Today, almost half of BPO employees are women, many of whom outearn both of their parents. Free-market cheerleaders, conflating rising wages with rising spirits, are quick to applaud India's "maturing" markets. But the truth is more complicated: Studies show that once people move out of poverty, increasing wealth does not necessarily lead to happiness.
Yeah but it sure cuts down on malnutrition. The above paragraphs is a shibboleth for well-off far lefties. And boy does reading it piss me off. What a way to miss the forest for the trees!
This article started out great but then slowly started to go bad. Our plucky western kid, son of doctors, with a liberal arts education freely admits he just can't quite grasp the basic geography of Australia.
If that was a badly done attempt to compliment the Indians, good. Badly written, but good intent. If it was an honest admission of his... jeez is this what liberal education does to a son of two doctors!?
The writer also goes the extra mile by sharing a bed with a stranger, but all he seems to get out of it is a few sentences mentioning that he shared a bed with a stranger, and this one time the power went out. Not exactly many deep insights form all this self imposed hardship. Or as the kids say these days, cool story bro.
Lastly, the author spends a lot of time writing about one depressed guy.
There was some good stuff, globalization, the changes in Indian society, and it could have been a great article. But instead it seems to be just a vague money doesn't bring happiness story, also westernization is kind of sucky. You don't say.
Presumably malnutrition is not much of a concern after one has left poverty. The author is citing studies that show that once you are beyond poverty and have the means to attain whatever things you want, then "increasing wealth does not necessarily lead to happiness."
Having said that, this is a great read. What worries me about India is that we are producing a generation whose sole competency is in answering phone calls and faking who they are and the only selling point is that they are cheaper labor than the western workers. This isn't a sustainable in longer term. We are bound to find labor markets that are cheaper (we already are) or business processes that are more efficient (we already are). For a sustained development India needs to ramp up her infrastructure and invest in her people in a way which produces value rather than ups elling her people cheaply. Outsourcing should just be a stepping stone to industries that are more valuable.
Remember, the whole IT/BPO industry of India makes up just 5% of Indian GDP and it has directly employed just 2-3 million people. Most of the hype surrounding it has been created by the clueless western media - "OMG, India is eating our jobs".
India has achieved great strides in other industries in recent years (steel, coal, automobile, textile, agriculture, crafts, jewellery etc.) which should be highlighted and encouraged. Enough of this call-center nonsense.
To work in a call center, you need to be able to speak, read and write English. You do not need a university degree, you do not need to possess a particular technical skill set. Most call centers will offer just enough training to get an employee going.
India has a huge number of young people who may not be able to join the IT companies, manufacturing industries, or the booming private financial sector because they may not have the education, inclination or aptitude to do so.
Call centers, much reviled as they are, provide an avenue
for hundreds of thousands of people to hold down a well paying, stable job. I think the author's experience there is fairly typical, but there is a crucial difference in perception.
What the author finds depressing (or pointless) is actually a gateway to a "middle class" life for many thousands of people. I am sure if the author went back in time to Michigan in the 20s, he would have similar things to say about workers on the automobile assembly lines. But while the great American manufacturing boom of the early 20th century is celebrated as a gateway to prosperity, a fairly similar thing happening in India is looked upon with a somewhat negative bias.
"Twenty years ago, before India opened its markets to the world, career prospects were bleak. Men might have been laborers or government workers, but even the most ambitious women often gave in to social pressure and stayed home."
My 70 year old Indian grandmother was a school teacher. She had five daughters and all of them became teachers or professors. None of them spent their childhood in cities.
It is a very superficial, stereotyped statement (not any worse than those about Aussies, I guess), and people were obviously doing things other than laborers, government workers, and homemakers. However, the BPO era has added a significant number of jobs of questionable worth and the statement does talk of a real sociological phenomenon.
Yes but India has/(had? kinda not really) the caste system so it would be expected that people in the same family have the same profession. Intellectually speaking, in your average Indian village just how many people would you expect to be schoolteachers and how many would you expect to be labourers? Approximately 50% of the population is female, do you think the number of schoolteachers in a pre-globalization Indian village approaches that ratio? What were these other women doing then?
