The outsourcing revolution continues
I would like to start by stating that if you object to anything
in this column, you can call our customer service line in Iceland.
Our Icelandic customer service representatives are actually from
India, but speak many different languages and are more polite than,
say, every waiter in Santa Cruz.
The outsourcing revolution continues
I would like to start by stating that if you object to anything in this column, you can call our customer service line in Iceland. Our Icelandic customer service representatives are actually from India, but speak many different languages and are more polite than, say, every waiter in Santa Cruz.
Any complaint about this column will be relayed from Iceland to our Human Resources Department office located in Vietnam. Our Vietnam office staffers are from Pakistan. The Indians moved to Iceland for medical benefits and cheaper cold storage costs, and the Pakistanis moved to Vietnam for relief from nuclear weapons issues.
Your complaint will be relayed from Vietnam to a recording machine situated in Pinnacle World Headquarters in Hollister. There are occasional translation challenges. For instance, if you call to complain that we spelled “Ed” wrong in an obituary, our Icelandic rep might relay the name as “Olaf,” which could then show up as “Ved” after passing through the Vietnam office.
We apologize for any misunderstandings. Our apologies are issued from Chile in 37 languages.
Here at Pinnacle World Headquarters, we are proud to have joined the current trend of outsourcing. We are trying to keep up with modern American workplace practices. It is difficult – the competition is fierce and often well-funded. Word on the street, for instance, is that the major metropolitan newspaper down the road has all of its ads built in India.
What this means is that an ad for Ed’s Tires is built on another continent and e-mailed to California. This saves the newspaper $20 per hour in wages and benefits. We also have heard that if you call a certain police department in California, your call will be handled by a dispatcher located on another continent. Our questions regarding the matter are currently being translated in an office in Morocco.
When we learn the truth we’ll get back to you.
In an effort to keep up with the competition, we at The Pinnacle will expand on our outsourcing effort. Soon, our stories will be written in India. If you are a Little League coach in Hollister, do not be surprised to get a phone call from a Pinnacle editorial representative in New Delhi who is seeking scores, batting averages, and a quote.
We will also outsource the editing of our stories. Please be patient. We are currently trying to work a few bugs out of the system. Cricket terminology is bound to show up in a baseball story. “Futball” will likely show up in copy. We are worried about what might show up in sewage treatment plant stories.
Also, Bob Valenzuela’s column will be written by fortune cookie writers in China, and Mark Paxton’s “Naturally” column will be handled by former dot-com workers who relocated to Bangkok after being laid off from jobs in Silicon Valley.
This column will be produced in Finland, where I am relocating after securing a job in the cold storage industry. I have been told that Finnish real estate prices are excellent during the 10 months of winter.
Dovetailing with our effort will be the expansion of outsourcing into local government. Calls to the Hollister Police Department will be handled from an office in the Mexican state of Michoacan. Correspondence from the Sheriff’s Office will be produced in Bahgdad by recently liberated Iraqis.
In fact, we believe that in the future Hollister will be completely free of local communication. City Council decisions – which some residents claim to have been made by space aliens – will be outsourced to former Eastern Bloc locations. Some residents claim that County Supervisor decisions have been made in an impenetrable bunker accessible only to developers, so change there may not be necessary.
Communications for the Biker Rally will be handled by laid-off rice industry workers in Thailand.
The transition to this new world of communication will be smooth since Americans have stopped reading anything printed on paper. When corporations discover that blogging is free, all corporate and government communications will be handled by blogs.
There you have it. And now, time for a break. All this communication has made me hungry. I will now eat an apple grown in New Zealand and waxed in China. Even my hunger has been outsourced.
