The View From a Hunkered World

Recently I was told my boss the CEO of our company said we would need to “hunker down” for the next 12-18 months. My response was, “Haven’t we been ‘hunkered’ for the past 3 years?” While this has been true for my company, I could not disagree this is what the company needs to continue doing. However, I wasn’t sure that I feel that I am hunkered, or that I want to be hunkered. As I thought more about it, I decided to look up the definition of ‘hunker’. I was glad to see that it was not military in origin but rather Scandinavian. The visually imagery that popped into my mind was a Norwegian crouching down to avoid the winter wind chill wearing bearskin clothing 10 centuries ago – I know I don’t feel that way!

So what does this have to do with Outsourcing/Offshoring? Well, I do know that 12 months ago when I started this ‘blog, I did feel ‘hunkered down, and now I don’t. What has happened in the last 12 months to make me personally feel un-hunkered? I would attribute this to three things.

First, it has been 12 months, even in a long storm, you get used to the storm (or feel like it has somewhat mitigated. A friend of mine told me that I had 12-36 months to find a new career. Perhaps I will need to find a new job, but it would appear that the are some jobs out their. Second, did we all get too used to the go-go late 90’s? Is our profession more like other folks have been living with for sometime? Several years ago, I told a lawyer brother of mine that I ruled out a job based on geography—the commute would have been 25 miles. My brother’s response, “When you said geography, I thought you meant not in this state.” Will I have to reconsider how far I am willing to commute, or what I am willing to make? Perhaps, but it seems like 12 months have allowed me to get used to the idea. Third, my company’s Offshore initiative seems to be going slower and less effectively the senior execs thought it would – no surprise to regular readers here. Are the difficult realties of the offshoring beginning to be realized?

One other thought for today as I look back over the 12 months since I started this blog. I’ve received messages or been in contact with people I wouldn’t have otherwise. Those people generally seem to fall into one of the categories:

• Howard Beale– I made as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

• I’m a programmer in a country that is benefiting from this, what’s your problem?

• This is all part of economic Darwinism.

Do you stand somewhere else? If so, please send me an e-mail.