The "G" Word
For those of you in the technical field, or the economic field for that matter, I came face to face today with the "G" word, and I didn't like what I saw. Not only did I not like what I saw, but it frightened me. As I was being frightened, it also woke me up to a harsh realization. Globalization is Evil. It is more of an evil word than "Racism".
Where I work, up until this week as a Manager, we went through a large organizational reorganization about 9 months ago. Part of this large reorganization was mobilizing about 600 people world wide into a department with the name "Global" in the title. As we've all become too familiar with, this is akin to the kiss of death for jobs here locally.
The way I see it, developing 3rd world countries are better suited to provide cheap labor cheaply. In todays volatile economic times, with gas around $3 a gallon depending on where you live, stocks going down, fed rates going up, companies are looking to cut corners where they can. I'm starting to believe my own conspiracy theory that within 5 years, America's main export will be Project Manager skills. We will no longer provide cool leading edge technology, great products we can use at home, or goods. What we will all be able to do is organize a project, line up the people to develop it, test it, manufacture it, provide the piece parts, ship it all for pennies on the dollar of what our founding fathers, grandfathers, fathers and all of us have been getting paid to do for years. I'm convinced, also part of my conspiracy theory, that several large companines in America would run the whole thing with 4 people in the states is they though they could get away with it. Bear in mind, these 4 people would be very wealthy as they wouldn't have to take care of their fellow countrymen who built the very companies they own, instead they'd be paying pennies to have the next wiz bang gizmo that saves our lived developed by somebody who'll never use that particular product in their mud hut.
Most of you will blame this on the Republicans, others of you will blame this on the Democrats, a few of you will blame it on the Conservatives, the Independents, everybody but the person standing in the mirror. You see it is up to the few of us with skills to take back our country, our customer service lines, our phone solicitations, our product lines, our manufacturing facilities. Let's bond together as a country to ensure that what we produce going forward isn't a generation of lazy fat kids who spend way too much time on here.
What I'm worried about with the G-word is what as a country we'll be known for in 10, 20, 30 years. What will the legacy of my generation and generation after us be? My parents had the moon, vietnam, the swinging 70's. Thus far in my adult life all we're known for is a president who can't keep his willie in his pants, a president who doesn't want us to recognize that we even have a willie, 9/11, MTV, and TiVo. At least we did something right...a wonderful device running on a collaboratively developed product that enables me to skip commercials, news teasers, and pick what I want to watch when I watch it.
I suppose you're wondering why this bothers me so much. Today I got a glimpse into the 2 year G-word plan, it came in the form of a layoff of about 5% of the folks. Usually this sort of thing is a culling of the low performers who needed a kick in the butt to jumpstart their careers. Today was different. Today we lost some good people with good skills working hard to deliver good products. Today, these folks had no idea this was coming. What kills me, besides getting demoted from management, is that this is only the beginning. As I looked around today in the big announcement meetings, I realized that 1 out of 2 of us won't be there in 2 years. Funny thing about growth and Globalization, most people forget that this country is part of that global economy and that we will continue to need growth here. Hopefully those of you reading this don't forget this the next time you're faced with a decision of doing something here or for pennies on the dollar in a far away land.
Gio
Where I work, up until this week as a Manager, we went through a large organizational reorganization about 9 months ago. Part of this large reorganization was mobilizing about 600 people world wide into a department with the name "Global" in the title. As we've all become too familiar with, this is akin to the kiss of death for jobs here locally.
The way I see it, developing 3rd world countries are better suited to provide cheap labor cheaply. In todays volatile economic times, with gas around $3 a gallon depending on where you live, stocks going down, fed rates going up, companies are looking to cut corners where they can. I'm starting to believe my own conspiracy theory that within 5 years, America's main export will be Project Manager skills. We will no longer provide cool leading edge technology, great products we can use at home, or goods. What we will all be able to do is organize a project, line up the people to develop it, test it, manufacture it, provide the piece parts, ship it all for pennies on the dollar of what our founding fathers, grandfathers, fathers and all of us have been getting paid to do for years. I'm convinced, also part of my conspiracy theory, that several large companines in America would run the whole thing with 4 people in the states is they though they could get away with it. Bear in mind, these 4 people would be very wealthy as they wouldn't have to take care of their fellow countrymen who built the very companies they own, instead they'd be paying pennies to have the next wiz bang gizmo that saves our lived developed by somebody who'll never use that particular product in their mud hut.
Most of you will blame this on the Republicans, others of you will blame this on the Democrats, a few of you will blame it on the Conservatives, the Independents, everybody but the person standing in the mirror. You see it is up to the few of us with skills to take back our country, our customer service lines, our phone solicitations, our product lines, our manufacturing facilities. Let's bond together as a country to ensure that what we produce going forward isn't a generation of lazy fat kids who spend way too much time on here.
What I'm worried about with the G-word is what as a country we'll be known for in 10, 20, 30 years. What will the legacy of my generation and generation after us be? My parents had the moon, vietnam, the swinging 70's. Thus far in my adult life all we're known for is a president who can't keep his willie in his pants, a president who doesn't want us to recognize that we even have a willie, 9/11, MTV, and TiVo. At least we did something right...a wonderful device running on a collaboratively developed product that enables me to skip commercials, news teasers, and pick what I want to watch when I watch it.
I suppose you're wondering why this bothers me so much. Today I got a glimpse into the 2 year G-word plan, it came in the form of a layoff of about 5% of the folks. Usually this sort of thing is a culling of the low performers who needed a kick in the butt to jumpstart their careers. Today was different. Today we lost some good people with good skills working hard to deliver good products. Today, these folks had no idea this was coming. What kills me, besides getting demoted from management, is that this is only the beginning. As I looked around today in the big announcement meetings, I realized that 1 out of 2 of us won't be there in 2 years. Funny thing about growth and Globalization, most people forget that this country is part of that global economy and that we will continue to need growth here. Hopefully those of you reading this don't forget this the next time you're faced with a decision of doing something here or for pennies on the dollar in a far away land.
Gio
posted by Juan Giovanni at 7:46 PM
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