I was recently accused of being hateful and venomous towards H-1B visa holders. That said, I am coming out of the closet. Yes, today is the day I came out for all the world to know who I really am. Are you ready?
In my IT Consulting career, I PREFERRED to work with H-1B colleagues.
There I said it. I got it out and I have bared my soul for all the world to see. Yes, I preferred to work with my H-1B colleagues for a wide variety of reasons. I can only share from my personal experience and I am only offering it as a generalization.
First and foremost, I generally found them to be very agreeable. In meetings, they would say something only when they thought it was significant and relevant. In contrast, my fellow country men would always try to say something if just to feel like they were helping. I found my H-1B colleagues to be very polite and considerate as well. This doesn’t mean my U.S. colleagues weren’t, but my H-1B colleagues were exceedingly so.
Outside the office, I enjoyed their company as well. They introduced my to a wide palate of foods from around the world. After working late hours we would head off to Indian, Ethiopian, Turkish and Latin American restaurants to savor a wide variety of savory dishes that they enjoyed and recommended. The conversation was always worldly and scintillating. I had the pleasure of playing tennis, golf and even doing a little bar hopping with them. I can say that I never had a bad working relationship with any of them.
So what’s the problem? My point is that there were too many of them to ignore. When I went to meetings, I was an American minority in my own country. The room was dominated – saturated -with STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) workers from overseas. If they were there just to shore up a shortage, why wasn’t there just a token amount of foreigners in the room to fill the gap? How come there weren’t STEM workers from high wage countries in northern Europe? The reality was glaring – it was too good of a deal to hire large swaths of these guys from third world countries on the cheap instead of paying extra for their fellow countrymen.
How many up and coming college graduates decided not to pursue a career in a STEM field for fear that the salaries would remain stagnant? How many college applicants decided to forgo the rigors of a STEM curriculum because it would never pay well? A tidal wave of 65,000 STEM workers a year is nothing to sneeze at, yet our congressmen – people who are supposed to be working for us – are trying to increase the figure from 65,000 to as many as 180,000 a year. Thanks, but no thanks.
In closing, I preferred working with my H-1B colleagues. It is true and I will not deny it. However, we need to support the home team! Need to come out of the closet? Share your working experience with H-1Bs in the comments section below!
John Coffey is the President of JobTabs, LLC. Through JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder and JobTabs Free Resume Builder, thousands of job seekers have taken control of their destiny in finding new and fulfilling careers. JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder and JobTabs Free Resume Builder motivate job seekers by making the job search easier by a huge order of magnitude. John Coffey can be reached via his website at JobTabs Job Search & Resume Builder, by email via jpcoffey at jobtabs.com, and by phone at 404-255-0248.
