The World is Flat - first reflection

Over the holidays I got around to reading the Thomas L Friedman book. What were the key nuggets of information after 600 pages of well researched information and analysis? The first thing I want to reflect on is the call centre environment - having spent a couple of days involved with our own mini-call centre for clearing as a hands on operator and observer. "This is a high stress environment" said the CEO of Infosys which runs a big call centre. "It is 24x7. You work in the day, then the night, then the morning. But the working environment is not the tension of alienation. It is the tension of success. It is not the challenge of worrying about whether they would have a challenge". These are highly educated folk and relatively wel paid who work these big centres in India. While on holiday I had cause to phone Moneycorp who had supplied me with a pre-paid Euro credit card. I made about half a dozen calls to sort out a security problem. They were dealt with efficiently and accurately and within the timescales they set out and this was an overseas call centre for sure - they had excellent records of every call different person every time. The most mind blowing thing for me was standing by an ATM in a remote part of Northern Spain talking on a mobile phone (UK which had switched automatically to an alternate Spanish carrier) to a call centre operator for a US bank (who was most likely in India), as he reset a security parameter to enable me to withdraw cash at a Telebank operated by a Spanish bank in real time. Our own call centre was staffed by highly educated folk - we didn't manage 24x7 but it was definitely a challenge for many of us. I doubt we did as efficient a job but then it is only a few days every year.