As an immigrant I have a very hard time buying this. Shoot, I've been living 24/7 for years in a foreign country, and I've not had a single moment of identify crisis.
This concern over the call center workers' lost identity seems silly to me.
"Just stating facts, guys," Lekha began, as we scribbled notes, "Australia is known as the dumbest continent. Literally, college was unknown there until recently. So speak slowly." Next to me, a young man in a turban wrote No college in his notebook.
I can't comment on the dumbest continent thing, but it is true that the Indian accent often sounds very fast to Australians.
"Australians drink constantly," Lekha continued. "If you call on a Friday night, they'll be smashed—every time."
lol.
"Oh, and don't attempt to make small talk with them about their pets, okay? They can be quite touchy about animals."
WTF?? Where did they get this from? Can anyone explain the source for this?
Australian here too. They get this from the same place we get our ideas of Indian culture - urban myth and hearsay.
Regarding slow talkers, it depends on where you come from in Aus (stereotypically rural and/or Queenslander). I travelled across the US and when I approached NYC I was eager to hear people speaking at a 'normal' rate, as I was a bit fatigued from having to slow down my rate of speech (I'm also known as 'the quiet one' among by friends). And when I got to NYC... New Yorkers still didn't speak fast enough for me. I didn't have to slow down, but it was still noticeably slower than what I was used to.
As for college being unknown here until recently, maybe they mean recently compared to India? 150 years is a drop in the bucket to several thousand...
highly recommend movie "Outsourced" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/ - funny, seems (never been to India myself) realistic while without extra cynicism, and personally it made me feel better toward the Indian guys/gals on the other end of the phone line.
"Truth is, 90 percent of the people there, you will find, they'll do the most stupid things, impulsive things. I know for a fact. At the same time, Americans are bighearted people, and the remaining 10 percent of them are smart. Bloody smart. That's why they rule the world."
Americans have a great can-do attitude and are lucky to have some of the wealthiest land in the world. These two things let them exploit their smarts very well. But bighearted? Not really. Domestic charity doesn't really stand out from the pack and foreign aid is a lesser proportion of GDP than their contemporaries. Their foreign aid is more effective than elsewhere because of the size of their economy, but as a proportion of what is earned, it's not competitive.
My personal experience in the US is that the people are very welcoming and friendly, which leads me to think that Americans are bighearted to people they personally know, but not so much to strangers - eg witness the powerful currents of public opinion against welfare or universal healthcare that don't really exist in contemporary countries.
I feel sorry that they have to put up with abusive behavior. Just hang up and move on. But can you really just ignore abuse? It must be leaving a mark somewhere. I have also had abusive users and customers and I also ignore them. But can't get it out of my head sometimes. It keeps bothering me.
Well, a call centre is a voice recognition system. It's a black box, you plug phone lines into one end, and your back-end corporate databases into the other. Artificial artificial intelligence, I've heard it referred to as.
I'd be happy if such outsourcing jobs stop flourishing in India. By cutting the amount of easy options to make money, it will motivate/challenge students to do well and aim for a much better career.
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
Yeah but it sure cuts down on malnutrition. The above paragraphs is a shibboleth for well-off far lefties. And boy does reading it piss me off. What a way to miss the forest for the trees!
This article started out great but then slowly started to go bad. Our plucky western kid, son of doctors, with a liberal arts education freely admits he just can't quite grasp the basic geography of Australia.
If that was a badly done attempt to compliment the Indians, good. Badly written, but good intent. If it was an honest admission of his... jeez is this what liberal education does to a son of two doctors!?
The writer also goes the extra mile by sharing a bed with a stranger, but all he seems to get out of it is a few sentences mentioning that he shared a bed with a stranger, and this one time the power went out. Not exactly many deep insights form all this self imposed hardship. Or as the kids say these days, cool story bro.
Lastly, the author spends a lot of time writing about one depressed guy.
