I had dinner with some friends from England and Ireland on Sunday night. Having known and worked with them for many years, I felt comfortable asking them a question. Do you think Americans feel entitled in ways workers in other countries do not? By that, I meant do American workers
- Consider routine tasks “beneath” them?
- Expect special treatment?
- React adversely to honest feedback on the quality of their work?
- Think they deserve to make more money than the value they give their employer?
My friends, without hesitation, answered YES!
Why did I ask the question in the first place? Well, I work in an industry known for outsourcing good paying American jobs to other countries. The executives give an ear-numbing list of reasons why, but it really comes down to those workers are cheaper. Way, way cheaper. I know this because I’ve had some candid conversations with those people, and they talked pretty freely about their salaries. They make a lot less even in countries that have a higher cost of living than the US.
I am an editor, and I work primarily with writers. Currently, about half those writers work in the US; all of them would be considered in the top 35% of income NATIONALLY, which means they make upwards of $60k (way upwards in many cases). Our benefits are also pretty good as benefits go these days. The remainder of the writers work in India, China, Singapore, and Australia; some of them do not write English as a native language.
The US writers complain day in and day out about work being sent to abroad. They look over their shoulders expecting the ax to fall on their jobs. They DEMAND sympathy. They complain about how little they make and how HARD they work. They complain bitterly that upper management does not care about the quality of work, because if they did jobs would not be sent abroad.
Do the US writers write better than their non-native speaking counterparts? Well, yes, but not by an order of magnitude. Two years ago, I might have said non-native writers were much, much worse, but their writing is steadily improving. The most common mistakes I now see among the non-native writers are dropped articles (a, an, the) and missing prepositions. Their technical expertise and attention to detail is roughly equal to the writers in the US. What I do see as disproportionate does not favor the US workforce. It is related to work ethic.
An example is in order. We have a tool for preliminary edits; it spell checks, performs a basic grammar check, and flags words that are forbidden by our company and blatant flaunting of the corporate style. It’s much better than that tool inside Word. I’ve used it several times: for things I still write or to help out writers who are on extended sick leave. It’s relatively easy to use. I see it as the kind of computer game I can win. In general, if I find 50 really bad pages (like an error in every sentence), I can fix those problems in 15 to 30 minutes. The rule is that the writers are supposed to run the tool on new or updated sections of their books or help systems before they submit it to me for a technical edit. By the way, I really don’t need to run the tool to know if someone else has. The errors that it flags are pretty blatant.
The non-native writers generally run it, fix things, and ask me about flags they don’t understand. If someone doesn’t do that, I send the document back with a note, and they fix it. Then I proceed with a technical (not a copy) edit. I could extrapolate that following this process is the reason their writing has improved.
The US writers complain endlessly about HOW HARD THE TOOL IS. One writer actually told me that it was a useless tool because it flagged all the typos and spelling errors. Really? You call yourself a writer, and you don’t think typos and spelling errors are something you should fix? Even if I thought that, I’d be embarrassed to say it out loud.
Let me be clear, it’s not just the writers who have this attitude. Developers often complain it’s beneath them to test their code to see if it works (or even starts). And, it’s not just at work that I see this attitude. I go to a store or a restaurant, and more times than not I get the same “I can’t be bothered” attitude. The cable installation crew needed my son’s input to set up basic internet connections, and they shrugged off their lack of knowledge, almost seemed proud of it. Yes, I realize some of these people don’t make much money, but they have a job; millions of people don’t.
Another example: The father of one of my son’s friends, a basketball coach, once said, “I don’t want any middle-class kids on my team. They just don’t care. They don’t try. They want cool uniforms and the cheerleaders, but they can’t be bothered to show up to practice on time. They think they should receive awards for slowly dribbling the ball down the court. If I don’t kiss their rear-ends, they tell their mommies, who chew me out for ruining their self-esteem.”
I have never prided myself on having a Puritan work ethic. (In fact, I’m pretty sure of exactly the opposite.) I work to live, never live to work. Nonetheless, this entitled attitude offends me. I think when you show up to work, you should give back something (anything) for your salary. If executives are looking for more excuses to offshore jobs, they’ve got an easy one.
However, when I see an obviously elderly person standing in the sun when it’s 107 degrees (and feels like 115), I’m pretty sure that doesn’t fall under anybody’s definition of easy money. I’m equally sympathetic on cold, rainy days of which, admittedly, there are few in Texas.
