This media fast is tough, but it feels good. It's tough because I have a craving for news, no matter how bad it may be. And it's difficult to avoid the news. On my commute this morning I took the tack of going with our local all classical station and that seemed to do the trick. I came into work not feeling as tense and angry as I usually do after flipping between conservative and liberal radio. Lori's strategy has been to burn herself some custom music CDs so that she can sing along with Megan. I think I will do the same.
I have decided to go directly to the source with my complaints. When I feel angry about what happened or what is happening I will mail the president directly to complain. He won't ever respond, so it will be as effective as talking to a wall, but I think it will help me vent my frustration. If the messages are good enough I will cross post them to the blog.
I actually finished another book on the plane in from Denver last night. It was a book on Outsourcing that was highly critical of the practice for practical and intelligent reasons. The author had some remarkable facts about outsourcing, first he debunked the 3% maximum number that we have all heard, finding that the real number of lost jobs will be closer to 11%. One in ten workers in America will have their job outsourced in the years between 2000 and 2010. The few skill areas that remain that cannot be outsourced either pay considerably less or require college level retraining which is untenable for middle aged workers trying to pay mortgages and put their kids through school. The outlook is extremely bleak.
Posted by jherr at November 5, 2004 07:39 AMI'm interested in this book you were reading. Was it geared toward any specific occupation or just outsourcing in general? Did it give any thought on where these jobs are going and the education level and age of the people taking these jobs in foreign countries? We have an incredibly diverse employee population here, with a large number of oversees transplants. Did the author discuss that matter as part of outsourcing--or was it just jobs in America transferred to other countries?
Posted by: eigga49 at November 5, 2004 10:33 AMHe discussed visa workers as well as outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. He even covered Bush's most recent immigration plan and it's projected impact.
He was primarily focused on the tech sector, but he showed statistics across a wide variety of occupations. Basically the only occupations that are safe are executives and high-touch jobs like nursing, some parts of HR, some doctors, sales and direct customer support and service, food service. Generally service sector jobs.
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