:: No Ones Perfect ::

:: Thursday, January 29, 2004 ::

I received this email from a co worker after we were all told that our jobs here in the USA were being contracted out to some company in India. This is just bloody typical of what's going on here and it sucks dick. So read on. It is also worth noting here that this info only points to the 70 to 80 contractors, however the permanent staff have also been told that they are to be outsourcing as well.

IÂ’m sure Alcoa would love to fill in the media on their plans, really, go on, call them, theyÂ’d love it.

IÂ’m sure some of you have already heard this from other sources, but just to reiterate:

I do believe in capitalism, but I donÂ’t believeglobalizationlism. Please keep that in mind as you read.

Alcoa has announced plans (last Thursday the 22nd of January) that affects 70-80 of the 81 White Collar contract jobs at their North American Data Center in New Kensington. These positions pay local people (and therefore bolster the tax base) anywhere from 35,000.00 a year to over 100,000.00 a year. There were also direct statements that all employee jobs are not guaranteed either. This entire presentation was backed by a media presentation; you should be able to request the slide show through media relations.

My concerns are as follows on this:

1)Alcoa holds government contracts, which in turn causes it hold confidential or other sensitive data within its network. Now how difficult would it be for a terrorist organization or for a lone wolf to access and turn over that type of data to those who would use it with ill will. Not very considering some of the jobs being outsourced to places such as Brazil (Alain Belda’s country of origin – Alcoa’s CEO) and India or Pakistan.

2)Pittsburgh is a recognized as a distressed city now; this is only going to add salt in the wound of the city since a good majority of the folks losing jobs live in and around Pittsburgh.

3)People that lose their jobs at Alcoa may well have to move away from Pittsburgh and possibly out of the state altogether.

4)It’s only a matter of time when outsourcing hits other areas that are viewed as “easily moved off shore” think about this – IT is being hit the hardest yet H1B, L1A and L1B visas have not dropped off, Accounting, Architects, and other areas are also being outsourced. In the new digital world, how long is it really going to be before a reporter or editor or print setup job is outsourced, or how about the web designer for your corporate site.

Outsourcing is going to hurt America, if it is not stemmed, to the point of forcing Americans to accept a lower standard of living to be able to compete for jobs in a global market. This becomes even more evident if anything a job is comprised of can be done digitally or remotely. The words being used to justify the outsourcing of American jobs is this: The labor market is much cheaper in country X than it is here. These companies enjoy all of the benefits of being a publicly traded American company, but are having more and more work done on foreign soil. Restrictions should be placed on their stock options, tariffs on their products (even the ones originating within the United States.), tax incentives tripped away. If these companies want to reduce their costs, why not move the company to Bangalore? They ought to be able to find real cheap management there.

I wonder how a CEO would feel if his job was being stripped away because his job could be done cheaper in another country. I can see it now “Mr. Belda, we regret to inform you, but we’re outsourcing your job. We did a study and found that we can save 3 Million dollars a year in salary and incentives by moving your job to India and laying you off. We’ll call you if we need to, and oh yes, by the way, please remember to keep your work level up; the customers really don’t need to know about this. They do after all deserve top notch service”.

Being a Gulf War veteran and a proud American I donÂ’t ask for much of anything except the chance to fairly compete for the American dream. ItÂ’s simply impossible to compete with a 3rd world country over wages and living conditions. Yes I can trim costs, and my family has, but you cannot be a white collar worker in this country for $300.00 a month.

Disgusted at the non-issue this seems to be for everyone,

Sincerely,

Outsourced.....



:: Tristan 2:04 PM [+] ::
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Another week has begun and as usual the office is buzzing with the usual bullshit that you tend to see on a Monday morning. Last week was a pretty bland and boring week but one significant thing that happened was the fact that my doctor has finally put me back on a low dose of morphine to control the pain I have on a daily basis from the Arachnoiditis which I suffer from, I have to wait until the 8th of August before I get to see the Neurosurgeon again. The last visit to a different Neurosurgeon was not productive at all insofar that all he wanted to do was to cut me up again (read my previous entries to my blog to see full details) I am currently waiting for my doctor to call me back today to hopefully give me a different muscle relaxer as the one I have been taking not only makes me extremely drowsy but it really doesn’t do the trick that it’s supposed to do so I have not been able to take the damn stuff except at night time because there is no way that I could drive on it.

