Re: [OT] can anyone offer Lisp job?

> From: Tim X <timx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Moving programming jobs off-shore doesn't quite mean the same as
> moving a manufacturing job to Mexico or Indonesia or china or india
> as the skill sets required are much higher and more defficult to
> obtain.

So why do companies in the USA ignore potential employees in the USA,
even those who have adequate skill sets, and choose to hire those in
India with basically the same skill sets?

> What I'm wondering is if the shift to India is due to cheaper wages
> or was it due to an over priced labour market in the US which
> developed because of a shortage in the pool of skilled labour
> available?

It's true that I earned appx. $20/hr at my previous major programming
job, which might be considered "overpriced" (when compared to an
Indian's price), but during this recession I've offered to work at the
Federal minimum wage, so my own price isn't "overpriced", unless you
consider even the Federal minimum wage to be "overpriced" currently.
To clarify the issue, please tell me how much $/hour you consider to be
overpriced for software development currently.

> Is it possible that programmers in the US/Australia have contributed
> to the situation by not putting in the same effort to become as
> knowledgable and experienced as they could?

I've accumulated at least 22 years computer programming experience,
which I think is quite enough to qualify for a minimum wage programming
job (and in a better economy, a programming job at higher than minimum
wage). While unemployed I've taught myself new languages/methodology
(CL, HTML, CGI) on top of what I had before (earlier versions of Lisp,
Algol, Fortran, various assembly languages, just a little C), and I've
taken classes to learn some more languages (more C, VB, Java, C++, more
HTML). Is there something you consdider essential for qualifying for a
computer-programming job, which I haven't mentioned?

> Point being we have to be very careful about the importance of being
> able to speak english well. While it is certainly one of the most (if
> not the most) widely spoken language, its not the only language
> spoken and many software companies are marketing globally - the
> ability of staff to speak english may not be that important or that
> much of a benefit.

I agree, in general. Let me make my earlier comments more specific:
When the customer is in the USA and speaks only English, and that
customer needs customer support, it's important that the person at the
customer support phoneline can speak English well. Likewise if the
American-English customer is trying to read documentation, it's
important that the documentation be written by somebody who is capable
of writing decent English. Most Indians don't qualify for either good
spoken English nor written English in the view of the American-English
customer. For other customers, different customer-support people may be
more appropriate. Companies should match the language of the customer
to the language of documentation and customer support. Companies should
*not* have Indians with strong accent handling all customers without
regard to the accent-mismatch problem.

By the way, when I tried to apply for customer-support jobs, I was
denied consideration because my background is programming and the
companies prefer people with little or no programmign experience but
lots of human relations experience.
.

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