The Kid with A lot to Say

Stream International is now known as Stream Global Services.


When I first arrived in Silver City, I was only seventeen years old and I had just graduated from some high school outside of New Mexico. It was late May of 2000, and many Grant County residents were unemployed. A majority of these unemployed residents were mine workers that had just been laid off after putting in a fair amount of years on the job. Some had made the decision to collect checks, other people packed their bags and left Grant County for opportunity in another state and city. A few unemployed miners returned to college, and decided to earn their BA or BS degrees. Then there was a special group of people that were waiting for something big to arrive in good ole Grant County New Mexico. What was it that these people were waiting for you ask? At the time there was talk and rumors floating around, about a huge call center setting up shop in Silver City. Nobody knew as to where this call center was going to be located. Eventually, it was revealed that the name of this call center was Stream International, and it would be located inside of the old Wal-Mart building along Hwy 180. Once Michael Padilla made the announcement that Stream was hiring, many unemployed residents flocked to the old Wally building, in hope of obtaining some kind of meaningful and decent paying employment. Stream International met their hiring quota, and officially opened their doors in August of 2000. I remember sitting around in my dorm room, watching the boob tube, and a Stream International commercial appears on my TV screen. Good ole Michael Padilla is walking and talking about how great Stream International is, and how Stream is helping the Grant County community. In all honesty, I wanted to vomit all over my dorm room floor. The commercials ran for a few months on KOAT-TV and KRQE-TV. It seemed to me and everybody else at the time, that Stream was the best thing that ever happened to Grant County. People were working and able to support themselves and their families.

Everything seemed to be going well up until 2002. A few of my friends were working part time at Stream, and were also attending college. According to my main associate, Stream had a habit of not paying people when they were suppose to pay them. After hearing this from my associate, more and more Stream employees were saying the same thing. 2002 turned into 2003, and there were rumors about how Stream was going to close in the spring or summer of 2003. I can clearly remember hearing these rumors in early 2003, to be exact it had to have been February of 2003. Nobody wanted to believe that Stream was going the way of the dinosaur. Reactions to this rumor were mixed. Some people believed it and some people did not want to believe it. Now let me return to my associate again! I asked him if it was true, and his reply was that he did not know for sure. He did say that quite a few people were quitting, and quite a few people were being fired.

The spring of 2003 semester ended, and I returned home for the summer. I tried to keep up with the Grant County news by reading the online edition of the Silver City Sun News and the Silver City Daily Press.The Silver City Daily Press finally ran a story on the closing of Stream International. The story ran sometime in early or mid July of 2003. It was a some what interesting read about a company that was supposed to help not only the residents but the economy of Grant County. In that same article, it was announced that Stream would be closing at the end of July 2003. Hundreds of people eventually lost their jobs after July of 2003. It felt like 1999/2000 all over again, people had to experience unemployment along with empty wallets and purses. Stream eventually closed, and the building that it occupied remained vacant until 2005 or 2006? Another call center by the name of Teleperformance took Stream's place. Teleperformance also met the same fate that Stream International did in 2003. The old Wally building is now an Ace Hardware store. One thing that I will never forget is the fact that Stream and the Town Of Silver City worked up a funny deal. What was funny about this deal, was that Stream was not charged any type of tax or taxes by Grant County/Town of Silver City. Now what was Grant County receiving in return from Stream International and the powers that be? Does anybody remember what Silver's part of the deal was? Here is my final message to all small towns in America, if a call center wants to open in your town, do not let them within one mile of the city limits. Call centers and the employment that they provide is a BIG joke. Peace!