This is a book which tells a short story revolving around career change, migration, outsourcing and lifelong educational requirements. They are connected together as people consider the present and future impact of how services are globalising and how it is affecting their jobs.
Companies today are structured differently to the past and that affects us all. Mature and developed societies need to understand that their country is going to be different. The endless increase in the global price of oil and food is one consequence of rapid development in Asia, particularly China, but there will be more changes to come in future.
Winston, Charlie and Blair are three Border Collies who work on Manor Farm in Bedfordshire, England. Their job entails essentially herding of sheep and so they are known as herding dogs. Not a single sheep from Cornwall to Kent can match their skill in rounding up errant sheep. Winston is the oldest of the three sheepdogs at Manor Farm, but all three have ?lithe bodies and rippled stomach? of animals that work to live and live to work.
All three work as a pack and not a single sheep is able to escape their combined canine effort. It is because of them that a very few rats are able to enter the barn. When the farmer decides to move the entire flock from one part of the farm to another, the Collies work as a team and outstare the most stubborn of ewes if needed; undoubtedly it is a skill that is required every day. On finishing their work, they are fed at the farmhouse, where the Collies live happily, enjoying their work. Working hard makes them happy and they are aware of the city people keeping Collies cooped up with nothing to herd or chase and feel how boring it must be for them.
One day the farmer brings three new dogs ? a Polish lowland sheepdog, a Chinese Shar Pei and an Indian Dhangari dog. None of them is a Collie. The farmer makes the Collies train these new dogs in managing English sheep and one day Winston is struck to see that the farmer now smiles more often and seems to favour the ?three foreign dogs?. He becomes suspicious and one day find a truck arrives with the words ?Battersea Dogs and Cats Home? painted on it. The farmer pats the three old Collies and watches them herded into the truck. They find themselves in a new home a new environment where there is no ?freedom of the English countryside?. They are trapped in a concrete box and kept chained together.
This is something what humans too need to do. ?It'sbecoming something what we all need to do,? says the author. This is an issue that affects us all ? not just Collies trying to find a new career away from the farm. As it becomes more common to source services from remote global locations, what is possible to deliver remotely expands its scope. Companies are now exploring all kinds of services that could never be imagined in the past ? accounting, human resources, research, editing, legal analyses ? the world is changing fast and we all need to adapt to that change if we want a job the next year.
This is a very interesting book serving as a parable and giving an important lesson in life.
(Viva Books Pvt Ltd, 4737/23 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002.)
