Posted on 06/27/2004 4:52:11 AM PDT by neutrino
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Jolted workers rethink life's basics
09:54 AM CDT on Saturday, June 26, 2004
Mark Olesen and Jerry Dugick live 181 miles apart. They're strangers to each other, but they share a common bond. Losing their tech jobs to overseas workers cost each of them more than paychecks and pride. For Mark, a former software engineer for IBM in Austin, it led to bankruptcy and nearly a year away from his family, driving big rigs to natural gas fields around the country. Jerry, a former engineer and project manager for Cadence Design Systems, sold the Dallas home he treasured to eliminate debt. He can pay for his daughter's first two years of college. But he doesn't see a way to cover the rest of her tuition with a part-time job. The upheaval in both their lives illustrates why moving U.S. white-collar jobs overseas has caused so much anxiety and controversy. In many cases, the disruptions go far beyond lost income. The irony: Offshoring has been a boon to American businesses, consumers and Third World workers – boosting profits, cutting prices and increasing incomes. "We are kind of a victim of our own success," says Dane Anderson, program director of outsourcing and service providers for META Group, an information technology research and consulting firm. White-collar workers affected by offshoring usually land other jobs. But for the first time in their lives, many are struggling to adapt to a lower standard of living. And the emotional toll can be just as burdensome. Most worked hard to get a good education only to discover what plenty of former manufacturing employees already know: Workers overseas can do their jobs for less money."There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina, chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., declared earlier this year. "We have to compete for jobs."
Humbling experience
Offshoring has come full circle for Mark, a 37-year-old with curly brown hair and a wide grin. Three years ago, his job was moved overseas. Now he spends his nights at his north Austin home collaborating with a group of programmers in Israel. The group is updating software used to help companies and entrepreneurs figure out whether their products will sell on eBay. The programmers perform the work, and Mark sends them sales data. The job pays $36,000, about half of what he earned at IBM. He and his family lack health insurance. And with Israel eight hours ahead, he stays up most of the night. During the day, he talks to his boss in Utah and other folks. But the software engineer isn't grumbling. He's relieved to be employed in the tech field again, especially since the small firm from Provo, Utah, that hired him is owned by one of his college buddies. A year ago, Mark rarely saw his wife and the two teenage girls he helped raise. He spent his days at natural gas fields in Colorado, Michigan and other states, setting up and moving pumps and other heavy equipment. His nights were spent sleeping in strange hotels. Most of the men he worked with hadn't gone to college. And the pay: $10 an hour plus overtime. It was the best he could do. When Mark lost his job in the midst of the tech slump, he couldn't find anything that would allow him to use his computer science degree from Brigham Young University. Employers were interested in hiring only foreign workers on H-1B visas. The months dragged on. One of his cars was repossessed. On the brink of losing his house and unable to hold off his creditors any longer, he filed for bankruptcy.
Moving on
The move allowed him to reorganize his finances and clear away enough debt to save his house. But it also frightened him, leading him to sign up for the oil services contracting job. "It was a humbling experience," says the Star Trek fan who grew up in Long Island, N.Y. "You start to really realize how fragile life is." It's the last thing Mark expected to happen when he decided to study computer science. "I wanted to go for a career that provided me with some security," he recalls. One day while out on the road, Mark received a call from one of his college pals, asking whether he'd be interested in a job. In October, he began working from home. Today, Mark is paying off medical bills for his family and struggling to make his property tax payments. He hasn't bought a pair of shoes for himself in more than a year. And like many other laid-off tech workers, he has lost his respect for corporate America. "It's really hurting the American people," he says of offshoring. "They are strip-mining society." But the turmoil in his life has yielded an unexpected benefit: a newfound appreciation for what he does have. His family has learned how to have fun the low-cost way – with barbecues and visits to state parks. "I don't think I take things for granted anymore," he says. "Life beats you down. You can either stay down or get back up and try to live."
