A Career in Technical Writing: The fax about outsourcing
July 7, 2008 by John Hewitt
The Bullet Points
- Outsourcing means contracting with another company to provide a service that would otherwise be performed by an employee. This is often done for projects because they require a temporary increase in resources.
- Offshoring means relocating a job (either by outsourcing or through your own company) to a foreign country because of costs of other considerations.
- When you get a new job, there is always paperwork involved whether you are a regular employee or a contractor.
- The fax machine remains the dominant source of communication for signed forms.
- Typical paperwork includes contracts, confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements, direct deposit forms, right-to-work and tax information.
Outsourced, not Offshored
The term outsourcing gets misinterpreted pretty often these days. Most people, when they think about outsourcing, think of some guy in a foreign country who answers the phone when you call customer support. While that person may or may not be outsourced labor, the better term for sending a job to another country is offshoring. Outsourcing simply means that a company contracts with another company to provide a service that would otherwise be performed by an employee.
Outsourcing is a very common practice that often takes place locally. Companies outsource using temporary employment agencies, consulting agencies or simply companies that specialize in a service. They might outsource such things as their advertising and marketing, public relations, custodial services or their technical support. Individuals also outsource. They outsource when they hire people to do such things as their taxes, their laundry, their housekeeping or their landscaping.
In my case, when I first went to work as a contract technical writer, I was providing an outsourced service. I was working for a company in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina. That was the company that signed my checks and provided my benefits. They were also the company I would go to if I had an employment related problem or grievance.
I was working at a company in Tucson, Arizona. That was the company that required my services and the company that gave me most of my marching orders. They told me what they needed and they had the right to review my job performance and even end my contract if they were dissatisfied. I was essentially working for two companies. This created a lot of paperwork and resulted in a lot of faxing.
A Flood of Faxes
It started before I even showed up for my first day of work. The first thing that WTW, the company that paid me, faxed me was my contract. I was a contractor after all. The contract gave the details of my pay (both the amount and frequency), my rights (a short list), and their rights (a long list). I think they also slipped in a couple of chapters from On the Road translated into pig-Latin. With the low readability of a fax it is hard to tell sometimes.
The paperwork amounted to over twenty pages of small type and they had to fax every one of those pages to me. I then had to sign on the long blank lines, initial the short blank lines and fax it back to them. Pages got lost in the transition so they would then fax the paperwork back to me again. I objected to the wording of one portion, so they had to rewrite it and refax it again. In addition to the contract, I had to sign and fax non-disclosure / confidentiality agreements, tax forms, right-to-work forms, direct deposit forms and copies of my identification. All of this took the better part of a day.
Fax machines are pretty ancient technology at this point. These days, email and PDF forms have made the paperwork process a bit easier. In the end though, signed forms still have to be faxed or at least scanned into a computer and emailed. It is a tedious but necessary process.
The Weekly Fax Regimen
I wish I could say that that was the end of my faxing, but it was just the beginning. The process continued once I got to work. As a contract employee I had to have my hours reviewed and signed by a manager (or at least a real employee) and then I had to fax that form to WTW every week. If I didn’t fax in the form, I didn’t get paid.
All of that paperwork and faxing delayed the start of my contract for three days. This distressed the company that requested me because they were in an incredible hurry to get me working. There was a lot of documentation to be done and they were way behind. It was vital that I get started right away. I needed to hit the ground running. At least, that’s what they said…
Further Reading
- Outsourcing vs. Offshoring: What’s the difference? by EC EDI: The terms are not identical.
- Document Hack (A Technical Writer’s Journal): Interview & Negotiation by John Hewitt: A discussion of another interview and hiring session.
- Internet Fax Service List by Kevin Savetz: If you don’t want to use a clunky fax machine, these online services will also send and receive faxes for you.
Discussion Questions
- Do you trust yourself to review a twenty page employment contract on your own?
- Can you think of any services that your have outsourced?
- Have you ever lost a job to outsourcing or offshoring?
