DJ’s in Philadelphia are not alone in lobbing verbal assaults at Indian call center agents. Industry executives and analysts say abusive hate calls are commonplace, and a primary cause of workplace stress. The Washington Post reports:
Rohail Manzoor thought he had what it took to work in a telephone call center. All he had to do was pick up the phone and answer queries from American customers about their long-distance bills. He was armed with lessons on how to speak English like the Americans — adjust the r’s, say “zee” instead of “zed,” “mail” instead of “post.”
He even called himself “Jim,” and figured he would pretend to be an American customer service agent.
But nothing prepared him for the shower of curses that came his way when he picked up the phone one night on the job.
“‘You Indians suck!’ an American screamed on the phone,” recalled a soft-spoken Manzoor, 25. “He was using a lot of four-letter words, too. He called me names left, right and center.”
As a result, some call centers now offer classes on stress-management, meditation, breathing, yoga, and even how to be more American:
Industry watchers say some call centers have giant TV screens showing the weather in different U.S. cities, the scores from latest New York Knicks game or news about the latest play on Broadway. The agents use the information on the screen to make small talk with the caller and mask their location in India.
The training given to the call center aspirants not only involves diction, but also a crash course in American culture. Maneesh Ahooja, a voice and accent trainer for call center employees in Bombay, often makes them watch popular TV shows such as “Friends” and “Dharma and Greg.”
Obviously, part of the problem is with the training itself. After all, when was “Dharma and Greg” ever considered popular? And does anyone really ask about the score of the Knicks game? These days, isn’t it safe to assume that they’re losing? Of course, most of the problem, say executives, finds its source in American anger over outsourcing, and Jason Alexander.
The Washington Post: India call centers suffer storm of 4-letter words (Free registration required)
Well, I call this the new “Callonialism”. Living in India, it is a huge debate among many young people if they should join call centers. They work american time for Dell, Microsoft, Virginair etc.
Most people from the Arts and Commerce streams join them, as this is the only way to get a decent salary. As a career option it is a no-go. I heard similar stories from the Phillipines, infact smart students (smarter than some Harbard grads) work here. When intelligence is high and one works as a glorified telephone operator with your own name changed, it causes stress.
Cel phones and call center jobs are today what hand-me-down cars and summer jobs have been for Americans since the ’50s:
I do prefer people being straight up about their names. I spoke recently with a Manish and a Sangeeta on Microsoft’s product activation line. Lovely names, all of them, especially the first 😉
And not hiding location helps fix the perception lag between customers’ idea of India and its actual economic progress.
Last year I worked in India for a little over a month, and one morning I chatted up one of the attendants at the hotel where I was staying. The guy had a Masters in Computer Science and he couldn’t find a job where he didn’t have to deal with “irate, braindead Americans who couldn’t understand simple instructions.” I asked him the obvious question: “You work as an attendant at a hotel that caters to westerners, surely you get a lot of ‘braindead Americans’ here?”
“Not nearly as many,” came his reply. “They’re much less likely to be as forceful face to face. The phone gives them anonymity, courage. Here we are on equal footing. Doing this, I can sleep at night.”
I think same thing applies with the internet. People use the anonymity to say things that would get them smacked in the real world. Some of the comments on this site are prime examples, but it’s a lot more prevalent elsewhere on the web.
I wonder if Indian immigrants who work in American and Canadian call centers get similar treatment to the Asia call center workers…
Hey, first trip to this site. Lovely stuff. Just wanted to say, that despite the backlash against offshore outsourcing, it has picked up this year. I work for an Indian software company, and am currently working in New York…Racism against Indians has basically been institutionalised, but the blame, I am afraid lies with us Indians. Most of the Indians who migrated to USA did so with contempt for their home country, even the ones who claim to ‘love’ it. Obviously, this contempt will permeate into America’s conciousness. It is only now that blogs like yours (and mine) are attempting to change that impression. It’s a long drawn out fight, but eventually, we will win.
How is it our fault? And what contempt are you talking about? I fail to see any contempt for India by immigrant Indians or American-born Indians. I think you are seeing something that is not actually there.
