Outsourcing to Rural America 587
andy753421 writes "Wired is running an article about 'Rural Sourcing, an IT company that outsources not to India or Mexico, but rural America.' The company targets IT workers in rural location due to lower costs of living, 'The company charges $35 to $50 per hour for IT expertise, which may cost around $100 in New York City. While this is no match for outsourcing rates in India, clients benefit from local accents and similar time zones -- not to mention the absence of stigma sometimes attached to farming jobs out to foreign countries.' The article also points out several other innovative attempts at outsourcing such as Lakota Express and Seacode, which was previously covered on slashdot."
Story is a Dupe! (Score:1, Informative)
It's not the accent anymore (Score:5, Informative)
The thing that annoys me now is that they're so damn polite. You give them your first name and they reply "Thank you. Thank you sir. Thank you for the information." To ask a question they start with "Sir, could I please ask you for the
Re:Like I always say (Score:3, Informative)
Not far off. (Score:4, Informative)
Rural outsourcing (Score:5, Informative)
In addition, you are less likely to see unionization, you can sometimes farm out (heh!) work on a piece basis, reducing the benefits/workers comp/unemployment comp, etc.
I live in a built-up area of PA. I grew up in the boonies. I have long considered the possibility of giving someone where I grew up a copy of Openoffice, a dialup account, and a computer so that I can email my dictation out there and have them send it back on a piece rate basis.
I could probably save about 25-30% on my transcription costs.
GF.
What about Sykes or Convergous (Spelling!) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They should look into hiring a decent web desig (Score:1, Informative)
Even with that, it beats the hell out of a lot of places I've lived.
As for tech jobs, if you're doing business apps, it's a good place to be. If you're doing any other kind of tech, Indy pretty much sucks.
You know.... (Score:3, Informative)
Dell is actually the only company I know that caters to this with their Gold Technical Support (an upsell added to the service contract for business customers). At a few jobs I have had to work with them, regular Dell business support and Dell Home support (India).
Having worked with all of the choices, I would never hesitate to spend the extra money to get Dell's Gold Support. Even if I get a guy on the phone who isn't a "guru" he has access to someone who is. And, just about everytime I've called I've gotten either Dell headquarters in Round Rock, TX or somewhere in Idaho.
Re:Rural outsourcing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh still PC to have redneck jokes? (Score:1, Informative)
They're working on fixing your concerns, but there's a lot of inertia in the judicial system. It takes time to swap out all the judges with new ones who are properly indoctrinated. The problem for you is that history teaches that the congress and president are likely to get thrown out on their asses over some economic crisis or scandal, so the process will probably reverse again.
The thing is, our country was founded by anti-christians (but not atheists) who realized the dangers of allowing a country's policy be set by religious dogma, and they built guards against that into our system. Respect for that decision has waxed and waned over the years; it's been waning for quite a while now.
Works for us. (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, I enjoy living in a $120000 3500 sq ft home on 1.2 acres of land so I actually live a 20 minute commute from Athens in the other (non-Atlanta) direction. I also get spend my summer weekends on beautiful Lake Hartwell instead of the massively overcrowded Lake Lanier since Hartwell is now only a 20 minute drive (24 miles to the boat ramp I use).
Little or no accent to who? (Score:2, Informative)
Typically when I get Indian customer service they speak either perfect English (Sometimes they'll ask odd questions like "How is your climate?") or with a British accent. Perfect English still sounds like an accent to someone from the United States where every state has their own accent. Everyone has an accent to Texans except people from Texas. Some states have light accents, others heavy ones, and some states (such as Missouri) have a different accent from north to south. You'll even find certain towns that have a unique accent that's different from the rest of the state.
However, that isn't to say that perfect English or British accents aren't understandable to Americans.
Re:Oh still PC to have redneck jokes? (Score:1, Informative)
Speaking as a woman who lives in the south (in a large city - Atlanta - and not in the redneck boonies hours from the nearest interstate), the SBs do unfortunately determine many aspects of public policy at the local, state and federal level. Some examples would be bans on alcohol sales on Sundays, "Evolution is just a theory" stickers in public highschool science textbooks, constant attempts to mandate the teaching of religion masquerading as science in the form of "intelligent design", escalating attacks on Roe vs. Wade, forced "options counseling" and waiting periods for women who want an abortion, the continuing delays in introducing RU-486 and other pills to the US market (when they have been safely and effectively used in Canada and Europe for years), teaching misinformation and lies WRT birth control safety and effectiveness in public highschools and even the state university system (ie - info which contradicts annual figures published by federal health agencies)...
