Supporting our replacements?

i know for a fact that i schooled the last tech support person from Dell that i called..... its got an DDR400 dual channel capable mobo, so why can't i get it to run DDR400 OR dual channel?

"Dual channel mode?" (thats how it is listed in the bios) "I am sorry i am not familiar with that term, can you explain it to me?" www.tomshardware.com, www.anadtech.com www.hardocp.com take your pick, how about you guys figure it out yourselves...

you may be correct, i may have been shooting myself in the foot as far as aquireing employment.... just by helping out other noobs who i had no idea were doing the job i want with less then half the skill that i have.

But not in what country they are as it is entirely irrelevant to myself. When companies in Vancouver started outsourcing, I decided to do my own thing instead and became a contracted Network Admin. My job cannot be performed from anywhere but here, most redundant duties are perfromed from my kitchen, but I am needed quite often for site visits or a couple of days on site after performing major network changes just to help staff.

I am more concerned about helping people with exam quastions though, many of these people enter the industry unskilled and only by scraping through tests and barely have a clue about networks, but can obtain an MCSE anyway.

They then flood the market with VERY low priced support rates in a desperate attempt to find work. It makes it harder and harder for the GOOD techs to charge reasonable rates as the newwbies with no experience hit the market.

Now, MCSE's have no direct effect on MY line of networking (which is Novell based) but I do have friends that are MCSE's that see this all the time.

Usually the customer comes around in the long run, if it costs less but takes three time as long to resolve issues, the client will usually pay more for better/faster work.

As for Where they are, I couldn't care less. If someone asks a question that I think I can help with, I will always offer the reply, no matter who's job they have competed for and won.

The people doing the work aren't the ight people for you to take out your frustrations on at all. They just like you are simply seeking employment. The company that outsourced your job to begin with would be a reason for unrest but you just have to move on and find something else to do. What's to stop you changing careers entirely and looking for a whole new field of work? Why pigeonhole yourself to a single career and let yourself be caught in these issues.

If my job went east, I would start fixing cars full time again, or go back into sales or sales management. Hell, when I was out of work one summer, I learned how to clean chimneys, bought some brushes and started knowcking doors until I paid the rent.

Why must we spite those that fill a position, they didn't create the job, they filled an opening.

Do you really think that by not helping people that you wuill recreate your postition? Of course not. Therefore, find something else to do if you ae bitter at the IT world, it's a new career choice not something we have done for 50 years, who cares if the bottom falls out.

My father was a highly skilled tradesman with MANY trade certifications under his belt, I learned at an early age, do what you need to do, do what you want to do, but don't do something because you can't do anything else.

You pose an interesting question and discussion to which I know I'm going to follow up on thanks to TechRepublic. I never thought to look at it from your perspective, but I know its possible.

Like you said, we learn from others and our mistakes, however, I also know that offshore partners (term used loosely) usually don't use sites like this. Unless they are Visa'd or HB'd, I'd think those offshoring non-native-english-speaking companies wouldn't bother (too hard to translate? who knows). However, those HB's and Visa's within the US just may.

I support any/all ONSHORE home grown american work. I even made another comment to this in "Whats new in IT" within the General Discussions. I quote:" keep our nations technology power here within the Nation. Pay a few extra beans for the quality, and keep America strong."

BTW - Dell is continuing to bring support back to the US. Good Luck man. Post the resume, send it my way.

Its all part of the Globalization of IT - The less technical work will go to the lowest cost areas. Then you get the Globalization development (3 time zone - developer in each zone - 24 hour development in 24 hours) ...

You aren't going to stop it - the flood gates have been opened - and the Government can't do anything (Kerrys plan yea that will work NOT) .. Corporations will do what is best for the corporation - you is But and get this - A HUMAN RESOURCE - Just like a Typewriter - or Laptop - Just a Resource... to be tossed or abused as they see fit...

So get ready - it has only begun ... first to India - then to some 3rd world country ...

And Smile when you train your replacements - otherwise the corporation will make sure you get no unemployement or severance pay..

How do we say - BEEN THERE - TRAINED THEM - DONE THAT - GOT LAID OFF - OUTSOURCED - TRANSISSIONED - TERMINATED - Whatever you call it - Been there and done that ...

Answering these questions should not be seen as training for someone else. Look at the nature of the answers that are provided. If it is a simple yes/no or specifying a command to run to get someone out of trouble then we are probably not giving away to much.
Training is much more than simply reading a book. True knowledge is based on real world experiences and that is something that the outlanders that might man those help desk centres are not going to get while sitting on the end of a phone.
We have all benefitted at some time from being mentored or gained experience and skills in the right environment. Others deserve that opportunity too, but this requires face to face contact not as a voice on the end of the phone or even on the Net. If the committment is there, I say share what you have and we will all be better off.