TTG, How could you make a sweeping statement that all people who migrate to US do out of contempt of India? Besides being a biased statement (biased in a way Bolly movies shows NRIs as greedy villains) its doesnt even apply to the American born people (such as people who run this blog) Even if someone moved to the US out of contempt how does that feeling get institutionalized in American society where Indians are less than 1.7% ??? Absolutely dosent make sense whatsoever
I’m just concerned about the backlash against folks in the States. An irate phone call is not the same as a pissed-off unemployed ignoramus with a baseball bat who decides that the root cause of his woes is the Indian guy on the phone telling them that he’s defaulting on his credit card. See “Who Killed Vincent Chin”… we’ve already been through this before, when it was called Japan-bashing.
L.A. residents can catch “Who Killed Vincent Chin†at the REDCAT on March 14: http://calarts.edu/redcat/season/20042005/fv/chin.html
Filmmakers Renée Tajima-Peña and Christine Choy are scheduled to attend, and will most likely hold a Q&A following the screening.
“How could you make a sweeping statement that all people who migrate to US do out of contempt of India?”
I think what TTG is saying is that inherent in one’s immigration is a cynicism regarding the perceived lack opportunity in India (politically, economically, socially, etc.). That cynicism eventually turns into contempt…
Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not and maybe it’s what TTG meant.
Whats wrong with Americans being pissed about jobs being outsourced to India. Loss of American jobs hurts the Americans and the lower cost is never translated into cheaper services (courtesy the ridiculous salary packages given to executives) However that gives no American a right to be racist against Indians either on the phone or in public.
See “Who Killed Vincent Chin”… we’ve already been through this before, when it was called Japan-bashing.
Yeah, and also in the 1980s when it was the Dotbusters in Jersey City who were killing desis and also when people thought all East Asians might have SARS and also a few years ago when Sikh gas station owners were killed and like 20,0000 people from Muslim countries were deported after 9/11. Different excuses for the same bullshit.
sd, Does it apply to only Indian immigrants ?? Even the italian immigrants came to the US due to lack of opportunity back home. Almost everyone moves for those reasons .. Can you give me an example of a group who came to the US to have less opportunities from where they came from??
Yes, of course, the sentiment applies to all immigrants and whatever the origin and degree of contempt, it does support [American] claims that all other countries, besides America, are s*it. Throw in resentment over outsourcing and you get situations such as what’s occurring with call-centers…
However, none of this is an excuse to be abusive, as there is no moral relativity when it comes to judging the behavior stated above, it’s just wrong.
Sweeping? I said most, not all. And yes Sd, I did mean the inherent, and not-so-inherent contempt of having emigrated. This in no way means I harbour some sort of ill will against those who did migrate to America, I almost did so myself. But I do notice that within America, India is a lot less on the radar than say China. Yes this is because China is economically ahead of India right now, but has very much to do with how the diaspora presents itself and the picture it paints. The fact is, the Indian diaspora, until very recently presented a mostly negative view, or were invisible. We need to be a lot more vocal and aggressive. A LOT more. Like what happens on this site, and lot of others. If we are not going try and present a more positive picture, who is? This is not to say that things are rosy back home, but one thing that I have learnt from Americans is that regardless of all the flaws in your own country, there is still no reason not to defend it. Finally there is nothing wrong with Americans being pissed about outsourcing, but it’s not like India started it or was responsible for it. America itself is responsible for the outsourcing! If they want to be pissed off at somebody, they need to shoot their own CEOs….in the meantime, however, I shall carry on making some precious foreign exchange for the motherland.
Most of the Indians who migrated to USA did so with contempt for their home country, even the ones who claim to ‘love’ it.
I’m sick of hearing this generalization. My parents never wanted to stay in the US. But they couldn’t find opportunities at home.
I might agree with your statement, applied to the current generation of Indians migrating, which seems to include a lot of people from richer families who come because it’s a “status” thing and they think they will be even richer over here (generally not true!).
The Chinese-American community has a longer (+100 years) history and higher population than the Desi community. Originally stereotypes of Chinese were negative here, too.
…there actually were Punjabi immigrants in the late 18th century, but they were men imported as workers who were not allowed to bring families, so they married into the Hispanic and Black communities and were absorbed. So I am counting only the 20th-century brain drain here.
You mean 19th century, right? Or do you have a link?
..hm. My source is a photocopied article which I read 10 years ago or so and have somewhere 🙂 I’ll look for it and post a quote, if I find it. (even if I’m wrong 🙂 )
Ok. Here it is… “Forgotten History: Indian Americans 1720-1965” by Ravi Jain and Prakash Nanduri. Appears to be from some sort of academic journal whose name sadly doesn’t appear on the photocopied pages.
