OUTRAGED OVER OUTSOURCING

Yesterday I had to call my electricity provider in order to set up a new rate for my yearly contract. The deal here in Texas is you can compare the rates of various suppliers and switch to a better rate, if you so choose. The reason I had moved from my supplier for 20 years was because while raising their rates 35% they simultaneously began outsourcing 3000 Dallas jobs to India for customer service. I was so outraged after calling to have my meter read one summer and reaching a customer service agent in India who had no means of satisfying my request, that I wrote a letter to the editor at the Dallas Morning News, which was published, and got many thumbs up from other readers.

I dialed the phone number on my notice and was answered by a heavy foreign accent. I knew it wasn't Indian or Phillipino, for I now immediately recognize theirs when I call certain airlines or banks. I asked 'Jesus' where he was and he answered. "Mexico." Although I am delighted that we are finally creating some jobs in nearby Mexico, which might slow the increase of immigration of Mexicans looking for jobs in the U.S., I am not so sure this is the type job we should be creating anywhere but in the U.S. My experience was a nightmare.

First of all, I am a certified ESL teacher (English as Second Language) who teaches English to foreigners at night as a service to my community. The speaking of Spanish is the opposite of the speaking of English. English speakers use hard consonants, stretch their mouths to enunciate, and push their words in an outward direction when enunciating. Spanish speakers, on the other hand, use a connective lagato in quickly melding their words together, swallowing their words during pronunciation, and have almost no hard sounds within their language. I could not understand a word that Jesus was saying while he was attempting to speak English.

When I asked him to please slow down and try to enunciate a bit more, he was insulted. When I finally asked to speak to someone in the U.S. or someone who spoke American English, he stated that no one at the Mexican call center had the capability to connect me with someone in the U.S. to help me. (Many of the other outsourced call centers have at least gotten smart, so when you ask to speak to someone in the U.S. they will transfer you immediately.) Jesus told me I would just have to keep calling back over and over and going through their six minutes of pre-prompts on the telephone and hope that I reached an American.

And it wasn't just the accent, I assure you. When I would ask questions about my bill and what charges I could expect in changing plans, he told me that he was unable to answer those questions though he was looking at my bill on his computer. When I asked him what the specific charges on my bill were for, he said he didn't have that information and I would have to contact the central grid provider (which is absurd!) I spent one hour of my life with Jesus and got absolutely no information and he said there was no supervisor at his call center. When I was finally switched by Jesus to Jorge, I got the same answers. They said, "the escalation desk is somewhere in the U.S. but we don't know how to connect you."

After hanging up, I looked up the Houston, Texas number for the home office of Reliant Energy Company and spoke with Yvette. Yvette was American, efficient, courteous. I had all of my questions answered quickly, signed up for my new rate plan after comparing a couple of options, and all was completed in less than 15 minutes. Now I really have no idea, but let's just speculate that Yvette makes $12.50 an hour or a little less. The difference in the quality of the customer service was incomparable. There is no amount of savings that could benefit any bank, airline, or electric company enough to justify outsourcing our U.S. jobs. Time and efficiency is worth a great deal to most Americans.

And, this is a job that Americans would be more than willing to accept. It is often said that the jobs that are outsourced or given to immigrants are those Americans refuse to take. Well, that may be true with landscaping or domestic work, but it certainly is not with call center work. As I drive around and look at all the empty "big boxes" (such as, closed down oversized grocery stores in old strip centers), I realize how they could so easily be put to use as call centers for all sorts of businesses in many U.S. cities. I, also, realized that at night large offices with banks of telephones used during the day, could be used as call centers at night by another crew. If they are going to keep the lights on in these skyscrapers anyway, then why not put the offices to work to keep jobs here in the U.S.

Businesses must begin thinking about the U.S. worker and not just their shareholder's bottom line. The shareholders are also getting hurt on the other side in taxes, due to our current increase in joblessness in American. This is not going to be solved merely by stimulus plans, but is going to need the cooperation of responsible businesses keeping our jobs in the U.S., not outsourcing them to save a buck. If they need an incentive, then the U.S. should start putting a tariff on every company that outsources jobs that could be performed in America. In order to move to another country one must obtain a green card and the employer must show that only a foreigner can do that particular job. Otherwise, the employer must hire someone from his own country first. So, it should be the same with outsourcing. Only if you cannot get enough Americans hired right here in the U.S. to fill the job openings, should a company be allowed to outsource our jobs.