Re: FUNNY OFFSHORE STORY

Subject: Re: FUNNY OFFSHORE STORY
From: "Ned Bedinger" <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:52:04 -0700


I agree with you that there is an unfamiliar
dynamic, or an extreme of a familiar dynamic, at
work.

As John and others have said, there are stigmas
attached to leaving a job you wanted. The State
Employment Offfice counts nearly everything except
"Lack of Work" as a "Quit without good reason", a
status that precludes payment to you of
unemployment compensation. If this kind of
limited catagorization is at the heart of being
stigmatized in interview as something dreadful
like "Can't hold a job" for saying "offshored" ,
then there's a desperate need for imagination and
critical thinking skills among interviewers and
Personnel departments, if that's what this is
about. After all, getting laid off and bouncing
back is a great skill in American business, we've
been doing it for years to make the bottom line
look better at accounting time. But nowadays,
when I say "Laid Off" in an interview, I get an
Edward Gorey sense that I'm in a very low place.
I must have been dispensible. The interviewers
make n editorial or personal comment, and it makes
me feel like maybe their reactions are
unmentionable. My former employer jolly well
could have marked me a "troublemaker" -- I got
three month's notice, during which time I asked
difficult questions to the director who made the
cuts, like if she was familiar with studies that
show how prosperity is greater where everyone's
hours get cut instead of cutting entire people
off. I asked for an explanation of how they
decided who to cut, but that was taboo. Maybe
John and the others have some insights to share
there? Anyway, the interviewers react inscrutably
and disinterestedly as far as giving any clue of
their reaction, but they might well be smugly
profiling me, checking off the "Loser" box. Ditto
for the topic of outsourced or offshored, they
seem opaque to my scrutiny on this topic, though I
only ever bring that up conversationally, it
doesn't apply to my work history directly.

OFFSHORING raises a range of distracting issues
for wage earners as well as for those
executive-class employees who see stock options
and bonuses in their compensation packages. If
the department you are interviewing with is
weighing the costs and benefits of offshoring your
job, the topic could blow their cover--they know
that lowering costs is the golden road to big
bucks, and they know that offshoring people's jobs
means that a lot of people will be left to mete
out their living costs from retirement savings,
borrowing against life insurance, second
mortgages, unemployment compensation, welfare.
Obviously, businesses have rights comparable to a
person, and they're going to want to do what is
good for the business. The interviewer may feel
this way and not be prepared to talk about this
with someone who doesn't share their dreams or
have the same opportunities. Rather than discuss
it, they could resort to just dismissing it and
anything/anyone who brings it up.

By the same token, the quest for understanding of
employment prospects, in a changing and slowly
emerging new economy, is a mundane reality for
many job seekers and wage earners. Taboo? Are
you superstitious? Offshoring is real, like 401K
matching. You may not be able to negotiate it,
but you ought to be able to ask cogently and
without stigma where the company/department stands
on outsourcing and what you would be able to do to
increase your chances of holding onto the job if
you get it. It may be best to put it on the table
where called for, and see what it means to the
prospective employer. I would assume it is safe
to talk about, as it is in the news, it is a
lively topic, it is a fair question just like you
SHOULD ASK about the career path if you are
successful as an employee. If they implode and
look at you with lizard eyes, I guess that is an
answer. But sheesh, it isn't like you're asking
personal questions, like how much the CEO makes,
or whether there are convicted felons on the board
...

I doubt there's a categorical right way to deal
with it, except in general to weigh the risk to
you of not mentioning it, versus the risk of
having the interviewer go cheesy at the mention of
it.

I doubt it will help you as a job seeker to
pretend that it is merely impolitic to say the
word. Really, how much personal regard and
finesse are required when the interviewer acts
like the cat that ate the canary?

Good luck!

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com
Edwordsmith Technical Communications Co.
http://www.edwordsmith.com
tel: 360-434-7197
fax: 360-769-7059




----- Original Message -----
From: "Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: FUNNY OFFSHORE STORY


>
> From my perspective, the issue was not about the
remarkably obvious
> fact that one shouldn't dwell on it or whine or
do any sort of other
> self-destructive things that we are interminably
and regularly warned
> not to do, but whether the fact should be
mentioned at all or
> euphemized out of existence. The issue seemed to
be about whether one
> needed to hide the fact or not.


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Re: FUNNY OFFSHORE STORY: From: Bonnie Granat

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