Technical Tidbits™

Posts Tagged ‘american’

In the U.S. today, we are celebrating a holiday called President’s Day.

According to Wikipedia, it’s a National holiday to honor George Washington’s birthday and over time has become a method of honoring all U.S. Presidents.

Aside from the fact that schools and government offices are closed, it’s a day that reminds us of our past and the founding of our great – albeit economically challenged – nation.

Ever since the race for the presidency and the historic election of Barack Obama as our new leader, we’ve seen a resurgence of patriotism. Many websites have cropped up asking citizens to rededicate themselves to their country and other citizens.

Well, this is my contribution to patriotism. I’ve developed a new category here called: Boycott. In this category I’m going to post articles dealing with companies that were founded in the United States or do business with U.S. consumers yet have un-American policies.

I don’t know about any of you, but I am sick and tired of companies that take money from the American consumer and send it elsewhere! I’m sick of being marketed to by liars and unethical businesses. I will no longer support businesses that do not support the American worker and English-speaking citizens.

There’s an old saying, “Money talks, Bulls#*t walks.”  Are you ready to take a stand with me and our other readers and put our money were our home is?

If so, then you will want to stay tuned to this category!

I’m also putting a permanent page of those companies on the boycott list and the links to our posts and others that support the reason we should boycott.

Thus far, I’ve mentioned Dell as a boycott since their decision to charge American’s for American support.

See: Is It Time to Boycott Dell?

And: Is It Time to Boycott Dell Part 2

I’ll be moving those posts into this category today.

And I’m adding a new company to the boycott list!

Good old born in the U.S.A. IBM! Yes, my friends, IBM!

In an article forwarded to me by a friend, John Murrell of blogs.siliconvalley.com has posted the following: Think of this layoff as your gateway to an exotic cross-cultural adventure

According to a document…..Big Blue has a program called Project Match that helps U.S. and Canadian workers whose jobs have been cut relocate to places where the company still has openings — specifically, developing markets like India, China and Brazil. “Should you accept a position in one of these countries,” the notice explains, “IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move.” The tradeoff? You have to be “willing to work on local terms and conditions,” living on the low wages that helped undercut the domestic job you just lost.

Excuse me? I could go on with yet another one of my rants, but the employees actually say it quite well in the article.

The employee advocacy group Alliance@IBM sees the program as a slap in the face to go with the push out the door, saying, “IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match.” The company, naturally, puts it in more positive terms. “It’s more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else,” said a spokesman. “A lot of people want to work in India.”

Maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Considering our economy is the toilet let’s just all move to India! And I’m not talking about just working there, let’s bail out on our citizenship here!  Then let’s see where the tax payer dollars come from to support the bailout! What do you think Pelosi? President Obama, what do you think? Does that sound like a good plan to you?

Yes, I’m being sarcastic but I cannot believe the audacity of some of these companies!

That all being said, Happy President’s day! Yea, right!

I received an e-mail today that related to my first post: Is it Time to Boycott Dell? I asked for permission to post the e-mail and have been giving it – including his name.  (Caution:  contains adult language)

Tony Neetz wrote:

Well I just read on your blog about how Dell wants to charge to speak to an American CSR.Now I’m really f#@king pissed. I forwarded this on to everyone I know. I have known too many good people who lost their jobs to corporate offshore outsourcing (including me) at the hands of greedy corporate bastards.

I currently own a Dell and was thinking about replacing it with another one when it gives up the ghost as it has worked really well for me over the past 8 yrs., but they can kiss my ass. Time to look at HP or something else. Ya, I’m pissed off right now and I can feel my blood pressure going up. I can’t believe I haven’t heard of this until now. Thanks for posting it. I really want to start a letter writing campaign to newspapers or something.

I will go out of my way to support a company who keep its jobs (especially tech support) in America. This is one of the reasons I recently bought a Garmin GPS. They believe in keeping their manufacturing and support workers in the U.S. (Kansas), unlike the other GPS companies. Magellan had so many CS complaints about their tech. support in India, that they are now opening a U.S. tech support facility to offset the bad press and try to get back some of their shrinking customer base. The one thing you always read when reading customer and industry reviews about Magellan was how terrible their CS was, and a lot of people wrote that they returned their GPS units and told everyone they knew not to buy Magellan because of it. I guess Dell didn’t get the message.

If this wasn’t my only PC and I didn’t need it so bad, I would burn the damn thing on the front lawn of the Dell corporate HQs.

How DARE they.

Could not have said it better myself! However, I don’t use Dell. We build PC’s here! So Tony, let us know when you’re Dell croaks! We’ll build you a new one for cost!

Thanks for the message!

I was watching Lou Dobbs the other evening on CNN, and was totally appalled at what I heard.

Dell, the computer company founded in the United States of America, is charging customers for American Speaking Support!

Here’s how the brief transcripts read:

Dell Computer is beginning a new program. It wants to start charging customers who want to speak with a customer service representative in North America who speaks English. Now, Dell, like many other American companies, outsources its customer service operations to India and the Philippines and other cheap overseas labor markets.

Now speaking to an American-speaking agent, as they put it, will cost you $12.95 a month if you’re a Dell account customer. It will also cost you $99 a year if you buy a new computer, so that’s a relative bargain.

Dell says it’s providing this new customer service option because of several calls from several customers who said they couldn’t understand a word the support agents were saying.

(Source: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0812/11/ldt.01.html)

Customers couldn’t understand a word the support agents were saying? Really? Imagine that!

Maybe I’m freaking crazy but isn’t it time the American consumers and buying public start putting its foot down?

We are in an economic mess thanks to big corporations and greed. And do you remember the bulls#*t story we were fed way back when offshore outsourcing started? Do you remember the corporate buttheads who told us that it would ultimately save the consumers money because the savings the company made on offshoring would pass down to the consumer in lower prices. Do you remember that? I do!

And have we seen that yet? NO!

Who got the savings from offshoring? The shareholders in their dividends – not the American consumer!

I think it’s time we start saying, “NO” to American Corporations who stick it to the American consumers.

I think it’s time we start boycotting them and let’s start with Dell. Let’s start forcing companies to bring back American business to America!

If you’re in agreement, feel free to use any of the images below and proudly display them on your blog or website!

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