Outsourcing

Yesterday a social conversation shifted toward the topic of outsourcing and how some radio/TV anchors portray outsourcing as a problem that is making their life hell. In this particular case, a TV anchor had bought a computer that for some reason stopped working and to his apparent surprise his call to the customer service was directed outside the US. Now, according to him the agent on the other side of the line was trying hard to understand the problem but because of his "funny" accent it was getting tough for our beloved host to communicate. The "funny" accent in the previous sentence belonged to the agent and not the radio host. That confuses me, if I'm the one trying to explain something, shouldn’t my accent determine if I'm getting my point across? I'm imagining a exasperated tech agent pulling his hair saying: "I don’t know what language this customer is using, but it definitely is not what I was trained in. Maybe I should ask him to use someone else to get his problem explained to me. Maybe someone who communicates in English a lot, maybe a radio talk show host. Now wait, did he say he was one? How do people listen to him?"

Then the host went on to make a point that he wants American agents handling his problems. That would really take the language problem out of the scene, wouldn’t it. Except the fact that the whole computer is being made up of parts that originate from all the corners of the world but America, someone in these countries will have to sit with a potential American tech support agent and tell him how the whole thing works so that he, in turn, can help the others in trouble. Again, the language barrier. I have a solution, educate yourselves a bit: you can be better show host when you address a bigger audience and know the nuances of different accents and while you are at it get some computer education as well and find out what happens when you press more than one button simultaneously on the keyboard. You will be surprised that is anatomically possible and solves a lot of your computer problems. You might even get some exercise in the process, and boy: do you need that!!