September 2005 | Journeys
IN-sourcing
by Tre Trefethen
I work for a telecommunications software company in Silicon Valley, and like all tech companies here, management adores the idea of outsourcing. But I’m a technical writer, so you would think, since I am paid to write in English, that I would be safe in my niche from having my job sent overseas to a word-sweatshop. The way I figure it, if they do ship my job to China, it won’t be long until they bring it back and offer it to me again. If you’ve seen the instructions on a packet of chopsticks you’ll know what I mean. People needing technical instructions from a software manual have a low tolerance for dueling with crouching adverbs and hidden articles.
No, the problem is not outsourcing. For me, and for people in this country working in virtually any field, with the possible exception of waiting tables, the real problem is IN-sourcing. By that I mean the increasingly popular phenomenon in which companies hire consultants, like me, to whom they offer nothing but a decent hourly rate. No health or life insurance; no 401(k); no paid vacation; and no benefits. Since these jobs are offered as short-term assignments, there is no job security either.
Of course, I went into this arrangement knowingly; in this economy, you have to be willing to sell yourself by the hour or you starve. But I was lured by a contracting company offering the potential for top pay, as well as all the perks a regular employee enjoys and more; their web site mentioned a 401(k) plan, holidays, flexible schedule, access to healthcare. It wasn’t until after I signed away my freedom that I found the retirement plan was a shell-game with no matching contributions; that the access to healthcare was actually a link on their web site to eInsurance where I could sign up for my own policy at single payer rates. And those holidays and as many days off as I wanted were all unpaid. The only benefit that held true was the casual atmosphere: I can wear what I want because I can’t go anywhere with the company. It reminds me of the time I worked at MacDonald’s as a teenager and they warned me that I couldn’t wear my work uniform to bars or social gatherings.
The company whose manuals I write also teased me, holding out the possibility of becoming a “real” employee. My initial contract was for three months, but they whispered to me that this was probably just a getting-to-know-you period; business was picking up in telecommunications, they said, it was just a matter of time before they got the OK to bring on more staff. And then, of course, there was the usual attrition, people leaving, people who weren’t too healthy. At any moment I could be called up, like filling in for a pitcher who needs rotator cuff surgery. After two years and eight successive contracts, that hope has faded.
After Microsoft was sued by consultants like me who claimed they were treated like regular employees without the benefits, my company takes every precaution not to do anything for which it might be construed that I was a real employee: On my one-year anniversary here, they gave me an employee evaluation. My managers weren’t allowed to show me a written version, however. They had notes to themselves, but they held them tight as a poker hand, were not allowed to place them on the table where I could see them, and were required by the Human Resources lawyers to shred them immediately after the meeting, lest I say in court that the documents were proof I exist. I also had to sign an intellectual property agreement before I began working here that promised a touching fidelity from me while indemnifying them from being responsible for me in any way. The only thing missing was the tape recording that sizzled after telling me that, if I were captured, they would deny all knowledge of me.
There seems to be a disconnect between managers who choose this path of optimizing expenditures and the theories they follow. With all this talk of total quality control and obtaining zero defects, it would seem that the wisest course for managers would be to invest in the actual creators of quality—the people who make the product. Is it really that costly to provide health care coverage and security for the people you want to put quality in your product? Managers of technology companies don’t seem to understand that the current trend to insource is like making a handshake deal with a vendor to provide the parts you need to make your product. There is no quality control over workers who are as disposable as e-mail.
I am a text-worker, the world’s oldest para-profession. I give them words, they give me money. It’s a strictly monetary exchange. And the money they give me is pretty good, so that a truly un-employed person would scoff at my complaints. I’m lucky to be working, but lucky the way a person who loses a leg is fortunate not to have lost the other. True, I’m not going to be the guy on the corner with the rumpled cardboard sign reading, “Anything will help, even a smile.” But if something happens to me that prevents me from working, that is all my company will give me—a smile.
Tre Trefethen is a Bay Area freelance writer and editor.
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