs, and not just blue collar manufacturing jobs, but increasingly white collar jobs, including highly technical ones. In addition to outsourcing jobs we are also exporting our American culture of lying. When you call your credit card, phone, Internet, car, or computer company, you are likely to be talking to someone in a call center in India. But deception is working against you knowing it.

Those workers half a globe away have been taught to conceal their accents and use American words instead of ones they use at home. They will also use American-sounding names, maybe Bob or Mary. They also are likely to be sitting in a room with giant TV screens. They can see the weather in many U.S. cities, the scores from the latest U.S. sports events, and news about U.S. entertainment venues. This so they can answer questions or provide some small talk. The false accents and the U.S. misinformation have been created to intentionally deceive American callers into believing that the lower-cost foreign workers are Americans. If you ask them a direct question about where they are located, perhaps because you hear a trace of an accent, they will either lie or say they are not allowed to provide the information.

All this is being done because many Americans have become sensitive to foreigners answering their calls. So they try to quickly determine whether the person is actually answering from a distant English-speaking country or some place here, maybe South Dakota. Not only are Americans angry about the loss of U.S. jobs, but now they are also concerned about their personal information being offshored and whether there are any safeguards for their privacy. Though the American caller may not be able to do anything, because they have no choice, they often vent their anger by cursing in very blunt language the foreign worker or the company.

What does all this say about the American companies using these foreign call centers? They are ashamed. They should be. They are selling out their nation, their fellow Americans and customers. In India alone, there were some 350,000 workers in their outsourcing industry in 2004, which was expected to increase 40 percent in 2005. The money you spend on American products and services is being exported on a grand scale.

Perhaps the worse variation of this outsourcing problem is when our own government agencies use foreign companies and workers to answer phone calls. This means our own tax dollars are being sent offshore – a real double whammy whereby we export jobs and tax dollars.

If American companies are so accepting of intentional lying to their customers, showing such disrespect for them, why should Americans trust the companies? Why patronize these companies? Protest is needed, beyond the cursing and anger given directly to the foreign workers, just pawns in the scam called globalization. But don’t feel bad about cursing them out. Honesty should trump politeness.

What we really need is a national campaign through which American consumers tell companies in no uncertain words that they will seek alternative sources that use American workers to service customers. What happened to “the customer is always right” attitude of businesses? Now, the disgraceful business axiom is “the customer be damned.”

If American companies want to lower their costs, let them cut way back on all that expensive television and newspaper advertising, junk mail, and telemarketing that bombard our daily lives with annoying, repetitive and misleading marketing messages. And cut back on all the money spent on lobbying and corrupting our elected representatives to serve corporate rather than public interests. And reduce the obscene salaries and benefits paid to top corporate executives. And stop paying big fees to accountants and management consultants to find ways to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Not so many years ago it was inconceivable that the many nightly telemarketing calls could be cut, but then the national do-not-call system was created and those terribly annoying calls have dropped dramatically. We still are fighting Internet spam, but some progress is being made. Now, we need to openly fight outsourced foreign call centers. Listen corporate America: We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore! That must be our message to American Express, IBM, Citibank, Ford, General Electric, Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, and too many other companies. Perhaps the first step could be an option offered to consumers: Press 1 if you want to speak to an American representative or press 2 for one in a distant country who has a job formerly held by an American. Let’s begin by asking for an American when we make our next call.

[Joel S. Hirschhorn’s current book is Sprawl Kills – How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money; his next is Fake Democracy – Status Quo Busting to Save Our Republic; he can be reached through www.sprawlkills.com.]