The World is Scary

I found myself caught with nothing to read and no laptop juice yesterday afternoon during an airport delay.  After getting bored with Twittering and Facebooking from my Curve, I went in search of a book.

It never ceases to amaze me how much vapidity is for sale in airport newsstands, but (insider tip) SJC has something that passes for a bookstore way down at the end near A10, and, choosing among slim pickings, I came up with a copy of The World is Flat, which I’ve heard much of, had never read, and seems to be in release 3.0.

So far, the thesis is interestingly woven if unsurprising. But it’s the little details that scare me — Indian citizens referring to getting good jobs “at a multinational”, and then attending “accent neutralization class” to learn how to articulate their t’s poorly in order to sound less alien to americans.

Here’s another choice passage:

When you look around at 24/7’s call center, you see that all the computers are running Microsoft Windows. The chips are designed by Intel. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke.