“Your job has been outsourced to India.” I shouldn’t have been surprised — though a week earlier, at our insurance company’s Holiday Concert Celebration, the CEO had trumpeted our “three-times-the-industry growth rate” over hot hors d’oeuvres and good tidings.

Pittsburgh steel. New England textiles. American information technology. Is the last going the way of the others — overseas? Apparently. The communications revolution could mean another surge of job losses in the coming decades — maybe 40 million — according to former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder. Is it too late to stem the tide? It is for me.

After the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, I scratched my way back into IT as a contractor. Then, on Feb. 20, 2006, I landed a full-time position. Terra firma, I thought. But signs of trouble came in May when my boss breezily mentioned the new “off-shoring” initiative. It was a good thing, he said, that would rid us of “repetitive” functions and free us to “strut our stuff.”

Soon after, the CIO had his quarterly meet-and-greet with new hires. It was a feel-good fest, so I felt like the skunk at a garden party by mentioning the off-shoring. One woman mentioned breathlessly that she’d never worked at a company where everyone held doors open for each other. Yes, everyone agreed, it was so!

So we embraced the off-shoring. What choice was there? Soon we were meeting regularly with our Indian partners in “hand-off” sessions. We (the “native team”) demonstrated, step-by-step, the “Wave 1” tasks, those to be transitioned first.

I worked with Praveen. Though I was leery of the off-shoring process (the condo hunt was on hold), I couldn’t help but like him. He managed to use my first name in every sentence in an unaffected way. “Yes, I understand, Bob!” It was like sitting with Dale Carnegie, who noted that “a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound.” Akhilesh and Pavan spoke the same.

One day, Praveen proudly clicked up a Web site showing HITEC City, the self-contained technology city in Hyderabad, India, to which Praveen would soon be returning — after absorbing the “Wave 2” tasks. And it was breathtaking, rising like Emerald City out of Oz. The first structure at HITEC city was the 10-story Cyber Towers about a decade ago. Then came Cyber Gateway and Cyber Pearl. Now there are 29 IT parks at HITEC City.

As I feverishly trained Praveen and Akhilesh to meet tight turnover deadlines, they in turn passed my “brain dumps,” bucket-brigade style, across two oceans to Maitreyee back in Hyderabad. Things moved swiftly, and soon I was tapped dry. The day Praveen flew home was awkward. “Goodbye, Bob.”

A week after the Holiday Celebration at Mechanics Hall in Worcester — built in 1857 to support manufacturing workers — the CIO gathered us to review the budget. It was true, he said, it’s been a “terrific year.” Fourth quarter is looking good. ROI is double-digit. We are exceeding plan, he said.

But the company was moving into “softer” markets. A lot of business is in slumping Michigan, and we over-invested in technology in 2006. Storm clouds are gathering. Yes, he admitted, the timing could have been better on last week’s $2 million corporate gift to restore the downtown theater, but we’re “committed to the community.” His voice choked when he announced 53 layoffs, more than 10 percent of the American IT staff.

Back at our desks, everyone was white-knuckling it. When my phone rang, I was directed up the escalator into a plush office and the door was shut. “Is this for my new promotion?” I joked lamely. No one laughed.

What happened next was a blur. Outsourcing. Changing directions. Not performance related. My manager didn’t use the word “expendable,” but it’s all I could think of.

The sharply dressed woman from the Office of Talent Management went over the “Separation Agreement,” typed on letterhead, addressed personally (“Dear Robert”), and listing 22 bulleted items. As she moved down the list, my throat caught momentarily. Just then, pugilist-philosopher Mike Tyson’s words after his last bout raced through my head. “I’ll take my beating like a man.” I didn’t want them to see me cry.

Oh, they held the door open for me on the way out.

By Bob Muldoon ’81 Illustration by Marty Braun

Bob Muldoon lives in Andover, Mass.

Three members of the Bates College faculty have been awarded institutional Phillips Fellowships to support a full year’s leave at full pay for the pursuit of significant scholarship, new research or the development of new courses or pedagogical approaches.
Funded by a college endowment established through a bequest of Bates’ fourth president, the late Charles F. Phillips, and his wife, Evelyn M. Phillips, the fellowships honor excellence among faculty.

This year’s Phillips Faculty Fellows are Pamela Baker, of Auburn, professor of biology and a member of the college’s class of 1970; J. Dykstra Eusden, of South Paris, professor of geology and a member of the class of 1980; and Rebecca Herzig, of Lewiston, associate professor of women and gender studies.

