It seems that companies aren’t alone in noticing that people in other countries are willing to do the same amount of work for smaller salaries. The practice of “outsourcing” or “off shoring” has cost large numbers of U.S. employees their jobs. Now there is a evidence at least one, U.S. employee found a way to benefit from the practice. A Los Angeles Times article by Alana Semuels describes how one Verizon employee relaxed and enjoyed his day watching cat videos and dealing on EBay while someone in China did his work. The Chinese person was paid a salary of $50,000 a year while the U.S. employee enjoying his “work day” was being paid much more than that.

There are hints that the person was running the same scam at multiple companies and might have been being paid several hundred thousand dollars for his outsourcing skills. The one deliverable he gave employers was an email at the end to the day explaining what “he” had accomplished during the day. The employers must have loved having an employee who routinely informed them of accomplishments and delivered high quality work. He had a stress-free life that earned him large amounts of money.

Some company should snatch up this person as an employee. He demonstrated true creativity and wonderful personnel management skills. He located and hired a Chinese contractor to do his software development job that gained him the high performance evaluations. He, or the person he hired to do his work, was rated as “…the best developer in the building.”

I don’t want anyone to misinterpret that I am condoning what the person did. He was accepting substantial compensation from his company, and he should have provided his innovative skills to benefit the company. However, I recall the example of the skilled home burglar who was eventually caught and then began teaching people and agencies how to protect themselves against home burglaries. We should look for smart people to teach us how to more effectively compete in a global economy.