Absorbing the shock
For Jerry, offshoring has been more of a one-way street heading south. For seven years, he was proud to work for Cadence Design Systems, a company in San Jose, Calif., that sells software used to design microchips, printed circuit boards and other items. A trim man with alert blue eyes and closely cropped hair, Jerry spent most of his time interacting with Cadence's customers. He taught them how to use the software and listened to their concerns. Most recently, he was in charge of making sure chipmaker Intel Corp., one of Cadence's biggest customers, received top-notch technical support. The questions he encountered often proved so complex that he needed a team of engineers to find the answers. The work was rarely dull. He never lacked for something to do. And he earned more than $100,000 a year. One day last August, after dropping off his daughter at the University of Arizona for her first year of college, Jerry returned to North Dallas to find an e-mail from his manager. Would he be at work the next day? The next morning he was told his job was moving to Noida, India. Cadence could hire three or four engineers for what they were paying him, Jerry learned. Until that point, Jerry hadn't thought much about offshoring. He knew Cadence wanted to staff a technical support center in India and had started eliminating jobs in the United States. But the University of Missouri electrical engineering graduate never thought one of those jobs might be his. "I had never been fired or laid off in my life," said the 43-year-old from St. Louis. "This kind of shocked me." He felt like he'd been pushed from a train. Once he got over the initial shock, Jerry started looking for another tech position. He quickly realized just how many people with master's degrees couldn't find work. His wife had just received her MBA and was also searching for a job. To prepare for the worst, the couple decided to sell their house in North Dallas, where they had lived for the last seven years. It sold the day they put it up for sale, at the asking price. The couple rented another house nearby so that their 14-year-old son wouldn't have to switch schools. With the money, they paid off debts and made some investments. Jerry got a few interviews, but nothing came of them. The one offer he got required him to travel more than 80 percent of the time. He turned it down. "My job is not worth my life," he says. In the meantime, he took some classes at the University of Texas at Dallas, passed an exam and got certified in project management.
New priorities
Without a job, Jerry started to take stock of his life. He realized that he had been working for his family and his company but not himself. If he had died the next day, he says, his tombstone would have read, "He was a good employee." Jerry began volunteering and networking with others who'd lost their jobs. He vows to make the next 20 years of his life more fulfilling. "I am not going to become a slave to some corporation," he says, still stinging from the memory of how he sang Cadence's praises before it dropped him. A few months ago, he walked into the office of a small engineering firm in Dallas. It was the first time he'd dared to drop into an office to leave his résumé and cover letter. He knew the owner from his days at Cadence. What do I have to lose? he asked himself. Today, Jerry is working part-time as a project manager for Circuitpac Corp. in Dallas, earning about a third of his former salary. He and his wife, who speaks fluent Spanish, hope to start their own business, selling computers to Hispanics. "I feel more stress than I used to," he says. "I'm still trying to figure out where Jerry is going to be a year from now." |
Now, explain to me, please - why would any U.S. student go to the trouble and expense of getting a Master's degree in a technical field when there is no demand?
But if we don't develop people with such expertise, what is to become of America - militarily, economically - in the next few years?
Are our children and grandchildren all to servants to Chinese and Indian overlords? That's where we're heading.
If you want on or off my offshoring ping list, please FReepmail me!
This is part of the employment picture that doesn't get enough attention, IMHO. It's not just outsourcing that's hurt folks in tech, but the H-1Bers and the L-1ers as well.
When I was going to school to get my CCNA, my college had an entire program specifically tailored to help H-1B types get further certifications. Upon learning of it, I thought why the hell even bother trying to educate myself further, if the freakin' college itself is cutting my throat with one hand, while taking my tuition check with the other?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
OMG! The poor man, having to associate with the dregs of society! /sarcasm
These kinds of anecdotal stories are interesting, but indicate nothing other than the fact that there is turmoil and change in the business world. So when has this ever been any different?
What happened to the employees of the candle-makers, the buggy-whip companies, and the astrologers? Oh, wait, they're still here, but in fewer numbers.
More significantly, there is no economic benefit derived from education. Ergo, there will be fewer people who bother to become educated.