These are just off the top of my head items I have had first-hand experience with.
I really wish there were some politicians who would work to remove the tax-exempt status of SB churches and related non-profit organizations that intervene in political campaigns and elections. I won't even get into the abuse of their non-profit status by running huge for-profit businesses such as cable tv, satellite and radio networks, publishing houses, record labels, etc., and not paying any taxes on them because it's all "for Jesus".
Re:Look to the 'burbs (Score:1, Informative)
I disagree.
I live just outside of Cincinnati, and am about a 35 minute drive from a decently rural part of northern Kentucky which is considered the outskirts of the metro Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana area. I can assure you a 90k house in northern Kentucky would cost you about a half mil in Milpitas or Boston ('ve been to Milpitas and lived in Boston btw). Additionally, we have two state universities (one of which has a decent CS program) within 40 mins of that area and they're kitted out for broadband. Auto insurance and utilities are generally cheaper in Kentucky as well when compared to the east or west coast (or major cities such as Chicago for that matter).
The only way you're going to get much cheaper than that is to move to an Indian reservation or Appalachia.
Re:Like I always say (Score:4, Informative)
At the risk of being a shill, I use WildBlue [wildblue.com]. It is cheap, the dish is small, the speeds rock, and it works. About the only thing it sucks for is off-hours fragging. My speed us 1.5 up 256 down, with 500ms latency (last time I looked). Most could live with that, I know I can.
BTW, I looked at a getting a T-1 before I found this place. Verizon doesn't run them to homes per policy.
How I lost my last job (Score:2, Informative)
Over the course of a year my company started moving their helpdesks down their. Pretty much just laying off the people that didn't want to move, which was no one, and hiring new staff in Americus. I was given the offer to move down at my current pay rate and bonus with the possibility of my bonus being removed at a later date (my bonus made up 1/3 of my annual income). I proposed a larger salary due to the increased living expenses if they were interested in keeping me on board.
At the time I was living very cheaply with two other roommates in Atlanta. I'm very selective with my rommates for obvious reasons and moving to Americus would require that I rent a single bedroom apartment for more than the current living situation. Other things to consider: my car payments, insurance rates, phone costs, credit card rates, cable internet rates, and gas rates all would not go down. Not to mention the cost of regular drives to Atlanta to see family and friends and go clubbing or the movies. It made no sense for me or any of my colleagues to make the sacrifice to move down for a company that not kept their word and stabbed us in the back on more than one occasion.
The helpdesk doesn't take much to do and they can get away with moving it to Americus. However, the Sys Admin portion required real skill and they cannot find real skill in Americus. Last I heared, one of my predicessors shut down one of the production UNIX servers then later quit, my other predicessors doesn't know what he's doing, the other admins don't know what they're doing, and they've brought some people from India to "help" with the workload.
I'm all for on-shore outsourcing, but I feel that some companies don't know how to execute it properly. Some companies will save money. The last company I worked for is having to spend more money in labor to move it to Americus (i.e. hire four people to replace me). Out of ~32 helpdesk people, only 3 moved to Americus. Out of 8 Sys Admins, no one went and a large portion of knowledge was lost.
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Yeah I'm not bitter.
Re:Like I always say (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not certain what the people on the coast think we're missing, but it's not an extremely high-pressure lifestyle. I'm guessing people on both coasts (in the big cities, anyway) need vacations in order to survive or go splat! Living a quieter lifestyle takes a lot of that out of you. We're not lacking for much. But the standard of living is much, much different.
Your guessing wrong. There are people (I am one of them) who live for the big city lifestyle and wouldn't trade it for anything. When I lived in NYC I had 24/7 access to virtually I wanted. Almost every culture in the World is represented. I could get food just by walking half a block that I now have to drive over two hours to find. Virtually anything made by the human race can be found in a World City like New York.
When I moved out of the city and back upstate I relocated to a moderately sized city (Binghamton). I now live in the suburbs. Aside from losing access to all that culture and activities the biggest adjustment for me was how quiet it is around here. I miss the sounds and smells of the city.
Just pointing out that the country lifestyle is not for everybody.
I live in rural America. (Score:3, Informative)
The huge problem with this is that socially, rural America sucks. It's cheap to live here, but aside from skiing/snowboarding/whitewater (thank goodness this is Idaho and not Nebraska) there's really nothing to do for youngish geek-oriented people. It's simply not fun to be here unless you are religious and/or enjoy cowboy-type stuff. ESPECIALLY if you're single.
The social scene in a city is far better suited to IT workers. That's why they want to live there -- not just for the jobs.