An ex-Infosys employee, who is Indian American, is suing her former employer for calling her an “ABCD” and making her work on Thanksgiving to beat the “C” out of her. Promila Awasthi, a Silicon Valley computer consultant, says that Infosys management (presumably comprised of Indian Americans or Nationals) mocked her for wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving even though she was originally from India and shouldn’t be interested in such American holidays:
…her bosses at Infosys’s Fremont ,Calif. office mocked her for observing American holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas and refused to pay her overtime according to California law.
The lawsuit is potentially explosive for Infosys, one of a host of India-based information-technology outsourcing firms which take over computing tasks from other companies. [link]
Ouch. If any of this is true it definitely won’t help the image of a company that already has a tough PR job given that it is in the outsourcing business. I wonder, would they have been ok if it were Tandoori Turkey? Here are some more details from the lawsuit:
Infosys management routinely disparaged Americans, including Mrs. Awasthi, as not having “family values,” and stated that layoffs in America are good because the jobs will be outsourced.
Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi for celebrating the American holiday of Thanksgiving, telling her that she should not celebrate Thanksgiving because she is Indian, and that therefore she must work on Thanksgiving Day.
Infosys management ridiculed Mrs. Awasthi’s children for celebrating Thanksgiving, and called them “ABCD” short for “American-Born Confused Desi,” and “IBCD” short for “Indian-Born Confused Desi,” insulting terms used to criticize people of Indian ancestry who are Americanized. [link]
I kind of sympathize with Awasthi. As a tireless blogger I am being forced to work today also, even though I would like some Tandoori Turkey while watching American football.
layoffs in America are good because the jobs will be outsourced.
While this is an insensitive comment, I think it makes sense. There is only a finite number of jobs to go around. People in India have, in general, fewer opportunities for advancement than here. If a Microsoft operation in India closed down and the jobs opened up here, you’d find the exact sentiment. I don’t see a problem with it either way.
As for Miss Awathi’s situation, I do have sympathy for her. California labor laws should be followed, period. However, I also see where Infosys is coming from, as well. My boss laughed at me when I asked for Columbus Day and Yom Kippur off.
There is only a finite number of jobs to go around.
yes, but the number of jobs keeps increasing. let’s not get too zero-sum (though there is plenty of “friction” in the unending slouch toward equilibrium).
my ? is would they have done this if the employee was native born white? i know there was a time when east asian nations were very skeptical of american born asian americans who wanted to teach english. they had a hard time coding these people as “american” and so they tended to not have as much authority in the classroom as a white person for the students. i think that’s changed now, at least in korea.
Would like to hear the other side of story too, seems like the argument runs deeper than whats visible.
And if even the iota of this is true, then the desi managers ass needs to be sent back quick. Afterall, growing up, nobody in my predominantely hindu school had any problems with Christmas or Eid leaves.
If this is accurate, I have complete sympathy for her. Not only is she a working mother but she was asking for the bare minimum – what she was legally entitled to, and in exchange, her bosses said no and talked $hit about her and her kids’ identities. I hope she’s a union member now if she wasn’t then.
The arrogance of the Infosys managers is also breathtaking, again, if accurate- while some of us slave away trying to convince Americans not to be afraid of Indians and sympathising with the very real pain that families go through with layoffs, they’re going to sit there and make $hit 1,000 times worse while they line their pockets at the expense of workers in the United States AND India? I don’t think so.
wow1
somebody going to be toasting numbnuts this thanksgiving.
Looks like she may have stopped working at infosys last November, there seems to be more to it
“If a Microsoft operation in India closed down and the jobs opened up here, you’d find the exact sentiment. I don’t see a problem with it either way.”
Would these be American Microsoft immigrants seeking the land of opportunity that is India? We say over and over that America is a “land of immigrants” and desis or any other immigrant should be treated no differently than those who came before.
In a way, it’s the dog-eat-dog business world and Indians are not the first or only to retain ancestral loyalties. The difference here from your Microsoft scenario is that Indians are immigrating as immigrants, not just businessmen (for the most part), with the intention of becoming Americans and therefore contributing to the American economy. If Infosys personnel are so into being Indian why don’t they just wait for the outsourced jobs to come to them? Did they just come to facilitate the process? I’m comfortable with my heritage, but if I’m in a majority Thanksgiving-celebrating neighborhood, I’ll go with the flow. My aunties do Christmas even in India, though that could be because they went to Catholic boarding school. But Indians didn’t give a shit–they liked the decorations. In any case, unless I’m rich enough to jet back and forth as necessary, I’m not going to gloat over outsourcing. I suspect there may be legal action outsourcing Infosys in the not to distant future.
does seitan go tandoori?
