P.C. & Tech Support

The weather has turned cold, though the days are once again graced with sunshine.  We motored to Palo Alto in the afternoon for shopping.  Christmas shopping.

How quickly Christmas returns, and what a furor in the media appertaining to the 'political correctness' of abandoning any reference to the Christian holiday.  Secular and humanistic though I am, I can see nothing in the least offensive about the use of 'Christmas', a term so deeply embedded in our history and culture that any mandatory removal of it, in response to the questionable agendas of those advocating its obliteration, seems absurd.  If it ain't broke, I say, don't fix it.  There are many other things that need to be fixed, not the least of which are our porous borders, and the sad state of the educational system in our country.

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Technical support.  Time was when, after acquiring a new computer or peripheral hardware or software, you found you needed technical help, the toll-free number you called would get you a resident of these United States.  Not so today.  Chances are that a response from a vendor to your plea for technical help, whether on the phone or through online chat, would come from someone located in South Asia.  The same is true in the case of calls regarding non-computer issues, such as with medical billings, appliance warranties, and the like. So not only have U.S. manufacturing jobs taken a big, big hit through outsourcing to foreign countries, it's becoming clear that more and more of our service jobs are headed overseas.

Are the skills there?  To be honest about it, my experience has been that it's a mixed bag. You may occasionally get a guy or gal in India or Bangladesh who is reasonably competent, both in the English language and in technical savvy.  Or you may get someone who is deficient in both areas, which would almost certainly lead to much frustration.  Would a techie in the U.S. do better?  Again, it's a mixed bag, but the odds are in favor of his or her having better language skills to address the issue at hand.  

Now, whether a bored guy sitting in front of a computer on the graveyard shift in Bangalore, India or Bangor, Maine, will correct whatever your problem might be in the course of a five-minute conversation, after you have waited twenty-three minutes 'for the next available technical representative because your call is important to us' while listening to loopy Muzak is a question you may want to pose to the Intelligent Designer Somewhere Out There.