"Thank you for calling..."

“30 Little Turtles” is a piece written by Thomas Friedman, a well known author for the New York Times. He tells us a story of his experiences in Bangalore India, where he met many young Indians in the process of training and preparation for their new and exciting jobs: American call centers (Friedman, 2008, p.176). I found it very interesting that such young students – many with degrees – would so keenly like to work at a call center, that they go through the entire process of an “accent neutralization class” so they can “soften their t’s and roll their r’s” to make their accent sound more Canadian (p.176). Friedman’s main idea is clearly stated at the end of his piece, saying that although our economy is getting rid of what we consider as low-wage and low prestige jobs, they may be considered as the complete opposite and much more valuable to the people in countries like India, bringing geopolitics into play (p.177).

It sounds to me that Friedman is trying alter the typical American outlook on these so called low prestige jobs, such as working in a call centre. What he wants his audience to realize is that having a call centre job may be the turning point in some 20-year-old Indian’s life, that they consider themselves privileged to have such a job. Friedman achieves this by providing examples of some responses he got from these young people, including a engineer who was working tech support for an American software company, who told him “how cool it is to tell his friends that he just spent the day helping Americans navigate their software” (p.176). Friedman describes other positive responses, such as feeling valued as an Indian in the tech support field and gaining self-confidence, which is always an important asset as a professional and a human being (p.177).

One of the quotes I found very effective was Friedman describing what three young Palestinian men he had met, expressed about their future: “Having no hope, no jobs, no dignity, and each one of them nodded when one of them said they were all “suicide bombers in waiting” (p.177). This quote was meant to create pathos for the reader as it is a great trigger for sympathy. This piece also establishes the rhetorical appeal of ethos, through Friedman’s credibility as a writer and his many prestigious experiences including being a visiting professor at Harvard University, receiving honorary degrees from several universities, and winning three Pulitzer Prizes for his writing. This all seems very logical, as this piece was extremely well written and sufficiently proved his point. It has changed my views on the way I see the people who spent their days (or nights) persistently calling me during dinner, asking me to do some survey. Although, I still may be inclined to ignore their calls. Sorry, India! Don’t take it personally.

What was your response to Friedman's piece? Have you ever called tech support and got an Indian person on the phone? What was your internal response? Has this changed at all from reading this story?