I called home today after my mum left me a voicemail at work, it turns out that my dads heart has been causing him problems again and after he was made stable with medications etc my mum not only wanted me to know what happened but also needed to just chat, it’s been a rough year for her so far as my dads health has not been all that great but when I move home next year I will be in a better position to help them out than I have been whilst I have been living in the USA. Plans have been made and Jo and I are currently saving money like it’s going out of fashion but I always feel like it’s never enough, attorney bills for my divorce, bills to pay out for my visits to the doctors, specialists and other health related stuff, paying out for this, that and the other all adds up and sometimes I just feel like I am making no headway at all, but we are. I have finally had communication with the ex-wife’s attorney and I have some more forms to complete but we hope to have another court date as soon as I get those submitted. There is just so much to do between now and next year when we leave.

I am currently trying to coordinate things so that Jo, Zane and I go back to the UK all at the same time rather than me going back first then Jo and Zane coming over a month or two later, to be honest I really don’t want to be away from my family and given a choice I would rather we all went at the same time. I know that I would really miss both Jo and Zane but I just can’t accept being away from my son when he is still so young and I would miss all the great things he does while he is at this age, so I am trying to work it so we go together.

Until that next time…

:: Tristan 2:14 PM [+] ::
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It’s Friday again and I am so glad that it is the end of the work week. It has been yet another bad week for me, at this point in time I am finding it very difficult to actually go through a whole working day which is really impacting the paycheck as I am paid hourly and do not get paid for the hours that I don’t work. Although my boss has been very understanding with me taking time out for doctor’s visits, specialist’s visits and leaving a few hours early because I have reached the end of my tether I feel sure that sooner rather than later they are going to turn around to me and say enough is enough. I must admit that I dread that day because it usually means that they are no longer going to keep me on the staff list and I can’t afford that.

I visited my doctors last Monday to get repeat prescriptions of all the medications that I am now taking and whilst I was there I ask for all the documentation pertaining to my back problems as I need to take them with me to the next specialist I have to see, well, what fun reading that made, in one paragraph from the Neurosurgeons office they state that I was not a good candidate for surgery and did not respond well to it – duh! That’s why I’ve been going to a pain clinic for the past 14 months you dipshit!

I am tired of being someone’s guinea pig. So I am hoping that this new specialist is somewhat more interested in me that the almighty dollar! Mind you, this guy I am going to see is a specialist for Arachnoiditis which is the major cause of all my problems right now, the paperwork that I got from the doctors office was like reading a book of my life’s history over the past few years. Some of what they speak of is very bland and boring but there is a lot of interesting stuff in there that I plan to use when I see this next doctor.

Life on the home front continues to be fairly peaceful with not too much hassle going on. I had 4 people come over the other night for me to do sittings/readings for them, everything went pretty well which I have to say I am glad about and Jo got the chance to hang out with some of her friends which she doesn’t get the chance to do very often so I was pleased that she was able to relax. She actually had a few beers too which was funny because she has not had any alcohol at all since she found out that she was pregnant so it’s been a good 2 years since she had the chance of having a tipple or two and of course it went straight to her head – oh well, what do you expect?

Until that next time…….

:: Tristan 9:17 AM [+] ::
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Once again it has been some time since I posted anything to my blog, but so much has happened it’s just not true. I guess the biggest thing that has happened was my visit last week to the Neurosurgeons office that performed my back surgery in November of 2001. I went with the regular MRI pictures and reports that laid out the fact that compared to the last study done in mid 2002 the disks had not moved a great deal and that although there was movement it wasn’t something to be greatly concerned about but the diagnosis of Arachnoiditis was cause for concern. I didn’t get to see a Neurosurgeon as they were all “busy” so I saw a Doctors assistant who couldn’t even read the damn MRI pictures. He then decided to tell me that Arachnoiditis was nothing to worry about and proceed to order a bunch of tests that would have only aggravated the condition, after pointing this out to him he decided that he wanted to proceed with the tests so that they could decide what surgery they could perform next, now bearing in mind that the reports (including a previous Neurosurgeons report) stated that surgery was not desirable or necessary at this time and given the Arachnoiditis which is only exacerbated by invasive therapy of any kind I told him that I was off to get a second opinion as I believed that all he was interested in was performing a spinal fusion (The fool even said as much!)

The Neurosurgeon who performed my surgery last time was with the same practice but left and set up his own practice after a short retirement. As you can imagine having gone into the doctors with evidence of a disease looking for a plan to either combat or maintain it the fact that he only was interested in surgery reinforced my suspicions that this bloke was only interested in money and not the best interest of the patient, in this case me!

