“ The Language of Sub Servicing”, is the name I have created for the story “30 Little Turtles” by Thomas Friedman. The U.S. born Harvard university professor is well known for his work as a columnist for the New York Times. Among other amazing things Friedman has written extensively on foreign issues, and has won the Pulitzer prize for his writing three times (Ackley, Blank, Hume, pg 176).
As I dip into the story and I am instantly grabbed as Friedman begins to share his adventures while visiting India. He discusses his experience reading aloud in an Indian call centre classroom. The author goes on to explain that he got a “standing ovation“ for merely reading a passage that was supposed to help young Indians with their pronunciation , as well to make them sound like Canadians. After completing the story I quickly understood Friedman’s main point. The thesis of the story is how outsourcing has created opportunities and positive benefits for the young men and women of India.
The purpose of the article is to explore how sub-contracting twenty-four seven call centers to countries like India create positive change. The intended audience is America and its people. Friedman also points out the positive benefits that subbing out to third parties will also benefit America.
The first quote that I thought supported the thesis was “A lot of these Indian young men and women have college degrees.” (Friedman, pg. 176). I felt this statement was powerful because it showed how the young Indians valued working in the call centre over careers that required college degrees. The second quote that I enjoyed was when the author asked a young Indian woman what she got from the call centre job and she replied, “self confidence, she said a lot of self confidence, when people come to you with a problem and you can solve it” ( 177) I found this refreshing as it provides confidence to females in a society, such as India where women are generally undervalued. On the other hand, the quote I did not find very effective was the quote, “suicide bombers in waiting” (177). This passage implied that without outsourced or subcontracted opportunities like call centers, young men will resort to terrorism. Even though Terrorism is a huge problem in today’s society it does not belong under the spotlight of this paper.
“30 Little Turtles” (176) is a great description of an experience in which the positives were on display for viewing. I felt this piece was very informative and left me thinking about how much people in these targeted countries value jobs that we see as second rate.
Do you think Canada should sub out work to other countries?
Friedman offers a good example of people in other countries who benefit from work that could be provided in the U.S. and Canada. However, these are usually the jobs that no one wants. But keeping work in Canada is good for the economy. The picture should be viewed as a whole. Will subbing out certain areas of work be detrimental to Canada? If not, yes I do believe work should be “subbed” out. If it helps less fortunate people out in the process, it’s an added bonus.
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