Far From Neutral Notions - Philippine politics, culture and stuff

Hi, my name’s insert name, from insert company name, calling on behalf of another company name, and I’m an outsourced employee from the Philippines. Yes sir/ma’am, that often means I get paid less than folks with the same job on the other side of the Pacific, because we sell our labor cheap so we can get the jobs you gave to India and Mexico.

Pardon the seeming hostility towards offshore/outsourcing firms; I really shouldn’t complain all that much, since for the last couple of years I’ve been living off Americans, Brits and whatnot. I really shouldn’t complain because, back when I was a call center agent, my (entry level) monthly income (including commissions and night differential) was almost twice that of an (entry level) bank employee. And I was doing half the work, and taxing my brain less. Of course I wasn’t in sales or tech support, but that’s beside the point, which happens to be: I was making more money than people my age whose jobs actually involved gray matter.

I even had a friend who said to me, doesn’t matter that she didn’t graduate, for as long as there are call centers in Manila, she’ll survive. Not that I’m against her surviving, mind you. I think what I didn’t agree with most was the mindset of just “surviving”.

It’s an old joke, that Pinoys by age 25 often ask each other, “so, who do you work for?” while the Chinoys ask “so, who works for you?” and for the most part it is true. I can’t even just imagine myself owning a business, much less a company, but my Chinoy friends have been in business since high school. One of them just passed the bar (congrats Anzen) exam, and he’s been working for a huge law firm even before he graduated.

Come to think of it, what I’ve noticed is that most Chinoys have a distinct plan for their lives, and work hard to make it happen. It’s no wonder that this particular adage is attributed to Chinoys as well: di bale na mura ang bentahan, basta marami ang mabebenta (doesn’t matter if you sell it for cheap, as long as you sell a lot). It’s the kind of work ethic that thinks long term, and something that for most Chinoys, comes naturally. I, like most Pinoys, have to work hard for it.

And it’s scary, how we (as Pinoys) let ourselves be trapped by - what, culture? racial temperament? colonial mentality? - that we always seem to settle, that we’re so happy that foreign investors come over, that we give them enough loopholes so they can set up a business with a dummy Pinoy partner for a couple of years before taking off.

It’s scary how an enginieering graduate would much rather work for a call center than, well, be an engineer, because the pay is better. Or how management/business grads don’t even bother applying to a bank, because it’ll take them years to reach the same level of income as an entry level call rep.

The real peril of outsourcing is not the risk of “losing seats” (call center speak) or business drying up - as long as it’s cheaper to outsource/offshore, companies will do it. The real danger is that new graduates, from whatever course, will see call centers as the first option. The real danger is that our brightest engineers and programmers will write programs and applications for a multinational company, and not start his own software company. The real danger is, in our quest to bring home the dollar, we become too service-oriented, and ultimately too reliant.