I find it hard to believe that by anwsering questions here can train someone up. It can help the process, but nothing can substitute for real experience. The guys asking to do complex tasks with little or no experience, are doomed to fail anyway. Even if they have the slightest understanding of the anwser.

The tech questions here have helped me out plenty times before, but I wouldn't be working in IT if I had to rely on TR completely to solve my problems. In fact if you're relying on TR to solve every problem you have then you're going to be stuck as a tier 1 helldesk support monkey for the rest of your life.

The problem is really a matter of perspective. Stress Junkie actually perceives it as a problem in his local 'geography'. What is missed here is the fact that his (and ours too) job was and is supported by the sum of all parts. Were it not for overseas sales of the technology that he claims as apparently his own, he probably would have lost his job much sooner. Beep beep.

Your "overseas, incompetent" replacements may be of different (hair) color, sex, height and so on, but what makes them incompetent? Aren't you just hating people who earn far less than you or what?

I recommend this book to everyone! It will only take about 30 mins to read. It changes one's outlook somewhat! ISBN 067104334X

No one's job is for life any more. Jobs are done by whoever is cheapest - whether "overseas" or "newly qualified". No one can rest on their laurels. Computer moves forward so fast that having 5 years experience equates to 20 years experience. So why pay the high salaries for more experienced staff?

If I get a foreign sounding telephone support service I change supplier or email them.

If this were any other industry would anyone in the forum break a sweat? We should shoot the FSF, Linux and GNU immediately if you're that paranoid.

The market moves for you and against you. You're effectively begrudging another society the ability to aspire to all the qualities you hold dear and advocating dragging back your local economy to boot.

You have skills and talent to sell. You need to market them so the added value of your locality is more apparent. Support lines are a case of this: it's communication based and emotive and people are more comfortable with a local supplier - that has value. Think seriously about your career direction and how you can add more value where you are or continue to follow heart and realise the market has moved and is not as soft a place as it once was.

Read economics, politics and history. Its all happened before and will all happen again.

In Australia.
I started my own business supporting companies in 0 to 20 user bracket. Lots of work for some one with broad range of competancies.
I can pull down & rebuild the hardware on a PC to set up 20 user network. Carry a few network cards etc in the car boot after a while they will pay more $200 more for a PC from you than a Malaysian built Dell, simply because the decision makers like you, (and yeah you dont ask too many questions about the 'foreign' PC that is full of Virus damage cos the kids go on music sites)
I have lots of customers not one, will work through the night onsite at times, charge what I want (but don't screw them)
There is work out there and once you set up their site for remote monitoring & support I don't leave my Home office for days but still make money,
Yes offshoring will work for huge companies, small like to have personal contact, thats where they come from too
After a while waiting in a que and having some foreign worker who you have to explain things to 3 times cos they cannot understand English/Spanish/French/ grates to any one
Greg

I think the author in a way answered his own question "My own career success has been greatly enhanced from other people helping me by sharing their technical skills.". I think this is the greater good and should be allowed to flourish. If someone takes selfish advantage of using the free help found in this forum that is just one of the downsides found with any good thing. One never knows how providing someone with help will come back to the giver someday with a dividend. At least the helper will benefit from keeping his skills sharp and perhaps some potential employer reading these discussions will take notice.

Hi junkie.

You may be right about that.

Only when the companies realize that the quality of services in the new offshore rep. office is ALWAYS not up to standard, will they think about switch back to home countries. That seldom happens, unless the cost of living at home countries will be lower or same as the developing country (what a joke!! A country needs to suffer from continuous deflation in order to compete with developing countries.....??)

I feel the same. However, have you ever thoughts about selling your skills to overseas companies? are you ready to work at night (in order to cope with the time difference) and get your pay via teletransfer from a company in Asia? etc. etc.

Think positive. When someone can "export" their skills, why not you become one of them?

Tech. skills may probably one of the best "product" for globalization.

Like many, I have benefited greatly from the knowledge of others and fully believe that knowledge should be shared. I don't see how I can do most of my job without doing that.

Someone (non IT) I used to work with used to say to me "I'm going to learn as much as you about IT and computers" and at first it scared me a little, but then when I sat down and thought about it I realised that I had been 'doing' computers for about ten years on and off and that it would take him at least a few years to catch up with where I was then, but of course in those few years I would have advanced further (with hindsight much more than expected) and so I stopped worrying and started to feed him more titbits which made my life easier at the time.

