My life as a deadbeat American

nice read...too sad though.


My life as a deadbeat American
or, That bastard from Bombay.

By Frmr Sftwr Engnr


It all began with the bastard from Bombay, India that is, and actually they call it M’umbai, now, but that sure didn’t stop the fellow from cursing up a storm in a flat, mid-western, American accent.

He had called me to try collect on my credit card debt. The irony of him calling me on the low cost, high-bandwidth telephony service that I helped to engineer in the early 80’s was not lost on me as I detected the slightest hint of Hindu accent in his speech. However, the fellow from M’umbai did not take kindly to my pointing out the irony of the situation…me, a long term unemployed telephony and other software engineer, being hounded for debts by a fellow halfway round the planet and ONLY because 20 years ago I worked my ass off with hundreds of other engineers to provide a signal switching network that allows for the low cost long distance we enjoy today.

“…and it let’s you work in M’umbai for American based companies where you hound Americans over our own cheap phone lines.” I pointed out.






http://www.halfpasthuman.com/HPHBASTARD.htm

what the fuck is that?

eh?

there is no such thing as a hindu accent. there is such a thing as racist commentary though.

do you have a christian accent? or a muslim accent? or a jewish accent?

ON EDIT: what is the need to even point out ones accent when all of this is happening because American Corporations and Government, and has nothing to do with the lower-middle class Indian who gets the sorry job of dealing with people who are busy mocking their accent

Fortunately, I am not in debt and have learned to live on raw vegetables, cooked rice and beans. This keeps the expenses very low. Nevertheless, if Bush is reelected I'll be on the street.

It might be fun to have debts though just to yell at the Hindi collection agents. That would brighten up the long, boring dull days of forced uselessness.

just something you came across? Or perhaps, None of my damned business.
Anyway, good to hear from you.

for MS in the early 90's. I did the satellite/radio link software from the server out of the plane (we are speaking of the telephones on finds in the backs of seats of commerical airplanes here...it was a MSConsulting group contract with BA & United Airlines, Maconi....et al...this fellow did the handheld firm ware that passed off and called the functions in my server program)....too sad. He is within 3 months of being homeless. He has not made a mortgage payment this month. Being unemployed, I can only spare him food (from my larder, I can and dry et cetera for future use from my gardening) and not money. But his family is fed, if only for now, and he figures he can get at least 3 more months in his place before the mortgage company starts foreclosure (or as he calls it.....'gives me the Bush-off')....I am hoping to sell my kayak, which will give me a months worth of money and I can send a few hundred his way.

All us old bald bastards got to watch out for each other as our former friend 'the govt', just ain't so friendly any more....


as an aside, I am 51 and now working manual labor on a day or 'pick-up' basis. I work harder and longer than the illegals who compete with me at the pick-up point, and I have actually had 5 days work in 2004! HOORAY! I mean, gotta be better than no days work...right?

Anyway, being a vegetarian, I can eat cheap and work long hours, though let me tell you it ain't what I planned for a career.

What is really telling is how the day labor mix at the truck-stop/pick up the workers corner in town has changed. When I started, I was the only old, non-hispanic there. Now I see a lot of my neighbors in the crowd. We are joking that another Bush term would mean that NO illegal could find work in our area as all us natives will be working TOO cheap, AND we will out number them in the crowd.....hahahahahah! It is funny. Yes?

that would just be blowin' sunshine up yer butt.
Take care there Junker.
We are all doing what we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones these days.

What do you make of Rothschild getting out of the London Gold Market?
Any guesses on who might take their seat, and what this might mean for the gold market in general?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3628971.stm

Yet another horror story. I have Indian headhunters calling me
for engineering contracts that aren't worth the gas $$ to get me there, telling me "Canadians" are working for nothing, therefore I should...
(these very "Canadians" are Chinese and Indian VISA workers)

Now we have collection agencies calling from India to browbeat
the very Americans who were placed by Indians and that's why
they cannot pay.

It's sick, it's twisted and I'm wondering why no one is on the street.

This sort of economic meltdown is not "no fault". It's clearly
against the American people and it's clearly very dumb and it's clearly
"purchased" policy by multinational corporations.

When is everyone going to hit the streets and march to Washington.

This has got to stop.

As a fellow software engineer, I sympathize deeply with everyone's situation here. What I am wondering, though, is if we can come up with a solution that doesn't involve governmental intervention.

At my former company, I saw examples of stupid India outsourcing, but I also saw some examples that worked out well. For the cases where outsourcing worked, I would not want the government forcing me to work with Americans that do the same quality work as the Indians, but for a higher price. I work hard and I want my company to make profits, and think they should at least have the opportunity to experiment with outsourcing. As a consumer of tech products, I am also excited about the possibility of lower prices for software and hardware.

I understand the risks, though, and I have been saving money and working hard for the last couple years to make sure I'm not layed off as well. It's a tough economy before us, and we have to take care of ourselves.