There was some good stuff, globalization, the changes in Indian society, and it could have been a great article. But instead it seems to be just a vague money doesn't bring happiness story, also westernization is kind of sucky. You don't say.
[+] [-] jrockway|14 years ago|reply
Any opinion you attribute to the author is most likely something you are imagining based on your own opinions.
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prayag|14 years ago|reply
Having said that, this is a great read. What worries me about India is that we are producing a generation whose sole competency is in answering phone calls and faking who they are and the only selling point is that they are cheaper labor than the western workers. This isn't a sustainable in longer term. We are bound to find labor markets that are cheaper (we already are) or business processes that are more efficient (we already are). For a sustained development India needs to ramp up her infrastructure and invest in her people in a way which produces value rather than ups elling her people cheaply. Outsourcing should just be a stepping stone to industries that are more valuable.
[+] [-] dimmuborgir|14 years ago|reply
India has achieved great strides in other industries in recent years (steel, coal, automobile, textile, agriculture, crafts, jewellery etc.) which should be highlighted and encouraged. Enough of this call-center nonsense.
[+] [-] rluhar|14 years ago|reply
India has a huge number of young people who may not be able to join the IT companies, manufacturing industries, or the booming private financial sector because they may not have the education, inclination or aptitude to do so.
Call centers, much reviled as they are, provide an avenue for hundreds of thousands of people to hold down a well paying, stable job. I think the author's experience there is fairly typical, but there is a crucial difference in perception.
What the author finds depressing (or pointless) is actually a gateway to a "middle class" life for many thousands of people. I am sure if the author went back in time to Michigan in the 20s, he would have similar things to say about workers on the automobile assembly lines. But while the great American manufacturing boom of the early 20th century is celebrated as a gateway to prosperity, a fairly similar thing happening in India is looked upon with a somewhat negative bias.
[+] [-] hzay|14 years ago|reply
My 70 year old Indian grandmother was a school teacher. She had five daughters and all of them became teachers or professors. None of them spent their childhood in cities.
[+] [-] baltcode|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dusklight|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parfe|14 years ago|reply
I don't quite understand this concern. Do people worry any other paid actor is at risk of forgetting who he is?
[+] [-] roc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Raphael|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
This concern over the call center workers' lost identity seems silly to me.
[+] [-] nl|14 years ago|reply
"Just stating facts, guys," Lekha began, as we scribbled notes, "Australia is known as the dumbest continent. Literally, college was unknown there until recently. So speak slowly." Next to me, a young man in a turban wrote No college in his notebook.
I can't comment on the dumbest continent thing, but it is true that the Indian accent often sounds very fast to Australians.
"Australians drink constantly," Lekha continued. "If you call on a Friday night, they'll be smashed—every time."
lol.
"Oh, and don't attempt to make small talk with them about their pets, okay? They can be quite touchy about animals."
WTF?? Where did they get this from? Can anyone explain the source for this?
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
Regarding slow talkers, it depends on where you come from in Aus (stereotypically rural and/or Queenslander). I travelled across the US and when I approached NYC I was eager to hear people speaking at a 'normal' rate, as I was a bit fatigued from having to slow down my rate of speech (I'm also known as 'the quiet one' among by friends). And when I got to NYC... New Yorkers still didn't speak fast enough for me. I didn't have to slow down, but it was still noticeably slower than what I was used to.
As for college being unknown here until recently, maybe they mean recently compared to India? 150 years is a drop in the bucket to several thousand...
[+] [-] VladRussian|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roundsquare|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geekzgalore|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timxpp|14 years ago|reply
My observation as well :-)
[+] [-] kahawe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
My personal experience in the US is that the people are very welcoming and friendly, which leads me to think that Americans are bighearted to people they personally know, but not so much to strangers - eg witness the powerful currents of public opinion against welfare or universal healthcare that don't really exist in contemporary countries.
[+] [-] braindead_in|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zalthor|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balakc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raghava|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cssndrx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waterside81|14 years ago|reply