Laugh Loud and Often

 Jo Travels

The issue with India is that many Indians cant fake the american twang, well unless they grew up in the US an went back to India for work. But cost wise, India is very attractive, plus their infrastructure is very much developed.

The next competing country is my homeland, Philippines where many ambitions to have that american accent. Compared to Indian English, the Filipino English is much more recognizable and has less sharp accent. Labor is also relatively cheap and infrastructure is already set albeit not as wide as India.

Becasue of this, there are now many business process outsourcing companies sprouting all over the country, mostly in Manila and Cebu. Last year, a big portion of the increase in the country's GNP came from this sector.

The drawback is that jobs in the western world goes to the developing countries. Its just a matter of training locals to fit with the accent and its done. Its all about lowering the cost and the bottomline of it all, profit & loss.

The first time I saw outsourcing in action was the outsourcing of janitorial services, then it spread on to payroll, then IT (ours here in the office is outsourced), and now call centers, then on to more complex business processes. I recently heard, bank analysts are even now outsourced by banks!
 

 Nam LaMore

yeah, i hear what you're saying. i don't know if you've experience it, but i've been on the phone with tech support (clearly 'vendi' was in india, more in a sec) and got very frustrated due to the lack of service. it was very unsatisfactory, and i had to shoot off a letter to my cell phone carrier. the tech support was named 'vendi' (yes, it was suppose to be 'wendy,' but she clearly spelled her name for me!) and what really flipped me off when when she asked me if california was spelled with a C or a K.

the hint of accent can be very sexy, or extremely disappointing .. depending on the situation you're in at the moment. i can't really go into that right now, but all i can say is that an accent (regardless of german, french, indian, turkish, etc) does fascinate me when i stop to actually consider the story behind that accent.

in the U.S. we've become very accustomed to outsourcing by way of slavery. it wasn't outsourcing back then, it was pure indentured servitude. living in california, i see alot of migrant workers (i've even been an ESL [english as a second language] teacher to them - that was a long time ago) who have come here to make a better life for themselves. i'm not sure if it's any better here, then back 'home' for them.

i hope you're not right about banks outsourcing .. that is a lot of extremely sensitive information leaving the country. heck, just rummaging through an indian corporate dumpster could be fun if you're a private investigator!
 

 Nam LaMore

best to copy/delete/resubmit this comment. you don't want it to come back to bite you .. take out the names of the company (say something like large financial institutions).
 

 Barbara aka Yooni

I'm back to rephrase my comment..heh. I have often interpret for companies that are in india or other third world countires...and I have such a difficult time understanding them....I sometime wish there were interpreters that can help me interpret the heavy accent or really bad broken english! Thanks for the advice NAm
 

 Footprint

dude, you need to become a stand-up comic, a writer for the Onion or a societal satirest b/c your material is killing me.

DO SOMETHING!! because busting guts on the internet will only take you as far a Mos Isly.
 

 Nam LaMore

well, this did come from 'the onion' i just reposted here. i didn't want to source because that would 'spoil' the surprise of the 'more' link :-)

i do have to say that i have a portfolio of writing samples for the national inquiror!