Gladya' found us. :hi:

I also believe in as little gov intervention as possible. However, it's gov intervention that got us to this point. The Bush administration gives tax incentives to companies that outsource jobs overseas and then brags about how great it is. We need to get the Bush administration off the backs of working folks.

no we can't come up with a solution that doesn't involve governmental intervention since it was a policy of not taxing offshore profits that started this mess. We need to end that tax break immediately.

If you haven't noticed there are no fifty year olds in software that last very long in companies these days. They get furloughed for early retirement if they're lucky. Otherwise they get laid off. No one is making it until 65 years. Did see one guy at a defense company make it until age 60. Hope your retirement plan doesn't plan that you're contributing the same amount till age 65.

What's wrong with a little government juice in the economy??? Look at the VC's. A lot of early stage VCs are SBIC -- yuppper, sucking off the federal teat with a state breast for variety. Nice tax write offs for business losses when they lose money. Just like the republicans at defense companies deluded that they are free enterprise.


Hey and you're begruding worker retraining programs. The SBA is dry this year. Small business often cant get loans at a bank. The percentage of businesses that go bust within a year is very high.

What part of government don't you like? The part that funds VC money? The part that gives corporations tax write offs. The part that pays for Walmart employees health insurance (ie Medicaid).

Much of the computer programming is done to 6 Six Sigma standards -- make the 80% that is visible before the customer work and the heck with the rest -- unfortunately, that means a very hollow infrastructure. At some point there is just plain going to be too much s---- in the system. Offshoring doesn't help this at all. Most of those countries have lousy infrastructure. They don't know what it means to run things right, each time and every time.

I am tired of crap. I dont buy cheap stuff any more. I don't buy it in clothes and I dont want to buy it in electronics or computer programs. I'm not excited about the prospect of cheap software or hardware because I know it will be a bear to deal with. It'll look good but once I start using it I'll get annoyed when it doesn't work as advertised.

Let's compare this to clothing. We used to have six grades of clothing in the US (all corresponded to union grades that received higher pay with the higher skill/grade of clothing produced). We had a lot of good clothes in this country. I know where to go to find good US clothes or good European clothes -- you would be amazed at how I dress my husband (Suede jacket lapped stitched, mitered collar, soft cashmere lined, floating (not fused lining), made in Italy) on sale for the same price I can pay for Third World manufacturing that doesn't look half as good and wont wear very long -- stuff that on a good day with a sewing machine, I can make better myself. Remember those Third World folks don't have an Ivy League degree like I do :) !! Same thing with software. I know where I can get great engineers (unfortunately at a huge discount these days --it's hard even to sustain a 10 year average wage) right here in the US. And, guess what, their stuff doesn't break, it's not a maintenance nightmare, the amount of downtime is minimal. People come here to the US for an education, not vice verse, for a reason.

I'm dismayed about prices going down. More cheap crap that won't work as advertised.

If the government injects some "juice" into the economy on behalf of American tech workers, what they're really doing is taking money from Americans of the future and investing it in the tech workers of today. Sadly, the Americans of the future don't have a say in whether their money is spent this way or not.

As an engineer who does care about the quality of his work, I wouldn't want to work with other engineers who got their job because they "deserve it", not because they are the most qualified person in the world to do the job. I've lived through that, during the dot com boom when my company and others were hiring everbody that breathed, and I had to work with a lot of slackers that felt they could work at 10% efficiency and still make a fortune.

As Americans, we simply have to understand that it is not our destiny to rule the world economy forever. If we start forcing our companies to operate less efficiently to serve the short term interests of certain workers, other companies in other countries will eat our lunch.

The Indians are working for American companies today, but how long before they start their own companies to compete with us? How long before they start contracting for companies in China and Japan that compete with us? When that happens, you'll miss the days when India was at least helping our stock market, even if they took away some of our jobs.

Or how about, "Welcome to Wal-Mart".

:eyes:

I remember when these same tech boys were crowing about the wonders of the Republicans and the Bushes when they were riding high. Now they're being replaced cheap by their former political buddies. The site whose full name might be censored if I printed it out - www.f***edcompany.com - sits there snickering about the people who lose their jobs.

It would be funny, if the disaster happening to them wasn't the same disaster happening to the rest of us, too. And I wonder if the people at that aforementioned web site will take their own coming unemployment with any good humor.

The issue is about "economic patriotism." When there is any unemployment, should companies be moving jobs abroad? When the very richest have become so much moreso (see post under economics) should we further enhance their already gigantic coffers by allowing this "outsourcing."

All this talk of finding some other solution, is just freeper-speak, to keep things as they are. Globalization is nothing but a world-wide union-busting program, and we need our leaders to start working for people again, not the very wealthy, and in particular corporations.

Certainly we need to all try to work for ourselves. But the idea that government intervention is all bad is just the same old Rush Limbaugh BS that people have been listening to for years. Your posts are thinly disguised too, you are promoting right-wing ideas, wrong ideas. The loosening of regulation has brought things like the recent blackout, the scandals in the market with Kenny-boy Lay, and Skilling, the Tyco boys. The idea that governments don't need to regulate is foolhardy. Medical costs, and the cost and accessability to higher education is also an area the government needs more involvement in.