After reading Upwardly mobile phone jockey… or ‘cyber-coolie’?, I decided to look up “coolie”; it was one of those words I more-or-less knew, but didn’t know the origin of. Merriam-Webster OnLine defines it as follows:
Main Entry: coo·lie
Pronunciation: \?kü-l?\
Function: noun
Etymology: Hindi & Urdu qul?
Date: 1638
: an unskilled laborer or porter usually in or from the Far East hired for low or subsistence wages