I think this raises two points. Firstly the people who threaten your job aren't neccessarily those abroad or from certain (other) countries.

The second point is that realistically, how long has it taken to get to where you are, even assuming you worked as hard as you possibly could and learnt as quickly as you possibly could, I bet it's a good few years. These guys are going to take the same amount of time or longer (and they probably don't have access to the resources that you did, the difference may be that the Internet is now used to disseminate information) - and how much more knowledge will you have by then. By the time these guys have learnt this stuff there will have been so many complaints to a corporation that they may well have ceased outsourcing support.

There will be a need for tech support for the forseeable future, if you are having trouble finding something suitable, have you considered widening your outlook slightly or diversifying a little. I've recently been on a SQL Server course with two older guys who have gone from being the local mainframe database guru to a junior DBA. While they were finding it hard, they also knew that they had learnt many trasnferable skills

A couple of months ago I subscribed to a Security Newsletter. The info contained in it is intermediate level security info. With it comes the email of posts to their forums. The questions are almost entirely non-american\european names. With questions like " How do I enable Auditing in W2K3?" " what is a port" How do I know if a trojan is running? It is obvious that these people do not have the level of knowledge of even a well versed user and they are stealing the jobs that many of us paid tens of thousands of dollars to secure ( I still owe on my student loans How about you?)

Nick:
I agree with your post, but have to add that from my experience, the Afrikaners and Argentines are (or were) more arrogant.
This is no excuse for the arrogance of many Americans just an observation.

If you think outsourcing is new look around you. Outsourcing has been going in various forms for decades. Look around the aisles in Walmart, every one of those items could have been (and most used to be) manufactured in the good ol' US of A. Not anymore. Why do think this is so? Walmart would rather buy these goods from China/Mexico/Bangladesh because they are manufactured at a tenth of the cost. Do you think twice before buying any of those items. You go to Walmart especially because it is so cheap to stock up from there.

The same thing happened in the Auto industry a couple of decades back. What car do you drive? It happened to the Steel Industry before that. And it will continue to happen again.

The same is happening in the IT industry. It just so happens that the IT crowd today can start such discussions on the Internet. This ability to gripe to the whole world from the comfort of your desk is a new phenomenon. But that doesnt change the economics of outsourcing and offshoring. And the hard reality is that this is going to continue.

By the way, you are mistaken in thinking that IT folks in India (or one of the other 3rd world countries) are underpaid. They are most likely to be the highest paid employees in that country. Their salaries seem low compared to US salaries because of something called 'cost of living'. How much did your lunch cost you? Can you buy a complete wholesome lunch for less than a dollar in the US? You can do just that in any one of these ?offshoring? countries. That is why when they get paid a sixth of a US salary they are still happy since that is more than what the anyone else in that country earns.

A last word ? do know who was manning US helpdesk before India stepped in? Most banks and credit card companies had setup large helpdesk enterprises inside US prisons. This was because prisoners were paid between $1-$5 for doing this work. Talk about cheap labor.

You may be right but the coin has 2 sides there are people out here that actualy use the information passed on in these forums to perform jobs not involving outsourcing. I have been around since tape readers and card readers and alto I have tested high in school pretests I have neither the time or inclinarion to persue a career in the I.T. field (at my age I just don't see a good chance of finding employment that will cover the cost of the school loans and support my family at the same time.) But I still find that there are many helpful solutions posted here for all I.T pros to use, as well as us "power users" so please be aware that if you limit your answers based on Alias names then you might be silently defeating the purpose of the site altogether, And that would be a darn shame because my grandson reads these postings on my system an has expressed a intrest in a career in the field(quite bright for a 14 yr. old) maybe When I get to old for my job I'll look at schooling (just for fun) but untill that day I'll just have to muddel my way through with your guy's help.

What incredible arrogance. Only Americans are technically competent? Please!

Do you only read and act on replies from Americans? This is a global forum. The knowledge sharing goes both ways.

If I have a question, I can ask the people in Ops or search the web. Both yield answers.

A competent user in darkest Africa.

ok, you probably got me wrong there(and a few stats as well).
I dont deny that people's jobs are being replaced.
I was emphasising that knowledge sharing isn't bad. We wouldnt be where we are today, if there was no knowledge sharing. Anyway knowledge cannot be encapsulated n thrown into cold storage with restricted access.. i think the intel agencies can testify to that.
What I was saying was,
Not every Indian/Chinese/Filipino asking a techies question (I dunno about this forum, I hvnt really checked it out) it doesnt mean he/she is out to get your job!

