I met my new neighbor this morning. A very sweet man, who happens to be an Engineer - my favorite kind of people. Also, he loves Math, so there is hope for me with assisting Brian with his math. I joked that I would trade orange bread for answers to my math questions.
Interesting to note, as an Engineer he has not been able to find work and moved up here from Silicon Valley. I told him of my experience as a certified technician, as he chimed "I bet there is no work for you either" "Nope" I replied, "It's a good thing I know marketing and real estate ... it has saved my butt".
It angers me when I think of the out-sourcing of technical positions outside the US. Companies would have us believe that there isn't talent in the US, or talent is too expensive. It is just simply a bunch of crap. How is it that a business can come into a community and reap the benefits of special incentives the cities offer (and the state) to locate in the area to create local jobs, only to have the company say "Thank you" and out source jobs outside the US? Do they offer to let go of their special tax incentives too...?...nope.
I experienced the beginning of the out-sourcing phenomenon when NAMC tried to out-source technical support of their employees. The Dime felt out-sourcing would be cheaper until they analyzed us and found out how specialized we were. Not only did many of the technicians understand mortgage banking, many had real estate licenses, had been loan officers, processors and the like. It was easy for us to help the employees because we knew their jobs inside and out. There were a whole lot of questions we never even needed to ask.
I supported the loan officers on Act!, the Internet, email and Loansoft (a loan qualifying software). Usually in the first 10 seconds I would know what the loan officer had done, and was able to fix his problem and get him back producing in minutes. The analysts that sat next to me would say that they didn't understand the problem, let alone my answers. In the end the out-sourcing company felt they could not come close to matching the level of expertise or the cost. Apparently we were pretty cheap. The Dime dropped the idea of out-sourcing.
A local mortgage bank in northern California decided to out-source their loan servicing outside the US. The service was so terrible that customers began refinancing in droves to get away from the servicing and customer service of this mortgage bank. Mortgage Brokers will not broker to this bank because of the reputation of their loan servicing. No broker wants to stick their client with a loan where they can't get help if they should need it. How exactly is this a cost benefit to this mortgage bank? How do their financial analyst even begin to measure the loss of loans they will never get because of their loan servicing group?
Meanwhile this Engineer has obtained a job up here completely outside his engineering talents. So we are like kindred spirits, people who loved what we did for a living and now find ourselves reinventing our lives at middle age. We have guts, that is for sure.
A few years back I wanted to go to work for Peaplesoft in Pleasanton. It was located in the area of California that I want to live and the type of company I like working with. I couldn't get my x husband to compromise on locating there and allowing me to take Brian. By law, we both can only move an hour from each other, unless the other gives permission. Now, Peoplesoft, gobbled up by Oracle is experiencing the horrid effects of a hostile take-over and the out-sourcing of jobs outside the US. Once again we are hearing that same "it's cheaper" rhetoric as we create an economic boon in the countries we are out-sourcing to.
With the latest round of layoffs announced this week by Peoplesoft, one senior executive placed his name first on the list to be laid off as a stand against the out-sourcing of Peoplesoft jobs. He is probably one fantastic manager. At Continental Savings we had a similar Vice President, who when the Feds placed Chuck Chennes to head up Continental Savings (a known hatchet man) she put her name on the list to be laid off, thus saving the jobs of all the people below her. Such people are rare in corporate America, but Continental Savings was a company that employed amazing people. Ironically, it was the Fed's choice in Chuck that drove Continental Savings into the ground.
Can you tell this subject just burns my red hair?
Until next time-
C
http://journals.aol.com/rapieress/Aweekinthelife/