Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Not cool, Ken. Not cool.

My offhanded crack in the snake post about my job going to India reminded me of a recent moment when I wondered, "what the hell were you thinking?!"

This requires a bit of background. The company I work for used to be in another county. A few years ago, they moved here to take up residence in a spiffy new building (with a leaky roof and urinals that flushed with hot water, but that's another story), renting 1.5 of its 2 floors.

Yay Howard County — you stole 200+ jobs from a neighboring county!

Meanwhile, the company was cultivating a relationship with another company in India. Then the two companies got financially entangled. Then a third party came along and bought the whole shebang. The third party just happens to be a tight-fisted ^%$&*^% that has managed to run off about 40% of the employees here — and doesn't really give a rip, because the people in India will work cheaper (until the dollar tanks — but, again, that's another story).

So, they've given back one-third of the previous floor space here. And ~40% fewer employees are spending their lunch, gas, and after-work $$$ in Howard County. [March 2010: the old office is now down to less than half of one floor, and the estimated 40% job loss is probably close to double that figure.]

I'm passing through the lobby of some local establishment a few months back, and the headline on the local free biz paper screams at me:

HOWARD EXECUTIVE LEADS INDIA TRADE MISSION


accompanied by a pic of our handsome young exec smiling as he shakes hands with a bewildered-looking Indian fellow, who represents a company with a storefront here in HoCo that sends all the actual work to India.

The story tried reeeeeallllly hard to make it sound like this little junket benefited the county.... but I saw very little in there that didn't amount to us selling them the rope to hang us with.

I don't blame the Indian people for taking whatever jobs they can get. If idiot Yanks are willing to send dollars over there by the bargeload, it's not their fault. But we elect our politicians to at least make a pretense of protecting us, rather than blatantly giving away the store.

Every time I pass by a pod of empty cubes in our once-bustling office, Kenny U.'s little photo op flashes in front of my eyes. It'll be stuck to my eyelids when I go to the ballot box, too.

No comments:

Post a Comment