"But when I get someone on the line trying to help me and I can't understand his 'English', it doesn't help me at all."
well, what do I say.. I hv never quite got the american or the aussie accent either.. i can barely cope with it.

Well, as I said before, I dont really know what this forum's about, I only check in here if I find an interesting/controversial comment.

Well, lets face it, life and economics arent fair.
let me illustrate, do you think its fair that tropical countries(like India, all of Africa, etc.,) bear the brunt of Climate Changes induced by greenhouse emissions from the industrialised ones? (USA contributes 25%, europe 24% and japan 22%, of emissions worldwide)

so lets not get into fair/unfair debate, or for that matter into geopolitics/history. its a no-win situation.

Yes, the wages IT workers or ITES workers get are MORE than fair wages, and yes we can take care of our family on that(i just hope my employer doesnt read this!!).

Would you rather work in a dingy polluted factory earning your square meals or would you rather die from hunger? (again..this discussion will lead to geopolitics and, I am afraid, if we go into that, I can very well prove that the victims are people of the "third" world.)

end of the day, would you rather buy that sportscar whatever for 20K or for 10K..better still wouldnt you want it for 5K or lesser? so also with companies. and companies are BUILT on greed. so whatever gets them more money is great for them

I can speak for myself, my starting salary was about 350$ a month. and if i hadnt been extravagant with that I would hv had atleast +ve net worth by now.:D
it was among the middle rungs of the scale for a newbie.. lower rungs is around 210$

Yes, social security is not great cos we cant afford it(you hv to have an economy much bigger than USA's to fund it for 1.2 billion or so people), and World Bank/ IMF and other bodies advice is to reduce that too.

I cant really comment on TechRepublic, anything specific that makes you want to say you wont answer questions in here?

There's been more outsourced to the Chinese than to India, even now. You have a hell lot more of $$ going to China via outsourcing than India.

I cant speak for the chinese. But from whatever lil I hv seen of our Industry, I can tell you, that original engineering effort is made. and quite a bit of that effort can be called world class.

btw, who exactly is a redneck?

Here's an example of the low cost => low quality...

I recently purchased a HP computer. Loaded most of the Pre-SP2 drivers, but missed one. Had a restart problem. HP's offshore tech support wanted me to re-image the machine and start all over with the apps I had installed. I told him NO WAY. I uninstalled SP2, loaded the missed driver, reinstalled SP2 and all is well. This is a classic case of the most expediant "scripted" approach VS. what is right for the customer!

LOW COST == LOW QUALITY!

"Americans ... don't understand why anybody would want to speak any language other than American and won't believe you can't understand them when they speak to you."

I go to buy something. I identify a product I like and find a company doing business in my country. All the sales and marketing literature promoting the product is prepared using the local language. The shipping documents accompanying the product are in my language, and in particular the bill or invoice is in my language. The company readily accepts the currency of my country.

Why is it acceptable for the company to change the linguistic interface as soon as they have extracted my money?

(Note: While this post is in English, the concept really applies to any life form in the universe and the respective local linguistic interface.)

May be your right, however: you assume that Americans are the only people that can produce tech gurus. This is a faulty assumption. I've met a lot of sharp foriegn techs. The Chinese excel in math and science. The foriegn workers are not at fault for taking our jobs, the fault is with multi-national corps. who exploit these workers and in turn exploit us.

Tech new hires and wannabes (including many of us in times past) have always depended on boards like this one to tap the experience of others to get the job done. We have always been potentially training our replacements and competitors in the job market.

The only difference noted in the current discussion is the apparent country of origin of certain participants today.

These folks are doing the same thing we have done, and it's not any of our faults that companies seek to improve their balance sheets by getting us to compete with each other for available jobs, bidding down the wages in the process.

That's always been our common condition as wage workers, no matter what the job or how high the salary. We compete with each other in a market controlled largely by the buyers of labor power.

This is just part of the big changes that keep making the world a smaller place. Bigger changes are coming, and we need to know that we can count on each other, no matter what color or gender we are or where our mother was when we were born.

We only shoot ourselves in the foot if we subscribe to corporate propaganda that is politically designed to get us to shift the blame for this state of affairs onto our colleagues in other countries who face the same questions of survival that we do.

While I think it is tough to lose your job and have to train someone to do your job, that is just the way it is.

But what I would be interesting in seeing is the people who make the decision to outsource, whether overseas or not, that they would also be agreeable to outsourcing their jobs as well.

