free calls to the homeland

Me, in an alternate universe...

Earlier this year i was having problems with my DSL connection at home. It was something about my router and not plugging in the right numbers in the right places, so i went online to the Pacbell/Yahoo website for help. Of course, it's incredibly hard to dig through the information to get a phone number, but when i finally found one, i made the 1-800 toll-free call. The young female voice on the other end of the line was incredibly pleasant, perky, and articulate, but what gave her away was a soft lilting accent that i am all too familiar with.

"Are you Filipino?" I finally asked her, after she had walked me through my routing problem. "Are you in the Philippines?"

She hesitated a moment and I could imagine that running through her head were the probable protocols for how to deal with Americans asking about their call center helpers. "Yes," she slowly said.

"Oh, cool! I'm Filipino, too!" I wanted to start asking her all sorts of questions about herself: how do you like your job? What did you do before working for the call center? Do you get paid well? What did you go to school for? (Many Filipinos working at call centers have had college educations).

But I stopped myself from pestering her. I could already predict that our phone call was being overseen or even recorded for later playback by a managerial type who would give her hell for talking about things other than how to fix my computer problem. So here lies the rub: it costs quite a bit of $$ to call the Philippines to talk to relatives there, but it's now a free call to talk to the Philippines in general, if you don't mind talking to an anonymous countryman/woman. I've been wondering at how this strange confluence of intersections is indicative of both the positives and negatives of global cultural and economic exchange--positive in that we can "reach out and touch someone", but negative in that it is essentially a one-way conversation. The woman at the other end of the line is supposed to be anonymous, perhaps vaguely even American, and she's not supposed to make an issue about where she is located. She is here to serve me and my stupid router question. She could have easily been me if I was born into a different family and never made it over here to the States.

I want to talk to anonymous call center people the world over, find out first-hand what's going on in their nick of the woods. Chances are, you've most likely had a similar overseas exchange and may or may not have been aware of it.

Statistics say that by 2008 the Philippines is expected to surpass India in the number of callcenter employees, meaning that Americans will have even more intimate contact with invisible Filipinos a world away. And such continues the interesting and even one-sided relationship between the US and the Philippines, where Filipinos have saturated themselves into US culture and dialogue, but without the reciprocation of even a nod from their former colonizers.

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My last musing on the politics of the reuse/recycle ethos has inspired these links:
"Production, Consumption, and Garbage: Global Capitalism and the Transmigrating Brown Body" by Frederick Aldama

more on the politics of garbage here.

Thanks to the "Bad Subjects" website for the hefty info! They're my new heroes...From their front page: "Bad Subjects seeks to revitalize progressive politics. We challenge progressive dogma by encouraging readers to think about the political dimension to all aspects of everyday life. We seek to broaden the audience for leftist and progressive writing through a commitment to accessibility and contemporary relevance."