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You are here: Home → Blogs → Samasourcing → "Keep Your Ads Off American Television!": How to Win Friends and Influence Haters

Leila Chirayath Janah
 
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"Keep Your Ads Off American Television!": How to Win Friends and Influence Haters

When our ad ran on Hulu in late November, we got a couple of emails from people that thought our work deprives Americans of opportunity. Some used very strong language:

from nullJoe ****** <joe***@verizon.net>
to nullinfo@samasource.org
date nullSun, Nov 22, 2009 at 7:00 PM
subject nullYour company
mailing list null<info.samasource.org> Filter messages from this mailing list
 
hide details Nov 22
I am about sick and tired of hearing about all these companies like yours that take work that could help our country and take it away from us to give to other countries.  The USA is falling apart because of egotistical, money hungry assholes that care more about finding ways to make more money no matter what it does to the rest of us!  So as far as I'm concerned bring the work to us or keep your ads off of our AMERICAN television systems!
 
 
When you put your heart and soul into a job that pays nothing, takes up every ounce of your energy, and doesn't even give you equity, emails like this one really hurt. So, against the advice of my colleagues, I wrote back:
 
Reply
 
null

leila*****@gmail.com ✆

 to Joe, info
show details Nov 22
 
Dear Joe,
We are a nonprofit helping the poorest people in the world, including low-income entrepreneurs in the US. If you'd like to engage in a constructive dialogue about how we could help more Americans, please let us know -- we'd be happy to.
Best wishes,
Leila
 
Admittedly, it's probably not the best use of a CEO's time to respond to angry internet TV watchers, but there was something about Joe's message that really got to me. Many people think that work generated by an American company must be done by Americans, or else we're somehow hurting our economy. I don't get it. Why should people assume that giving work is a zero-sum game?
 
Anyway, three days later, we received this:
 
Reply
 
null

Joe *******

 to me
show details Nov 25
 I live in Ohio which has one of, if not the highest unemployment rate in the country.  I have been looking for work unsuccessfully for over a year.  There is an old K-Mart building in my town that would be perfect to renovate into a building that would suit the needs of your company perfectly, which would in turn provide many jobs for my area.  If there is anything you could do to get this going, it would be greatly appreciated!  I appologize for my previous e-mail, but I hope you can understand the reasoning behind it.
Thanks
Joe ******

 

Now Joe is investigating ways to start a Samasource program in Ohio. I haven't heard from him in a while, but I think this is pretty cool.
Comments: 3

A Cheap Shot

Posted by Magogodi Makhene at Jan 02, 2010 10:25 PM
Leila:

This is a great post--I think it taps into the pulse of global labor struggles. I particularly appreciate the second e-mail from Joe because it helps flesh out his complex situation over the typecast e-mail he first sent you (which lacks context and understandably would get any CEO red hot).
That said, I would love to see the US dialog about outsourced work mature. When will we hear more voices ask how American education is being improved to better prepare the workforce for a post-manufacturing digital workplace?

nice reading!

Posted by Federico Maria Grati at Jan 19, 2010 04:40 AM
It is definitely a cool post.
I love this story. It reminds me a lot about pre-judgments, And of course pre-judgment for readers, like I am. Very nice epilogue!

THAT's the real world

Posted by Dave Foster at Feb 23, 2010 05:34 PM
Thanks for posting, I didn't expect that from the start. I'm really glad to have read it. It's a great example of something I've been thinking about a lot lately. People instinctively connect when they're shown that it's ok to. That it's physically safe for them to do it, or that nobody watching would say it's bad. It's like two drops of water that touch. If one shows themselves to be open and even just the slightest bit wanting to help, the second the other opens up--bloop!

Think about the distance, anonymity and safety the the internet provides and how nasty that lets us get. You can think about security fences, war by unmanned drones, and decisions made by stockholders who see a deposit in their bank account but never the faces of those who gave it to them, too. Then think about how photos, video, and talking directly with another person over the internet can let your humanity and touch their humanity like the distance wasn't even there.

And now go use that to make the world a better place.

Thank you!