I've not seen yet where the people who say "it is the best approach for the company to stay profitable to outsource" to also include their job in the outsourcing event.

Interesting how their jobs are too important to outsource.

I also loathe the idea that I may be training someone who took my job a couple of years ago. I find myself noticing the "written lingo", and basing my decision to contribute an answer on that...but often, my professionalism takes over, and....
BTW, congrats to Dell for bringing jobs back over. I got my start in IT as telephone tech support when they first launched the Dimension and Precision lines - on Braker Lane in Austin, long before they moved to Round Rock.

A subcontractor that does a lot of web work for the company I work at has outsourced a lot to a company in India, and I've had (too much) experience in dealing with these guys now.

Basically, you get what you pay for when you offshore your IT work. They are cheap ($1000 per month gets you a full-time developer in this case), but they are really only good for work that requires no imagination, no real problem-solving skills and even so they do require considerable oversight and review of their work.

The owner of the company in India pointed out to me that he had people who were trained on database programming (SQL specifically) in high school and who had over 10 years of experience each in the field. And these guys can write a simple select statement, a few normal joins, an update or insert or delete procedure.

Ask them to put some flow control, a few case statements, a conditional join, a complex IF condition, and instead of 10 years experience, I get stuff that produces either bad results or no results.

Tell them "here's the form we used on the old CRM database, copy that functionality but on the new data structure", and I get a form that looks pretty much exactly like the old one, but which loses vast amounts of functionality. It requires an imagination and some creative ability.

So, if you're trying to determine if the tech questions are being asked by offshore tech personnel, look for questions that require problem solving, project definition, deep understanding of how code works and why, etc.

Questions like that aren't going to be a specific "how do you query a recordset in VBS?" kind of thing. They'll be in terms of "I have a project that requires me to track changes in a database and trigger events on that. I've set up workflow in the MS SQL server, but I don't know what kinds of things to track. Any suggestions?" That kind of "help me figure out WHAT to do", as opposed to "help me figure out HOW to do it". If you see WHAT TO DO type questions, you are probably safe in assuming it's more likely to be offshore techs asking.

At least, that's my experience with these guys. Admittedly, my experience is limited to 1 company for less than 1 year, but I've heard the same kind of thing from other companies that have offshored development.

You may have a point, but choosing to live under a cynical pall will not serve you well. I encourage you to remember a few things: 1) The person you're helping is usually not the only one who gains in the exchange. You gain as well -- whether from the additional research you do prior to issuing your reply, or from the development/reinforcement of interpersonal skills necessary to politely and concisely help them. 2) If the issue of helping a potential competitor bothers you, you do not need to give them the entire answer. The point here is not to be pissy or passive aggressive with them, but to genuinely give them enough information (so that they can research the rest), and to be upfront in telling them you're doing so. Good luck to you.

Seriously, you have no sure way of knowing who you're helping. As you said yourself, you've learned quite a bit from forums similar to TR's...should the possibility that you're assisting your replacement keep you from helping others who were in the position you were in once? That's your decision, but I don't think that helping others in need of assistance is going to hurt you or contribute to the bigger problem of overseas outsourcing. Actually, by NOT HELPING you're probably going cause more people to turn to phone-based support as a last resort.

Personally, I'd much rather post to a forum and do my own leg-work than wait on the phone for Haji or Mujibur to pull out their Pakistani-to-English dictionary to look up their translation for "press the reset button".

Do something else. Use your call center experience (I'm assuming) to move on to something better. A long time ago, I used to work as tech support / customer service with a large consumer electronics company and my job got outsourced, too. It was my first "real" job, but I learned alot from it. To this day I still call upon and put into use the experience and knowledge I gained from that job into my current job.

Bear in mind that customers vote with their dollar. When it gets to the point where a company's customer base is diminishing because their support s**ks, the company will change the way things are done just to keep the money coming in.

Companies like Dell have used their rep for providing excellent support as a selling point for years...now that their support has been less than stellar for awhile & they're shutting down call centers, they are losing their position as one of the top sellers in the field. Personally, I avoid dealing with Dell now just because of bad past experiences with their support.

I guess that I got off topic on what I was trying to say. I was trying to make the point that we as I.T. have to answers to the problems that face the company, find cheap and reliable solutions, and provide support for those solutions. Today, alot of I.T. people that I work have a hard time with simple troubleshooting, and rather send it to second level or third level support.

He is the only candidate with a plan to address this issue. That is the beauty of America, you can change the governmental policies you dislike with your vote.

