It came about because I was trying to identify a vagrant bank account, a certificate of deposit, which had somehow gone astray. To find out what had happened to it, I followed the instructions sent to me by my bank for this kind of problem.

I dialed the number listed on my bank statement, waded through a series of telephone "prompts" ("enter your Social Security number, followed by the pound sign; if you wish to know your balance, press 1; if you wish to speak to a representative, stay on the line").

Finally I was connected with a living human voice. But it was not a living human American voice.

It immediately became obvious that the person to whom I was speaking was half a world away in a suburb of Bangalore, India. He was young, and he had only a vague idea of what I was trying to find out.

Three times, at his request, I gave him my Social Security number. I spelled my first and last names twice. I gave him the account number a couple of times as well. Nothing worked.

All he could keep repeating was "I am unable to identify this account."

He seemed either unable or, more likely, unwilling to say anything more.

Meantime, I detected a rising note of panic in his voice. I pictured him in his cubicle staring at his computer screen, trying desperately to think of some way to get me off the line.

And I, in the meantime, got angrier and angrier at his inability to tell me what I wanted to know.

In the end, in exasperation, I hung up, shaking with anger and frustration. And I am still angry and frustrated.

First of all, I don't like giving anyone my Social Security number three times over the telephone. Secondly, I have to confess I was put off by his accent. It wasn't American. It was polite, but it wasn't friendly. It was barely intelligible. It was above all alien. It just didn't sound right.

I don't have anything against Indians or any other outsourced foreign workers except that they are where they are and I am where I am. Somehow that isn't the way it ought to be. And, finally, I resent the fact that a so-called service function, getting information about one's own money, has sunk to the bottom of the bank's list of priorities.

They care about customer service, but they don't care very much.

The reason the bank has outsourced this particular part of its operation overseas is, to put it plainly, because doing it in the United States costs too much. It's cheaper to ship the bank's pertinent records halfway across the world to India—where there are workers who can speak English, even if they often can't understand Americans or America. Or we them.

Cheapness is more important than service, or service of a level formerly provided by American banks.

None of these objections touch on an equally overriding issue in outsourcing: it takes jobs away from Americans. We're not supposed to worry about this, however. Beginning with President Clinton, a steady parade of politicians and economists of both parties has been telling us there is nothing wrong with outsourcing, that in the long run using the world to perform our work will be to our advantage.

Note that this happy event is to take place in the long run.

Unfortunately, not all of us can or will live in the long run. We live in a time measured in weeks and months, not in years. To be laid off work by outsourcing is often a serious personal problem, even a personal catastrophe.

It is, however, not a corporate no-no. On the contrary, more and more companies are outsourcing work overseas, especially of the kind of service done by my bank. The only real benefit I can see to this is to increase corporate profits.

Increasing corporate profits in the short run benefits those who "have." It also deepens the gap between those rich enough to invest in the stock market and those who have been laid off by outsourcing.

There the matter rests at the moment, festering—a boil on the body politic for which no immediate balm seems available.

In their efforts to maintain or increase corporate profits, companies will keep outsourcing anything they can. And, unfortunately for me and for other customers in search of service, that's what's being outsourced the most.

Meantime, opposition to outsourcing, particularly by those who have been made jobless by its effects, will continue to mount. And somewhere in the background the rest of us will see our blood pressure and anger rise and be unable to do very much about it.