I contacted my Primary Care Practitioner and we had a long conversation about what had happened, to say that she went ballistic is an understatement and was totally annoyed and pissed off that this doctors assistant ignored the evidence in front of him. Study comparisons, MRI’s with dyes, blood work, Mylogram’s you name it, yet he chose to feel that surgery was the only choice. He even ignored the fact that surgery was neither recommended nor required and that a different approach to the whole problem was needed. So all you people out there with back problems make sure you get a second opinion before you trust what these buggers want to do to you.

There was one other thing that came up that seemed very strange to me at the time but later after talking to my doctor it made sense. While at the Neurosurgeons office the doctors assistant said, and I quote “You’ll be lucky if you can get another surgeon to look at your back seeing as it was taken care of by another surgeon who is no longer with this practice” this statement confused me and made me wonder what the hell he was eluding to. I gave this info to my doctor and when I told her there was an expression on her face that said it all. It would appear that the surgeon who performed my surgery has now set up his own practice and has taken a large number of patients with him as he is not only a well known Neurosurgeon but also a bloody good one too! This has obviously left a bad taste in the mouth of those left behind at the old practice, my doctor, on hearing this info told me straight away that she was going to send me to another Neurosurgeon for a second opinion. She was not impressed with the whole situation and certainly not impressed with the fact that I had been treated like some lump of meat nor was she impressed with the fact that this doctor’s assistant ignored the new diagnosis.

I have since made an appointment with another Neurosurgeon, this time I will actually get to see the damn engineer and not his oily rag! In fact when I called to make the appointment and they got the details of my history etc. they told me that this particular Neurosurgeon was a specialist with this disease, I looked up his board certifications and accreditations and even went to the Arachnoiditis foundation and there he was in bold letters. So at least I know that I am going to get better treatment from this doctor.

What a nightmare! Lesson learned here = never accept the first thing that these bloody doctors throw at you. Most of them are very good people indeed, but every now and again you’ll get one who just wants to make an extra buck at your expense. Caveat Emptor! Let the buyer beware!

:: Tristan 9:16 AM [+] ::
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Well, here we are again. I wish that this posting could bring better news but it won’t. Last week I had yet another MRI done to see what is happening with my back and the 2 disks that have caused me problems over the years.

I mentioned in a previous entry that I had surgery on my back in November of 2001, according to my doctor this was going to be the “cure all” yeah right! They only fixed one out of the two disks that have failed. Then followed 12 months at a pain clinic having deep steroid shots into the spine that caused me more pain that relief. The doctors soon stopped giving me the shots as they realized that the problems that they were causing were not worth giving me the shots in the first place so they continued to manage the pain and muscle spasm using pain killers and muscle relaxers.

The MRI results were given to me by my doctor at a doctors appointment on Monday and although the disks have not really moved they have bulged out a little more since the last MRI late last year but that wasn’t the bad news, it turns out that I have contracted Arachnoiditis which is an inflammation of one of the membranes that surround the spinal cord. This condition unfortunately has no cure and does not “go away” so my doctor tells me that I’ll have this condition for the rest of my life, apparently it gets worse over a period of time and can lead to paraplegia. The worst part of this disorder is the fact that the pain is chronic and the only thing that the doctors can do for me is keep me comfortable with medication, any type of invasive therapy like shots or even surgery could aggravate the condition. I must admit that 4 months ago after the last deep steroid shot I was given that the pain had intensified and was also a different kind of pain than I had been experiencing, I told the doctors at the pain clinic but they just put the extra pain down to a possible flare up with the disks, little did I know until I was admitted to hospital 3 weeks ago that I had already contracted Arachnoiditis. So now I am trying to get an appointment with the Neurosurgeons office again as this condition I have, so I am told is not common. The doctors have changed my medication to a much stronger pain killer and a much stronger muscle relaxer. I am just glad that by next June I will be back home in the UK because the medical expenses here are starting to mount, even with health insurance! At least there I will get health care at a lesser cost. I must admit also that from what I have been told and the studies I have read this condition or disease as some doctors term it as, is very painful and I hope that the time it takes for the condition to worsen to the point of paraplegia either doesn’t come or takes a very, very long time. Hopefully by that time there will be some kind of real treatment or cure for it, who knows.

Until that next time…..

:: Tristan 8:39 AM [+] ::
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Yet again it’s been a while since I posted anything out on my blog. So much has happened its unreal, although moving back to the UK is over 12 months away Jo and I have started to make some serious preparations so that the move is as smooth as possible.

