Dell complaints

MaxWeber

Hello all,
I'm a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the next several months, I will be part of a research project investigating the experiences of American high-tech workers whose jobs have either been eliminated or threatened by hiring of foreign labor. We are particularly examining the role of H-1B visa workers from India in this phenomenon.

I'm interesting in locating any Austin-based current or former high tech workers (preferably in programming or hardware, but any sector really) who are willing to be interviewed for our project. The questions we're asking pertain to work history, the tech field, its evolution and change over time, and the role of foreign tech workers. All names and identifying information will be absolutely confidential.

The interview usually takes between one and two hours. If distance is an issue, I am also willing to use online chat modules such as GoogleTalk, AOL IM, and Windows Messenger to interview people in real time online. I am happy to provide my screen name and contact info for any of these services to any interested potential interviewee.

For face-to-face interviews, we are willing to compensate participants with complementary coffee or lunch during the interview. For those who live farther away, we are happy to provide a complimentary copy of our finished book.

Thanks very much for your consideration. Feel free to reply with any questions you may have. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Chris

Added by Rocke_T_Sinetist: See the seventh frame in this thread. I participated in this project and endorse it highly.

Commendatore · Hates with a Vengance Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 80

You should interview customers too. I guarantee you'll get a lot of experiences for your research project.

FallenAngel · Super Hater Joined: 21 Feb 2006 Posts: 1516

Why is it that people always seem to wait until AFTER it's all been said and done before they start doing stuff like polls and research?

Wouldn't this have had more impact like 5 years ago?

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:48 am Post subject:

Hi, Chris. Sounds like a fascinating project. If I still lived in Austin I'd take you up on it.

It will sound odd, verbose as I am here, but I struggle to type, just not all that distally dextrous. Broke the backspace key off the keyboard about a year ago, but the button is still there, until that breaks too. So chat interviewing wouldn't work very well. Email would, as I'd have time to backspace over the errors, as well as clearly formulate thoughts, which I don't do well in real time either.

I was hardware (reliability) engineer for Dell. Once they had offshored all manufacturing, they threw reliability back on their Chinese vendors. Oh boy, did they. It now takes 4 Dells to equal the longevity of one when I worked there.

So H1B didn't have anything to do with it, offshoring did. Not only did countless engineers get laid off at Dell, but every OEM vendor except one (Flextronics) in Austin went out of business, so there's not just no job for me at Dell, there's nobody left in the business to speak of, at all.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

Commendatore · Hates with a Vengance Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 80

Rocke_T_Sinetist wrote:

kimberlemae · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject:

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:37 pm Post subject:

Employees and ex-employees, I highly endorse participation in this project. I did, and it's absolutely legitimate. It's rewarding as well.

Chris, the researcher, needs more datapoints to assert trends. It can be done in text by email, at your convenience, or by chat, or in person if you live in or around Austin. PM Chris to join.

It asks no personal information, just a summary of your work history, how you got into technology, what your experience was, how you've been affected by outsourcing or offshoring.

This is sociology, NOT psychology. They're not analyzing YOU, they're analyzing the sociological impact of American work being contracted to foreigners. The results of the study could steer our business and political future.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

chromatic · conscientious beginner Joined: 21 Jul 2008 Posts: 1

Can't seem to find the PM link. Is there another way to contact the researcher?

Rocke_T_Sinetist · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject:

Damn. Why suddenly is clicking screennames not working? If it ain't one thing it's another. All I know is it's nothing I changed, cuz I didn't change anything besides banning a couple IPA ranges of Denmark spammers.

Copy/paste the name of the original poster in this thread into 'send private message'. To get to private messenger, click the next-to-last topline link, where it says "You have no new messages".
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'