TeknoVagrant
12-04-2007, 08:01 AM
Stressed-out Americans are now having their day-to-day lives organized by assistants in Asia. From tutoring to restaurant reservations, call centers half way around the world are taking care of their every need. When asked to describe his new life, Michael Levy goes into rhapsodies. "You become lazy," he says. "It's just wonderful." Up until this summer, the 42-year-old led a normal middle-class life in New York, working as a lawyer for the Department of Justice. Lately, though, he's had an entire staff at his disposal, who take care of his personal life around the clock.
Take, for example, a recent situation in Las Vegas, where Levy was holding his bachelor party. Sitting at the poker table with friends, he didn't feel like discussing the room arrangements personally with the hotel reception. "Please call and tell them to put an extra bed in room 21057," he instructed his assistant by e-mail via his Blackberry. Personal secretaries also arranged bridal shop appointments for Levy's fianc?e before the wedding, and organized tuxedo rental for the guests.
Levy's personal staff is deft, friendly, and helpful -- and unbeatably cheap. The entire telephone service costs a mere $29 (?20) a month -- because the service is provided by a call center located in India and operated by the New York-based company Ask Sunday. Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication. Globalization may still be a dirty word in the United States, where it is a synonym for downsized jobs and cheap production in the Far East. But lately middle-class Americans have also been discovering the advantages of globalization for their private lives. It turns out that the outsourcing much beloved by companies can work for personal households too. And, thanks to the Internet, the possibilities are practically limitless.
There are, for example, young adults who are too lazy to fight their own way to higher levels in the online role-playing game "World of Warcraft." They leave the job to professional players in China, who slay monsters in 12-hour shifts. It's estimated that there are already more than 100,000 such professional players in China, who win virtual skills and goods for their rich Western clients for just 30 cents an hour. And while online butlers organize parents' lives, tutors in India help children with their homework over cheap Internet telephone connections. Chinese and Spanish lessons can even be called up from Hong Kong and South America. Students can study around the clock, with some companies even offering the service at a flat rate of $99 a month...
Read the rest here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...520241,00.html
Just another aspect of globalization?
Take, for example, a recent situation in Las Vegas, where Levy was holding his bachelor party. Sitting at the poker table with friends, he didn't feel like discussing the room arrangements personally with the hotel reception. "Please call and tell them to put an extra bed in room 21057," he instructed his assistant by e-mail via his Blackberry. Personal secretaries also arranged bridal shop appointments for Levy's fianc?e before the wedding, and organized tuxedo rental for the guests.
Levy's personal staff is deft, friendly, and helpful -- and unbeatably cheap. The entire telephone service costs a mere $29 (?20) a month -- because the service is provided by a call center located in India and operated by the New York-based company Ask Sunday. Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication. Globalization may still be a dirty word in the United States, where it is a synonym for downsized jobs and cheap production in the Far East. But lately middle-class Americans have also been discovering the advantages of globalization for their private lives. It turns out that the outsourcing much beloved by companies can work for personal households too. And, thanks to the Internet, the possibilities are practically limitless.
There are, for example, young adults who are too lazy to fight their own way to higher levels in the online role-playing game "World of Warcraft." They leave the job to professional players in China, who slay monsters in 12-hour shifts. It's estimated that there are already more than 100,000 such professional players in China, who win virtual skills and goods for their rich Western clients for just 30 cents an hour. And while online butlers organize parents' lives, tutors in India help children with their homework over cheap Internet telephone connections. Chinese and Spanish lessons can even be called up from Hong Kong and South America. Students can study around the clock, with some companies even offering the service at a flat rate of $99 a month...
Read the rest here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...520241,00.html
Just another aspect of globalization?