Baker has been invited by the Maulana Azad Dental College, in India, to work with its faculty on incorporating student research into the basic science curriculum. Such a change will require new approaches to education, specifically a shift to a more investigative approach rather than rote memorization of facts — a shift already embraced at Bates, where inquiry-based science teaching and learning are standard practice.

Baker will also study strategies from Indian public health education that can help her integrate a health literacy perspective into her teaching at Bates. Focusing on oral diseases and HIV/AIDS, she will investigate factors influencing how public health initiatives put scientific responses to disease into practice. A key part of the project is to promote cooperation between science educators in India and the United States.

Eusden’s project involves field study and three-dimensional modeling of active faults on New Zealand’s South Island. He will evaluate the structural geology, fault motions, earthquake hazard potential and landscape development in the Marlborough Fault Zone, an active plate-tectonic setting. The study area is part of the Seaward Kaikoura and Amuri Mountain Ranges, which are currently experiencing rapid uplift.

Based at Canterbury University, Eusden will conduct field research in fall 2005. Geodynamic modeling at the University of Maine will take place the following winter, and in spring 2006 he will return to New Zealand to finish fieldwork and examine regions where modeling and field-based interpretations are at odds.

With the support of her fellowship, Herzig aims to complete a book tentatively titled The Technological Animal: Hair Removal and the Making of Modern America. The project is intended, first, to bring an empirical, historical perspective to recent theoretical debates about the nature of sexual difference, by illuminating some of the mundane practices used to maintain the appearance of sexual dimorphism.

Second, Herzig seeks to elucidate the growth of these practices as indicating larger historical trends — in fact, to use the history of hair removal as a window through which to examine America’s political transformation from the Colonial era to the present.

Phillips Fellowship leaves typically take place away from Bates, so that recipients can interact with leading scholars in their fields. The fellowship includes support for the replacement of the faculty recipient, as well as travel expenses to research venues. Two or three of the fellowships are awarded to faculty annually.

The Phillips bequest also supports Phillips Student Fellowships, which afford students the opportunity to undertake research in international and other culturally distinct settings.

Cristin McKnight, of Los Angeles, is the second Bates College graduate to receive a 2004-05 grant for postgraduate research from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

McKnight, a 2002 Bates graduate and art history major, arrived in India in August and will stay through May 2005, researching traditional “kalamkari” textiles in the country’s south. Michael Roberts, who graduated this year from Bates, received a Fulbright to research traditional music in Mongolia.

McKnight will pursue a comprehensive study of contemporary kalamkari fabrics. The Fulbright award covers her travel costs and affords a monthly stipend during her stay. She is dividing her time between the city of Bangalore and a small town, Sri Kalahasti, that is a center of traditional kalamkari work.

In the Hindi-Urdu languages, McKnight explains, “kalamkari” means “pen work” and refers to a traditional technique of painting fabric with dye and, specifically, to wall-hangings with mythological or religious themes made from such cloth.

“I’m examining the way older traditions and techniques have informed contemporary practice of the art,” McKnight writes in an e-mail from Bangalore. “I’m particularly interested in the way women have positioned themselves in the production and exchange of kalamkari cloth and Indian textiles in general.”

McKnight first studied in India during the spring semester of her junior year at Bates. Visiting Jaipur, in the north, she studied traditional hand block-printing and investigated social issues involving the sari, the traditional dress.

McKnight hopes to establish a career involving some combination of curating, teaching and textile design, with the focus on Indian fabrics and art. Since graduation, she has done gallery and museum work in Los Angeles while studying fabric design and Hindi language.

At Bates, she worked in the theater department costume shop with the late Ellen Seeling, of South Portland, an assistant professor of theater and highly respected theatrical designer.

“She opened my eyes to the many different ways that fabric can be used and appreciated,” McKnight writes. “Ellen was an incredible mentor for me, and we shared a passionate love for fabric.”

“The Bates family really does extend around the world,” adds McKnight, noting that her circle in Bangalore includes the mother of a friend from the college.

The Fulbright Program, established in 1946, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. This year’s U.S. Fulbright students were selected from among more than 5,000 applicants. Coming from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, recipients are drawn from a diverse cross-section of American higher education representing more than 250 U.S. institutions.