Who is on this forum trying to keep his small company up and running.

Due to economic reasons, his company cannot afford full time IT personnel at the wages they deem finacially adequate, and they often find it politically degrading to have multiple vocations (do more than one job function, and not computer related), and his company has already tried the intra-US outsourcing routine only to find that it is just as miserable as the bigger companies off-shore junk, so they are starting to depend on their own "Power Users" to keep things running.

These people will not have the training, will be lacking knowledge in basic areas and may not have very good troubleshooting skills.

You are in a catch 22 here. You aren't going to get your job back because the expected wages are too high and not providing that knowlege puts someone lower on the ladder at a disadvantage which hurts the economy and guarantees you are not going to get your job back.

As to worrying about the "foreign them", they aren't as stupid as you think and will gain the knowledge you think to protect in other ways.

You have already seen this with the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers, remember all the jokes way back when, "Japanese junk quits quickly", "Tin Can Automobiles, open the door and read the beer lables on the inside". Watch any news footage lately? 10 to one, you will see a Toyota in the picture, overseas in the outback of the world, that ratio gets closer to 2 to one. This is not the only industry where that has happened. It all begins with imitation and ends with innovation.

I've talked to Pakistanis who better understand how a computer motherboard works than most American computer techs. They have been doing this stuff for a decade or more now, so they're probably not getting more stupid.

Should you help? Totally up to you, but collaboration means just that. I really understand your frustration, but I've heard too much about thew greed of 'paper MCSE' to sympathize a lot. I was one of those, and got lambasted with that title. I spent 4 months, 8 hours a day on a training program hammering out the training modules to get my MCSE. It was paid for by a job retraining program because the manufacturing company that I worked for went under. I also spent a month geting my A+ cert.
I did not exagerate my qualifications, and for my first job was put in break fix to season me. 2 years later when the break fix contract was not renewed, I was gone, having gain no experieance in software. I finally have a job learning those things at a small shop.
There is only one place to get experience, that is to get that firs job and work. Am I to be slammed for wanting to have skills BEFORE I seek work? Am I to be labled greedy because I don't want to flip burgers. I already know how to show up on time, not hung over, willing to work. I have two degrees, and have managed operations.
Being able to learn and pass test is a plus. Or was unimportant to my previous empolyer, who to sell a large order of Toshiba laptops, gave me 4 working days to start from scratch to become certified on the things, while studying to recertify my ASE and prep for W2K school?
We are all in this together. Half the discusions I see on this sight are about dealing with management, career and personel issues. Should those of us with that insight and experience keep our mouths shut?

As the title says; yes they do learn from us the people they will be replacing. They also form strong and very widespread networks within their own group. They can get contacts with other Indians or whomever who are either working in the United States or working for an offshore firm somewhere else. They don't mind doing some stuff we might find ethically daunting like sharing training cds that cost us $$$$$. I have noticed on several projects I have worked on where there were up to 30 Indian resources brought in that most of the resources probably didn't know anything about the subject matter. They of course would not speak english, at least until they learned a little of the subject matter. This is the most frustrating part to me. Because when I'm trying to find a job the hiring manager expects a US citizen to be perfectly qualified or its a nogo. There is no opportunity to learn on the job for a US citizen.

US citizens who believe that a 'free enterprise' system is the way to go live in an idealistic world. Every country has some restrictions that protect their own people except those that have nothing to loose (e.g. most 3rd world or developing countries). I agree with your thoughts on the subject and, at some point, we have to protect our own lives. Go for it dude!

Is a pretty dumb idea. You're blaming the wrong person. He's just trying to make a living. Additionally, you are slowing progress and helping to encourage selfishness.

I think (in my ideological little mind), that by sharing information, and fostering that spirit of cooperation and sharing and generosity, that we can:
1) Create a smarter global population
2) Reduce the power and influence that the wealthy few have over the "starving masses"
3) Maybe even generate a counter-culture that isn't so obsessed with self and self(over)-indulgence.

You want to truly do something about your job loss? Then stop supporting companies that take advantage of cheap labor in third-world countries. Stop supporting industries and organizations that make a practice of overindulgance. (ie stop supporting multi-million dollar actors and atheletes, and start supporting teachers).

Yeah, I know big dreams... better to aim for the stars and miss, than to aim for a pile of poop and hit it...

Several forums I look at appear (note, it was not stated by the asker) to have outsourced help desks coming to the forum to get help. Since most of our help on these forums is/was from the same tech support people who LOST their jobs to the outsourced group apparently asking the questions, it does make one wonder about who/what is getting the outsourced contracts.