Last week at work however, had to be one of the most stressful weeks I have ever had, it started with an email to one of the senior managers here from a project leader who was dissatisfied with my findings as to why his web application fails as much as it does. Of course I had to dig out all my emails to the customer and also all my evidence showing what I had done to prove that the application was at fault, in other words, a shit load of emails, log files, screenshots etc, you name it I dug it out. Of course it doesn’t help when you have a tech lead who is a complete fucking lunatic who believes nothing of anyone in his team unless you prove it to him. So thanking the Gods for my documenting everything I had done on this little problem took care of any finger pointing in my direction. I must admit that the tech lead in question seemed somewhat pissed off that I had been Mr. Efficient and not left a stone unturned. After much discussion and meetings it turns out that I was proved right (whoopee fucking do) and the manager wrote an email back to the project lead telling him pretty much to do what I had suggested in the first place, either that or pay Microsoft to come in and review their code for them, which would not only be costly but also probably make them look like a bunch of twats! I wouldn’t mind so much but in this place where I work is all about politics nothing more. They are not interested in the reality of life only in making a big deal out of the tiniest of issues. This is one of the reasons why I will be glad to leave. I have never worked for any company/Government body that has a problem with politics the way this place does. I remember before I took the contract at this place I got a call from a friend of mine who had worked here and he warned me of the way the company worked and how he had found it to be hell on earth, it’s funny but I know for a fact that if we lived in a very different economic climate there are many people here who would gladly go and find a new job.

Until that next time….

:: Tristan 8:57 AM [+] ::
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Once again it’s been a while since I posted a message to my blog. There have been several reasons for this, the first was the house move which went very smoothly thanks to Jo packing everything up and moving the small stuff while I was at work and the moving company we hired to move all the furniture and other big stuff in the house. The second reason for not posting has been down to the fact that I’m still waiting for my new DSL connection to the house, I used to have Earthlink DSL at the apartment but I decided to change networks to Verizon DSL at the new house, I only got the email this morning to say that they had shipped my DSL modem and other goodies, so I’ll be connectionless at the new house for a few days more. I really don’t get a lot of time at work to sit down and write about what’s been going on which is a shame because I find it relaxing to be able to set thoughts and events to paper/blog.

The only glitch we had when we moved was with the moving of our phone service and phone number, Jo had placed the order with Verizon on the previous Friday and the engineer was due to show up at the house between 8 and 11 in the morning the following Friday, well, no one showed up, we didn’t even get a call on the cell phone from Verizon. So Jo called them and spoke to a snotty old hag who was more than rude, explaining that we needed a new box on the side of the house and that this was going to cost us $100. Jo lost her temper after trying to get another engineer out and haggling with this old bag about the fee for the box. In the end Jo had me call Verizon and they promised an engineer would be at the house that afternoon, guess what, no-one showed, so I called Verizon yet again who apologized and told me that no-one would be able to get to the house until Saturday morning. Saturday morning came and the engineer finally showed up, he fixed the box to the side of the house and got our phone line working. I called Verizon on the Monday only to find that my original DSL order had been dropped from the system as the Verizon phone support technician told me, so they had to place a new order for the DSL connection. All in all this whole experience of transferring the phone to our new home has been a nightmare and of course when I lodged a complaint with Verizon about this I was given the whole speech of how Verizon doesn’t work this way. Yeah right! Like I really believe anything you’re going to say after this. Bunch of boneheads!

In recent weeks there has been a torrent of complaints to the contracting company about the health insurance issues we are currently facing, I think that I mentioned this in one of my last posts to the blog. Just to recap, our contracting company is owned by a parent company that decided to drop the health insurance we had for all contractors and put in place a no name, emergency only health cover that was useless at best, especially for people like myself who have ongoing pre-existing conditions that make it virtually impossible to get your own personal health insurance. In short, this move by the parent company has sparked a large number of complaints and even more importantly a fair number of people have gone and found new jobs and have resigned so that they can get benefits again. This whole issue has put the fear of the gods into the contracting company who have come up with some inventive ways of getting health coverage for their contractors, so what did this mean for me? Well the companies solution for me was to actually make me a direct employee of the contracting company, it means a pay cut of $5,000 but I get full benefits including dental and vision, more paid vacation, paid sick time, short term and long term disability, money for training and a whole host of other goodies that far outweigh the pay cut that I am taking, I must admit that the contracting company did start by offering me this package with a much larger pay cut but I told them no, in the end they revised their offer and came back to me with a decent figure. So I am now a happy guy, I have coverage again as does my son which is more important.

Until that next time….

:: Tristan 3:07 PM [+] ::
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