January 03, 2006

My Outsourced Life. A.J. Jacobs of Esquire outsources increasingly personal tasks to India.

Will outsourcing serve as a benefit, freeing workers to take on more creative tasks, or will it destroy the livelihood of the American office worker much like foreign labor has done to the American factory? When everything from online shopping to spousal arguments can be handled from Bangalore, how much becomes too much?

posted by rollbiz 18 years ago
  • I would like to outsource my procrastination. But I can't afford to pay much.
  • Thanks for the link... this is a great article. Up until a few years ago I would have considered this whole concept absurd, then my son took on a job as "personal assistant" to a pretty successful director out in LA. I was amazed by the expectations and the strange tasks he took on in that role... And, yep, we need to watch our backs, there is a hungry crew over the other side of the pond that would love to do the work we're doing here in the good old US of A, and for a lot less money and with a lot more diligence!
  • HuronBob, I'll pay you ten bucks to sit around all day and procrastinate for me. But only if you're diligent about it.
  • Wow. That was an excellent article. I have worked for a company that outsourced customer service. It didn't affect my job directly, but I suspect this is going to touch more and more people in the near future.
  • I also supsect I need more sleep before posting.
  • Very scary, for us in the US.
  • I am so not showing my boss this article.
  • But does your boss know you're The Underpants Monster?
  • A very fun article, thanks for sharing. Is it wrong that I work in the IT sector and I actually envy this guy for having $1400 (US!) a month to spend on these kinds of services? I'm sure the hypocrite police will be kicking down my door any minute now...
  • That was almost exactly my sentiment planetthoughtful...And I work in Customer Service. High end customer service, so I've always felt pretty safe but...I'm torn between wetting my pants at how bad this could be for me going forward and how much I would still totally spend $1400 a month to farm out my busywork if I could afford it.
  • By the way, I will now be outsourcing the reading of and responding to monkeyfilter threads. Lara wish to say respectfully you're all a bunch of crazy fucks, and to have a nice day.
  • I'm going to start a Lara fanclub. I'll outsource the management of it, of course. ------------------ Honey: $1000 / ( 160 hours per month ) = $6.25 per hour That is a deal. And you don't even have to worry about workers compensation.
  • Why doesn't the lovely Lara come to #mofirc?
  • Good article, thanks H-dogg. I don't know that I buy his conclusion though. For one, the US is much bigger than "printer's row", and for another getting India to "our standard of living" is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. But I agree that blaming outsourcing is much ado about nothing.