Non-American and proud

On the way home I kept thinking of the incident that happened at work today. I was discrimated against, just because I lived in Manila. Having been in the call center industry for four years now, I should be used to it, right? Except that I'm still amazed at how ignorant most people are about Filipinos or non-americans in general. First off the racist refused give me his name or his social just to identify his acount and do my job right. He said he had given it earlier to another "non-american", was his term, and he said he had no reason to give that out to non-americans (notice how many times he had to mention "non-americans" like I was daft) and asked to speak with an american instead. After trying very hard to verify him, he finally gave in and grumbled his account number. I then offered to connect the call to one of our brokers in the US but informed him that it might take a while. He cut me off saying he's willing to wait, no matter how long, for an american to apeak with him (with an emphasis on the word -you guessed- "American").

In the last decade or so, our country has enjoyed the boom of the outsourcing industy. Not only has it created jobs for Filipinos, it also allowed us to showcase the fact that we can run offshore customer service/sales line of businesses with ease and with world-class quality. From Sykes, E-Telecare and Convergys, the industry has grown so big I could fill this space with company names and yet we keep on growing.. It's not just plain customer service we are handling now, we even take care of most their banking, healthcare, billpay, advertising and a lot more. And as we keep on growing, we are taking more jobs away from the people of the First World and this is their main source of panic and bitterness leading to discrimination.

I don't know if they've heard that English is our second language and that the Philippines is one of the best English-speaking nations in South East Asia, hence the influx of offshore opportunities in the last few years. Either they hibernated in a cave or are just in denial that we can kick their butts doing the same job yet getting paid at least a fourth of a fraction of what is normally given to them. In a business why would you pay more for something you can get for less (9,000 miles away but still for less)?

Going back to Mr. I-don't-speak-to-non-americans, if his discrimination is his mode of coping with his bitterness that a third-world nation steals jobs from their country, I'd understand why he was crabby. I'd understand that but he can never use that as an excuse to be such an ass or think he was of a higher life-form. Although he should be very afraid because in a few years' time maybe we can compete with India in the outsourced industry and take more and more jobs away from the US for the basic fact that our labor is 4-5 times cheaper. Jessica Zafra's World Domination is now becoming more and more plausible.

By the way, after I had transferred the call, I checked Mr. I-don't-speak-to-non-americans' account and found out that he called to dispute a $0.46 Burger King purchase he claims he did not make.