This in no way demeans 'third world' countries since many of their people appear to be better educated on the average then the US, but are those people the ones getting the support for the masses jobs?

Now I know that some people have posted 'it is global IT', but outsourcing to a place that needs to get help from the people who lost the job is not global, but greed. You hate to say stop helping people in the forums for that is one thing the net was meant to be used for and the innocent will get squished along with the incompetents.

(yes, I know I did not give an answer, but I do not think there is one as long as greed takes priority over enlightened self interest.)

You are right. The world of IT does not simply revolve around the USA alone. I would bet on my next comment being interpreted as American "arrogance" rather than a statement of PRIDE that it truly is -- but let's not forget the IT opportunities for those in other parts of this world would not exist at the level it does today if not for the amount of time, energy, resources, sweat, creativity, drive, enthusiasm, sacrifice, innovation, risk, and dedication of the American IT industry. This is not to brag, or defend, but only to offer a point of view on why this is such a sensitive area. So let's lay off the bashing of America. When it comes down to it, we all have our good and bad points, and are all, in a word, human.

The fears for those who have chosen IT as their career, and who are now faced with losing the opportunities they've worked so hard for by those who are just now jumping on the bandwagon are natural, and would not be USA exclusive. It's easy to get into the blame game, but we need solutions, not a reiteration of the problem while pointing fingers. We're all trying to figure out where to go from here.

Those who work in the IT industry have CHOSEN it for many reasons, and to simply be told that losing your position now is the way the world works so just find something else to do, is cause to be peeved to put it mildly. The American worker is not one to give up easily, and it adds insult to injury to have to train your replacement, especially during a time when the job market is so soft.

A forced change is a forced change, and doesn't come without resistance. However, as one door closes, another opens, so there will be many who will leave the industry and perhaps move into something better. Unfortunatley, these will be some of our most experienced and talented people who would benefit not only the U.S. worker, but ANY who would have the opportunity to learn from them.

With that said, the reality facing us today is the industry is moving in a direction that the individual IT worker feels powerless to do anything about. Working for a global corporation who has just decided to outsource 90% of its IT functionality has brought these issues closer than ever, and we've already felt the pains of not having our own support team readily available.

Turning our backs on IT workers from anywhere else than the U.S. is not the answer, nor is simply moving tech support overseas simply because it's cheap, as Dell has discovered. Contrary to the stereotype, all Americans don't worship the almighty buck. What drives us is pride and professionalism. It's not about where you're from or what language you speak (or don't). We have high standards, as workers and consumers, and if those standards are not being met, we will voice it. Having to train the person you are calling for tech support, and be talked to as a child when you do, can feel insulting, especially when you've just been "displaced."

I don't know what the answers are. Working together is about all I can recommend, but how is the question. Many in this forum have terrific suggestions, and maybe it all starts here with us.

I read tech forums all the time for answers to questions, I also post answers to questions that other people post. I see it as a means of sharing information and preventing the "reinvention of the wheel" issue. I do not live in the US, Canada, Australia or Britain but can safely say because of my qualifications I can work any where in the world. English is our (yours and mine) first language but if we had to communicate in French we would probably not have a mastery of that language either.

Companies outsource for many reasons, but no "smart" execitive will make a decision to outsource support to a location where the people are not capable or qualified enough to do the work. One of the primary reasons companies outsource is because it is just more cost effective, (remember companies are in business to make money, not to keep us techies employed).

Let me give you a senario, in my country one US dollar is equal to two of our dollars. That means that if a company pays a support person 3000 US per month, he could get the same job done by outsourcing to my country and only pay 1500 US a month (equal to 3000 of my dollars per month). There are locations around the world where the difference in exchange rate is even greater, and where the skills are lacking, the people are trainable, (the second reason why companies outsource).

My suggestion to you, as I have done personally is to augment your IT skills with other skills, in other word become multiskilled so that you have more than just IT to offer a company.

Hope this helps.

