I Hate 'Outsourced'

Are you familiar with the show ‘Outsourced’? It’s about a bigot, pictured here:

Who travels all the way to India so he’ll have a larger group of people available to insult. I’m not taking this time to talk about how loathsome a human being the main character is, though – I’d like to point out the stupidity of what’s going on over his shoulder.

See all that light streaming in through the window, there? That’s because everyone’s just arrived at work, and it’s the morning.

This is a set during lunch. As you may well noticed, it’s very bright outside. Because it’s noon.

Now here’s a scene set the next night – for reasons to dull to go into, people have to sleep at the office while everyone else has gone home for the day.

‘But Count’, you may say ‘All you’re saying here is that time seems to pass in a traditional fashion in India… what’s so crazy about that? Has all your nitpickery driven you mad, and you now believe the rotation of the Earth to be a continuity error?’

A reasonable guess, but no – I haven’t mentioned what the characters in ‘Outsourced’ do for a living. They work a phone bank selling novelties to people who live in America. That’s right, you see an ad for whoopee cushions in a magazine and then call a 1-800 number, and these are the people you get.

So let’s take a look at the world time zone map, shall we?

When the characters on Outsourced go to work 9AM (Indian Local Time) it’s between 13 and 15 hours earlier in America, depending on your time zone – so between 6PM and 8PM. Assuming a standard 8-hour workday, the people in that Indian call center are working from 8PM until 4AM, EST.

So all the calls are being made in the middle of the night – and only then, since it’s profoundly not a 24-hour call center?

God, this is a stupid show.