All good things come to an end

Why go to college, why go to night school, gonna be different this time - from Life During Wartime, The Talking Heads
 
It was already a come true dream.  John Osborne, my friend had gotten his key chain from IBM after 25 years, that's right 25 years of employment at the same American corporation.
 
Among us, he had long been a gentleman of singular distinction, probably the first dressed-in-a-suit-everyday professional among us. Before we dressed for success, it was just him and my friend, HK, who sold men Prada, Joseph Abboud, and Ralph Lauren purple label in upscale stores.  And while most of us kept moving from job to job, modern African American employment nomads, John stayed in one place and carved a life with style at the corporate table as a black man.
 
But as with most dreams, you wake up to a new day.  And so after 25 years, John saw his job sent from these American shores. He had studied hard in college, got his degree, paid his dues, starting in the mail room. He wanted to be a star, so he shined, and merited training and development in the blue matrix.  He had survived re-organization, re-structuring and re-positioning at Big Blue.  He had gotten louder, and quieter, and been a specialist and a versatlist as required.
 
But the one thing he couldn't get was cheaper, and so he watched his tasks handed to someone, continents away, with one of those voices that say,
 
"I'm not from America, and if you let me read this script and check the prompts on the computer, I'll help you and cost the company less than an experienced professional with insight whom you would not have to struggle to understand.  Can you hold the line a minute, while I pull up some information?"
 
Over the next 15 years, 3.3 million US services industry jobs and $136 billion in wages will move offshore.
 
And before you label this protectionist rhetoric, let's be clear: one hardening like concrete fact is that the brightest college kid in America probably won't lead the next technological revolution, because he fears a company will offshore his first after-college job to a worker they can pay less and provide almost no benefits to.
 
With that said, the brightest kid in college is no longer destined to have a second residence in the IT department. He most likely will be throwing parties with his stripper girlfriend, building a social network to attract product advertisers. Instead of Bill Gates, he wants to be Uncle Luke.  Go figure.
 
I spoke with John as he drove over to set up movie night at his church for the kids in the congregation. And he is holding up well, for someone who is completely in uncharted territory.  John Osborne has not had to look for a job in twenty-five years.  I don't know anyone who woke up five days a week for the last quarter of a century and knew where they were going, every day.

I am sure that presented its own challenges, however different from the ones most of us faced.  But he learned to cope with those challenges from his father, who also worked at IBM for twenty-five years, having been one of the first blacks hired by the corporation.  But that¹s another story.  Hell, that's a book.
 
John talks about holding off on that Hickey Freeman sport coat he had his eye on. He worries that his son Jonathan has a father, a gainfully employed father/example.  He computes his severance package into monthly allotments to cover his mortgage and other bills.  He reminds himself how lucky he is to have Janelle, his wife.  She is ride or die, and fills the glass half full for him to see all day, every day. 
 
His cleaning bill alone could support a family in that nation his job went to.  Careful in this recession, black man, you may cost too much to keep around. But karma is real, and instant.   Rest assured, that the American dream will seep into the offshore workplace, manifesting in desires for flextime, casual Fridays, and Starbucks coffee.

VeTalle Fusilier is a producer and writer based in Washington, DC. It's pronounced VEE-tal few-suh-LEER.