- When is the last time you had to fax a document?
Next Time
I begin my life as a newbie technical writer and find that the world isn’t quite what I expected.
Related links
- A Career in Technical Writing: Two dates to the prom (0.826)
- The Technical Writing FAQ (0.749)
- Technical Writing Interview and Negotiation (0.749)
- I See Dead Projects (0.749)
- First Day of a Technical Writing Contract (0.680)
Contact John Hewitt
Writing Content and Web Consulting
Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
LinkedIn: poewar
Twitter: @poewar
Facebook: pwar2
Ery-vay unny-fay! No nitrous oxide today and you are still very funny, entertaining, and informative. I especially liked the clarification of the terms outsourcing and offshoring. I give you and your article two thumbs up!
Morgans last blog post..Poets, Shamans, and the Land
@ Morgan,
Thank you. I appreciate the NOX-free support.
That’s why outsourcing is called offshore outsourcing because they contracted companies outside the country or foreign countries. It’s all the same, right? But good point there. Good job!
@ WSA – Actually, a company can open up a branch in another country, which would still be offshoring but would not be outsourcing. As for my case, i was outsourced labor, but still local labor on site.
John,
I’ve done contract writing, also. But I had to send back my contract and other paperwork via snail mail–though I do have a fax machine. That’s simply the way this particular company does things, for whatever reason. Since I was paid per article, though, I didn’t have to keep track of my hours and have them approved–which may have been more convenient, but it also turned out to be better for the company (monetarily) than it was for me .
Very informative post–as always!
Jeanne
@ Jeanne
I have been in a situation before in which we exchanged information via next-day-mail. In many ways it was more pleasant, but this WTW didn’t want to waste a couple days on the mail.
Hey, John, thanks for the clarification between outsourcing and offshoring. I can relate to your experience … although fortunately I did not have to deal with such large faxes. My work in state government started with me as a university employee who was contracted to work at the state health agency. Since everyone was in the same town, it was actually more confusing because, technically, I had more than one supervisor. I had the state agency supervisor and the university supervisor, and I just had to hope that they saw eye-to-eye on my responsibilities.
You note that outsourcing is usually for temporary projects, but in my experience, the projects could be darn near permanent and still be outsourced. This may be indicative of state government agencies who may have federal funding for needed projects but no state revenue to support those projects. Where I currently work, we have an incidence reporting system that is critical for tracking acute disease events. It’s intrinsic to our operations but we’ve been outsourcing a part of it for several years. Why not just hire regular employees to do the work? Because our state legislature wants to “shrink” government even as our population balloons (and needs more government services). Ironically, outsourcing often costs more than insourcing, especially when the contract goes on for years and years. But, as you point out, the big picture is that we are still working with local employees. It’s not hurting our tax base
Marie Ann Baileys last blog post..Using Writing to Mentor Students in an Online Course
Outsourcing can be good, but sometimes your work is going to suffer if the company or freelancer isn’t producing work that’s up to par with what you are looking for. This is typical with freelancers, and I’ve had some bad experiences. On the other hand there have been some really good writers that did work for cheap, and I got a decent final product.
[...] A Career in Technical Writing: The fax about outsourcing [...]
If someone is looking for bright future then the time comes with open doors for them. Outsourcing jobs are available in abundant these days, providing new options as well as good opportunities to people.India has become the best location for outsourcing business because it is having talents which are not found in other countries. The new name in the outsourcing is BPO which stands for Business Process Outsourcing. Large companies have invested in outsourcing business and the growth rate of these companies has crossed the limit to high. Infrastructure of these businesses has changed and talents are willing to jump in this pool.
Quality of outsourced, and more so offshored, deliverables remains the number one difficulty in my experience of subcontracting technical writing work.
Glad to see such a clear understanding of the difference between outsourcing and offshoring – so many people use the terms interchangeably these days, and they are distinctly separate in my mind.
I really appreciate your article. I am sure a lot of readers here got a clear understanding of the difference between outsourcing and offshoring. Thanks.