Outsourced

Outsourced is a new independent film (it apparently has not yet been widely released) in which a Seattle call center manager is fired and sent to India to train his own replacement.  Though I haven’t seen the film yet, it seems a must-see for labor/employment folks.  Here’s the abstract:

OUTSOURCED is a modern day comedy of cross-cultural conflict and romance. ToddAnderson (Josh Hamilton) spends his days managing a customer call center in Seattleuntil his job, along with those of the entire office, are outsourced to India. Adding insultto injury, Todd must travel to India to train his new replacement. As he navigates throughthe chaos of Bombay and an office paralyzed by constant cultural misunderstandings,Todd yearns to return to the comforts of home. But it is through his team of quirky yetlikable Indian call center workers, including his friendly and motivated replacement,Puro, and the charming, opinionated Asha (Ayesha Dharker), that Todd realizes that hetoo has a lot to learn – not only about India and America, but about himself. He soondiscovers that being outsourced may be the best thing that ever happened to him.

and a snippet of the NYT review:

The film shows that individuals in every nation are nearly powerlessbefore the global economy, a force that shatters tradition and compelspeople to think of themselves as self-interested free agents. Thispragmatic point of view is articulated by Asha, who rhetorically asksTodd why it’s necessary for Indian call-center workers to pose asAmericans while selling cheap junk made in China.

rb