Why Do I Bother?

I was in the public library for a while yesterday and had some time to kill, so I spent a little time browsing the "speed reads" section (where the bestsellers are usually housed). I normally have no interest in bestsellers, but I thought I'd check out what was there, for a lark.

I ended up picking up, and flipping through, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. Well, who wouldn't like the sounds of that? It's apparently been selling very well and I figured it would be one of these get-rich-quick, overeager biz titles. It's certainly that, but it wasn't long before I discovered it to be infuriating and morally bankrupt, as well.

Ferriss' prescription for achieving the 4-hour workweek? Cajole your boss (by trickery, if necessary) into allowing you to work from home, then outsource as many of your duties as possible to "virtual assistants". And where can one find these assistants? Why, in foreign lands, of course. Ferriss particularly recommends India, where hard-working, English-speaking, university-educated assistance can be had for just $5 per hour, apparently. Why bother doing anything you find to be boring or meaningless, when you can exploit people in developing countries to do it for you? And hey, the boss never needs to know!

Disgusting...and it reinforced some of my worst prejudices about the general scumbaggery of the corporate world. How do people like this sleep at night?