Enjoy your sarcastic one-liners, but remember that America will lose its technological leadership - and with that loss, many other areas of leadership will fail.
That should make an interesting time for your children and grandchildren. And, quite possibly, for YOU.
"Life is difficult" - The first line in the book 'The Road Less Traveled' by Scott M. Peck.
Suggested new headline: "College techie discovers world doesn't owe him a living."
The issue is not the individual US worker; rather, it is the negative effect of such policy on maintaining America's technological lead.
Why should anyone to technical degree, given the situation discussed here? Long-term, that's a problem.
Or, perhaps we should title it: "Surviving on the plantation - why you should learn to pleasure your Chinese masters."
Not to worry; at the present rate, we will soon enjoy the benefits of dollar per hour wages. I wonder if the company cafeteria will occasionally include a fish head in our rice? Yummm!
Laid off in 2001, started my own company aimed at small companies who did not have an IT staff. Got bought out (maybe I sold a little too quickly). Sold new vehicles for about a year, and now back in IT with a vengeance.
Up and down. Isn't that how it's always worked?
$710.96.. The price of freedom.
Seemingly no one is loyal to America anymore. Not the corporations, which have long abused visa programs to hire foreign workers at much lower than prevailing salaries, and which now are moving their headquarters to Bermuda to avoid their share of the tax burdens all workers take for granted. Not the public either, which crowds the Wal-Marts buying the cheap DVD players and clothing imported from communist tyrannies.
."There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina, chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., declared earlier this year. "We have to compete for jobs."
Notice Carly still has a job? What do you want to bet that Carly is talking about you and me and not Carly.
"What happened to the employees of the candle-makers, the buggy-whip companies, and the astrologers? Oh, wait, they're still here, but in fewer numbers."
Apples and oranges. Buggywhips were no longer needed. Their use no longer existed. No on uses buggywhips anymore
The output of these outsourced jobs is still VERY MUCH a part of the economy.
Why should anyone to technical degree, given the situation discussed here? Long-term, that's a problem
There is too much buzzword jingoism: "Nanophase", Hydrogen energy", "MEMS", with many unworkable and some outright stupid publications that would not have survived a peer review 15 years ago.
If the situation is not addressed (And at present there is no motivation for the education industry to do so), expect further declines.
Excuse this rant from an old R&D whore..haha.
its interesting, during the boom years there were so many people jumping on the bandwagon and frankly earning far more than they were really worth based on what they were producing. you can have all sorts of technical skills and knowledge but if you cant make useful things and sell them and make money then you arent in business. when the crash came, so many incompetent people lost their jobs. people like me didnt. i wasnt the smartest or the best technically: i just made good products in a decent timeframe and people paid for them. simple.
from the experience with my current organisation, foreign outsourcing (to india in this case) isnt the best solution to every problem, its only certain kinds of work that is worth farming out to them and there is substantial local skills and jobs needed to help run these projects as well.
the fact is, if the people who were working all around me several years back in the good times were actually delivering value for money to their clients and customers then we wouldnt be in this situation. information technology failed business in a general sense (though many still are in denial about it) and this is the result. IT is only there to support business and our other endevours. we should never make the mistake of thinking we are more important than the people our technology enables.
Hey, it's a quality rant.
There's still innovative folks out there, but lots of the "worker bees" in the technical and scientific fields are not. One theory I have is that much of this homogenization of design comes from commonality of software (all designs start to look the same) and the manipulation of such. Formerly "back of the envelope" problem solving is done by pre-canned macro. I've found having to use serious brain time on a deadline wonderful for increasing one's innovative abilities (sort of like the old saying "the realization of being hung a dawn focuses one's attention.)
When I read horror stories like these, I again thank God I'm a federal government employee. We're not getting rich, but at least we've got job security and pretty good benefits, including a fully-funded pension program and the best health care program around -- and the latter is included in our retirement package. Every time I read stories like this, I know I made the right decision when I started my government career over 20 years ago.
Not to some people here... IT, like all aspects of the business world goes up and down.
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