:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Thursday 24 April 2003 ::

George is gettin' angry

As in Costanza. As in wog. This wog actually.

I have on the television at this moment, the show "True Stories: Diverted to Delhi". It is being screened on the ABC. It was produced by the ABC and financed by Film Commission taxpayer goldmine money. And it is all about how businesses from the US and Oz are outsourcing the work of callcentre staffers to Delhi callcentre businesses, staffed by local Indian folks. Long story short - US and Oz companies pay money to Indian folks for work performed by those folks.

This is obviously a tragedy, right?

According to Malcolm Knox, sometimes sports journo and teevee reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald for tonight's shows, it is a bloody disgrace. Know why? Cos it is Indians making that money, dammit. See, Malcolm is one of those rascist lefties (a tautology, I know) who never met a wog he didn't like, so long as that wog was poorer than him and never looking like he will ever get ahead. Of course, Knox couches his loathing for wog success in the traditional leftie camoflage of bleeding heart concern for wogs.

But wogs are alive to this steaming bullshit and Malcolm should not imagine he has made many multiculti friends today. Some, for sure. The lefties like him. But I will wager most not.

Knox's thesis, which could have been typed by the Oz union movement, is that it is a lousy thing for Indians to have callcentre businesses and lousy for them to be staffed by Indians and doubly tripply lousy for them to be successful at their business, so they can tender for and win contracts with international businesses, from the US and even Oz. It is a terrible thing. Indians doing well, working and getting paid, why, that is a bloody disgrace in Knox's opinion.

Now, the Indians do not get paid the same hourly rates or even salaries as the Oz callcentre staff. Or the US callcentre staff. The horror. Hmm. Why would that be? It is probably because the Indian owners of the callcentre businesses are actually in it for profit, and so they do not lose all their profit by paying their staff high rates. They win the business form Oz and US companies because they offer a quality service for a lower price than Oz and US companies. And being India, they have a larger workforce to select from, that is, the labour market in Delhi is competetive, cost of living is lower than in Oz and the US and there probably is not a lot of good union influence of the anti-discrimination, unfair dismissal variety to make Indian employers offer higher rates to their staff.

Well G'uh. It is Delhi, already.

And, the Indians who do callcentre work on those US and Oz contracts that their employers have won through competetive tendering or just through plain appointment, train for that work by adopting accents and phrases as they speak english. And they do it very well. This is cultural suicide, apparently. In Knox's eyes. I mean, everyone knows that Indian culture is so weak, a few years working in a callcentre will make those poor people lose all connection with Delhi and their roots. Even though they live there. And they are Indian, dawn until dusk. Urgh. I cannot be bothered taking this point any further. Punto. Basta.

Knox is known to us all. He is the bloke who squeals 'fair trade, not free trade' down the Trades' Hall. Cretino. Trade. Trade, already. That is all. The 'fair' in 'fair trade' actually is pronounced 'completely equal to Oz union preferred conditions'. And that is where you see the perdify of a Knox. If an Oz company is going to pay a bunch of Indians the same as they would pay for Aussies to do the same work, then I, and most sentient beings in Oz, are gonna get mightily pissed that the Oz company is giving the gig to the Indians. Pay the freakin' Aussies here, for crying out loud. There is no reason not to, unless all Aussies are hopeless at callcentre work. Zif. And Knox, if he had any sense or was capable of being sane for a minute, would agree. So what he really wants is for the Indians not to get an even break from trade. 'No trade with wogs, fair or free, ever, ever', is really what he means.

And Knox is the guy squealing about how culturally insensitive it is for wogs to make money in callcentres. Zif wogs have a problem with doing work well and getting paid for it. Wogs can't use the telephone? Get. Far. Away.

Why do Oz and US and other countries use the Indians to do callcentre work? And software development? Cos the Indians are super well educated and speak english perfectly. They can take a call and sound like they are down the street from you, whether you are calling from Sydney or Chicago, and they can cut code beautifully too. And they can offer all that for a lower price than Oz and US companies. The real question has to be why wouldn't a company want to use the Indians? I cannot blame a company from wanting to go down the Delhi Road. And I for one, call me crazy, like to see wogs everywhere do well. It is just a thing I have. Call me crazy. Actually, don't.

Knox, of course, being a leftie, is an idiot and cannot think to the end of a straight line. And he hates his fellow Aussies, you beddabuhleevid. He declares in his teevee review that Aussies look upon callcentre work with 'gloom'. Well hell. If the job's that bad and the Aussies do not want to do it, but it still needs doing, Malcolm, what is your problem with giving the job to someone else? Oho. In another country? Ah ha. Wogs again. Getting ahead. Oh, we cannot have that. Not in Knox-world.

Now, Knox tries to hide his hatred of Indians by suggesting that the callcentre work is demeaning and the Indians deserve better, their culture is so proud and noble it should not be sullied by demeaning callcentre work, and Oz and US companies are awful for sullying the spendour of Delhi. Get it? Knox cares. He cares a lot. He cares so much. Why he cares more for the Indians than the Indians themselves! Let's all suck him off. We know we want to. Urgh.

In fact this is Knox: Indians are too stupid to know callcentre work is bad, they are so culturally weak any exposure to a callcentre will cause them to stop cooking with cardamom, or something. And, saving the best until last:

If you ever wanted to know why people in poor countries want to blow us up, look no further.

No further than the callcentres? Who knew?

What a freakin' jackass.

:: WB 6:32 am [link+] ::