That kind of crap's been going on in my line of work for the better part of a decade-and-a-half now, starting with the passage of NAFTA.

Example- I was working on a show that was filming in San Diego about eleven years ago. It had all the standard-fare comic-book TV show stuff going on- pyro, site gags, cable-and-fly rigging, etc. and was a well-paying show for what it was. We had the show for the better part of a season.

However, the powers that be decided that they could "save money" (meaning "skim even MORE money" from the show's budget) by moving to Canada, which they did after leaving the U.S. crew in limbo for the better part of three months. And THAT meant all the sets, props, picture vehicles, wardrobe and other goodies had to be trucked up north. Since the show had pretty much bought a lot of our cable-rigging and fly-harness equipment, all that stuff went along with them as well (but not without their signing a disclaimer absolving us of any liability from their use of our equipment, first).

About two weeks after the show got settled in, my boss at the time started getting calls from the production in Canada- apparently the "techs" up there couldn't figure out how to work the equipment the were shipped, claiming it was "too complicated" or something. As a result, they wanted my boss to fly up there to "train" said techs up there on how to use our stuff.

The training stuff was surprising, the stuff was designed so that a toddler could operated it without trouble- in other words, there's little (if any) training required. Since my boss was still rather steamed at losing what was a pretty lucrative paycheck, he refused out of principle- if they're gonna take a job away from someone with over twenty-years experience (at the time), then they should know how to operate the equipment, right?

Well... the head effects dude up in Canada decided to get creative and decided to whack on one rather important (not to mention) large piece of equipment, thinking he was going to improve the design. Unfortunately, the equipment in question was was mathematically balanced as it was (it was designed by a former-JPL engineer), and the effects dude up there created more problems by ham-fistedly whacking on it.

In the end, his actions ended up injuring several stunt people who were testing out said equipment at the time.

For all I know, that item is probably rusting out there in Vancouver as I speak.

So yeah- I'm not a big fan of outsourcing.

the top 3 jobs that cannot be outsourced

plumber....try calling in a stopped up toilet


electrican.....once again callit in most people won't go near it


building engineer.......your building stays put



I'm lucky I'm all 3 and then some