“Most books on Indian immigrants tend to begin with the 1870s. Only recent research has revealed records of Indians arriving around 1720 as indentured servants, usually via the U.K. The first direct arrivals from India came around 1790, again as indentured servants. Research in progress about these immigrants indicates that they settled and intermarried in the segregated Black communities to which they were automatically assigned.”
…According to the article, Punjabi laborers settled in CA in the late 19th century and most married into the Hispanic community. The article goes on to mention that they were politically involved, in revolutionary movements against the British and against the caste hierarchy in India.
This is the best I can do, unfortunately he doesn’t cite each of his claims separately:
Deepa’s reference to indentured servants certainly trumps the one above in 1803. Very interesting.
THAT IS SO ANNOYING! I googled the reference and got … nothing. It’s a cardinal sin to create a coursepack without a full citation for each article! They don’t even do it any more for copyright reasons.
If you’re talking about my reference, I’m not surprised…I got it over 10 years ago, so it’s unlikely to appear in electronic form. And I didn’t get it as part of a course..but I wish I did have the name of the journal. Awfully sorry about that.
Found something at: http://www.iafpe.org/php/showNewsDetails.php?linkid=5&newsid=5
There seem to be quite a few articles if you do the following searches, although I don’t have the time to pore over them: “Indentured servants” Asian Indians
or
Asian Indian Indentured servants
And thanks for the info, Deepa! That was awesome stuff 🙂
No, thank you, AC! 🙂 Good find.
Since we’re talking about Indians in American history, I’d like to recommend the following:
“Caste and Outcaste” by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
It was originally published in 1923 by E.P. Dutton, republished by Stanford University Press in 2002. Here’s an excerpt from a review : “Mukerji (1890-ÂÂ1936) was the first South Asian immigrant to the United States to carve out a successful literary career, publishing more than twenty books of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, drama, translations, and children’s stories. Caste and Outcast was the first book on India written by an Indian that was widely read in America.”
TTG- what do you think, then, of the reverse-brain drain and why baby boomers and older members of Generation X are packing up and moving back to India?
Surely most of our parents came here not out of a bitterness toward India, but through the realizations that the opportunities they sought in life were not available at that time, in India.
Do you think the “reverse brain-drain” is based on a sense of resentment toward the US?
First, I don’t see any particular trend of people coming back to India. Sure some of them have, and it’s been newsworthy. But the general trend is still of people going to America. Second, whether people’s parents’ left because of lack of opportunities or because of bitterness, they obviously weren’t happy with their home country so they left. So it would naturally follow that the impression of their home country in their new adopted country would be slightly negative. I don’t understand what the big deal about this is. It follows naturally. But there is a difference between “slightly negative”, and the impression that desis create in America, in India, everywhere. Yes, I make broad sweeping generalisations, and here’s another one – Indians are ridiculously harsh when judging their home country. Much more than people of other nations. And it is that overly-critical cynicism that is so much a part of our psyche that contributes to the poor impression of India. Don’t believe me? Check out http://www.deeshaa.org. This guy writes absolute shit, and then he gets an award for “Telling It Like Is”. Rohinton Mistry was invited on to Oprah, and his book became a bestseller – why? Because it wrote about a few castrations, beggars, suicide, all in India. Arundhati Roy writes well, but she writes about what – Caste Discrimination. Born in brothels wins an oscar, but not Little Terrorist. One of them portrays India in an awful light, the other one tells a more neutral and interesting story. Which one do you think won at the Oscars? And Born in brothels isn’t even a true documentary. It has fictional parts to it as well. V.S. Naipaul is a known India-hater, and a Nobel prize winner too. He once made the following comment – “What does a dot on a woman’s forehead represent? Why lack of intelligence, of course”. It is an established fact that the most vehement India-haters are Indians themselves, within and without their country. This needs to stop. But I don’t remember saying that this justifies calling up Call Centre workers and blasting them or singing stupid hate-filled songs on the radio.
TTG, Some of the India haters that you mention in your comment are a lot popular in India. How do you explain that?? I have an explanation but it will require another blog. Whenever A Roy, Rohinton Mistry et all are recognized here in the west, it becomes a headline in Times of India. How do you explain that?
Wow, my points really are going straight above your head. The fact that these people are popular is exactly my point – they write such negative stuff, and they get awards for it. Anybody who tries to project India in a positive light gets yawns and indifference. And if you actually read my comment you would have noticed that I said:
It is an established fact that the most vehement India-haters are Indians themselves, within and without their country