I would hate to have been the 55 year old owner of a typewriter repair shop in the 80s! Or a radio tube salesman in the 70s? Seen any horse and buggy repair shops lately? How long do you think we'll see a "postman" walking our neighborhoods? There are more careers lost to technology than you or I can probably imagine! (the ice man, milk man, diaper man, gas station attendant, blacksmith...) It's how our world progresses. And thank goodness. And there are just as many NEW careers than we may realize (PC repairman, chip maker, mouse mfg...!)
I live in Houston and see, on a daily basis, the effect of foreign workers on our economy--but it's not necessarily negative either. If a segment of our world (or local) population can do something cheaper (and be thrilled doing it!), then so much the better. It's money saved which will undoubtedly go elsewhere in a company or a household-and money which may be saved from foreign aid! On the flip side, I personally don't like trying to get phone support of ANY kind (from PCs to lawnmowers) from someone who doesn't speak easily understood English! I don't particularly care that they're sitting in Bombay, but I DO care that I can only understand every third word. Not their fault, they're just doing the job they're hired to do; but I can hang up, transfer or search elsewhere--my choice.
Flipping again--and being tacky and sarcastic--if Americans can take money from foreignors (a la, puke, Al Queda members) to train them to fly aircraft only to have them use that training to terrorize our nation, then maybe it's not so bad to pay a foreignor to train us/give us tech support. Now, if they start terrorizing us with that tech support, maybe we should pull the plug! LOL
I was in a similar situation several years ago--got Enronized (laid off by an oil company)--and decided I was tired of being bounced from one company to another or laid off, so I changed careers at 44! Best decision I've ever made. You are obviously a bright individual who probably has many capabilities. You have a great opportunity to (a) continue helping others with tech issues (good for the self-esteem) and (b) choose a new career path which can utilize your basic talents and experience (good for the checkbook as well as the self-esteem). Search the net and find a site that will help you analyze your strengths, weaknesses and interests and then follow. AND GO WITH THE FLOW... you can continue "swimming against the current," but do you really want the life of a salmon--outcome's not that bright! (LOL) Good luck!

As much as I appose outsourcing I still believe it is in our must interest to continue sharing our knowledge as we have in the past. Yes we will end up helping foreign IT workers in the process but as they learn they will post as well, just because they get paid less than us does not mean that they will not present valuable information and help us as well. It's a give and take situation here, just like open source ideology for software. O and yes I?m a 3rd generation US citizen.

For a while, you could tell by the names, but Indians are now taught to use Americanized pseudonyms. (Did you see 60 Minutes?) How about some of those recruiting calls with strange questions starting with your current compensation and no familiarity with the position offered? Less than a year ago, they used their real names, now it's Sally or Johnny Smith with a strong Indian accent. I had one recruiter who did not know that analyst and architect were design positions. Another acused me of being a liar when I told him I was used to $150K per year or $160 per hour: "Nobody makes more than 80 thousand!!"

With recruiters, it's possible to demand where they're calling from, although many refuse to answer. In tech postings, it's much harder to determine. We need to have a required addition to positings as they do with letters to news magazines: City, State.
-- Paul Tiffany
-- Los Angeles, California

How about this one. I have over 20 years in IT with over 10 years as a Network Administrator. I have been out of work for over 1 1/2 years but get interviews. Gray hair and wrinkles are the big suspicion for not getting the job.

Network Administration appears safe for now.

I was a Sr. Programmer Analyst in COBOL, JCL, 4GL contract programming for over 8 years. While work on a job at ElPaso Natural Gas in ElPaso, Texas in the late 80's, I had to do my job plus help train begining programmers from India, check and fix there work and show them where they went wrong.

At that time, their 'very low pay' was being subsidized by Wang and we thought that it was just to help India to get good programmers trained.

How were we to know that even back then, we were training our replacements.

Find people who can only move up if they replace themselves and help 'em out!

We must have posted at almost exactly the same time!

Haven't had time to read all responses thoroughly, but one of Stress Junkie's points is very valid. In the short time I have been participating in Q&A there have been more broard scope questions appearing. Essentially asking step by step instructions for network configuration, VPN setup, and the like.

Also seem to be more questions of the "it don't work, how to fix" variety without any supporting information that should be readily available to a reasonably adept end user.

My philosopy is to pass on the broad scope questions and normally request more information for those lacking fundamental details.

We probably won't see a return of lost jobs. Too many other industries have had jobs permanently outsourced. Seems our growth is limited to the service sector and health care as we baby boomers age.

I agree that this is not a right-wing or left-wing issue. I happen to be right-wing. George W. Bush definitely leans to the right (left of me on some things, right of me on others) and he speaks of off-shoring positively. John Kerry (a right-winger??? lol!) has made the issue of off-shoring a campaign issue: no tax credits to companies off-shoring. Bush is opposed to such measures.

Personally, I think that off-shoring is good for me in the long run since I have begun to be established in IT. I believe that it is bad for America in the long run by eliminating entry level jobs that in the long run means that few technologists will be working in the USA in thirty years.

Russ

So, 80% of the people you are helping are from the U.S.