How this ABCD an insulting term?
From one Jew to another:
Jacob needs to be bitch-slapped.
For those of you making light of it– I wouldn’t.. Just think about it, and how you would feel in this situation. When I lived in India I celebrated Holi and Diwali. I can imagine how I would feel if my inlingua bosses (from the UK) would have told me the same thing, I would have felt very upset. No one has a right to tell you what you can and cannot celebrate and to break labor laws based on these assumptions.
These are the reasons we need to have anti-discrimination laws… to protect citizens from stuff like this.
Also, ABCD can be used as an insult or not.. depending on how it is used and the connotation. Though I believe the part people many find insulting is the ‘confused’ bit, which of course is what these bosses had focused on and were using to mock her.
The quoted excerpts seem lifted from one side’s version of the lawsuit. Lawyers are not known for their regard for balance and truth.
In Silicon valley it is routine for highly paid technology professionals to work weekends, nights and public holidays when the occasion demands. Things like Google and the internet aren’t created by by clock watchers.
Funny – I used to work for an NGO that did work in India and it seemed like much of the time we were there some of (that’s SOME) our colleagues in India were just waiting to take offense at the slightest gesture – we had to be sensitive to Indian culture. Ok fair enough. However, when the same people visited us there was absolutely no effort to be sensitive to N American culture – in fact we were still expected to demonstrate our sensitivity to Indian cultural mores -anything less was intolerant/racist.
Badmash, what are you talking about N American culture? what is it? Will be the general question from a lot including Indian American’s as well.
QED
However, when the same people visited us there was absolutely no effort to be sensitive to N American culture – in fact we were still expected to demonstrate our sensitivity to Indian cultural mores -anything less was intolerant/racist.
Nothing very surprising here, I’d say. There is an inherent asymmetry in relations between India and the US (and more generally the West) which many Indians are simply unable to accept. The constant watch for signs of “insensitivity” on the part of Americans is a sign of this and speaks rather eloquently of a lack of self-confidence and self-belief. If I had to guess, it is mostly the English educated classes [to which I myself belong] who display such traits. Your NGO counterparts’ behavior may be irritating but it is entirely understandable.
You might want to take a look at some of Ashis Nandy’s writings which frequently touch on this theme.
Oh come on, many of us DBDs are in fact both insecure and arrogant, the latter expressed in the barely concealed contempt for those “stupid Americans” (as many DBDs assume them to be). The macho, male oriented and insensitive work culture of much of the Indian corporate world does not need to be welcomed to these shores. Call out these a**h—- for what they are. Jerks.
Oh come on, many of us DBDs are in fact both insecure and arrogant, the latter expressed in the barely concealed contempt for those “stupid Americans” (as many DBDs assume them to be). The macho, male oriented and insensitive work culture of much of the Indian corporate world does not need to be welcomed to these shores. Call out these a**h—- for what they are. Jerks.
Yeah, Cause we all know how female-oriented and non-macho the American corporate world is. Whoops…wait a minute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Leigh_Jones
Cut out the BS stereotyping, if you please
Just to clarify – the company being mentioned has been known to disallow associates from keeping miniature tricolors during Independence day on grounds of being a ‘Global Company’ Having been in the industry its pretty certain most desi IT companies strive hard to have a cosmopolitan, culture-neutral workplace. The trouble is the pool they recruit from.
Now these are not your regular urban DU/Xaviers liberal fluff who get their pants in a knot over Palestine and can’t end their day without a hookah/chillum orgy. Most of these guys are from Engineering colleges in the hinterland where the boy to girl ratio is 8:1 and too busy competing for grades, being pressurized by parents etc. It leaves them with no time to catch up with cultural nuances and other worldly affairs. Besides a majority of them are from lower middle class conservative families which Goldman clubs as ‘strivers’ in the Indian context with a feral cultural son-of-the-soil pride and hunger for upward mobility.
On site travel rarely sobers them up and when pushed into a corner they close ranks, ghettoize and adopt Hindutvawaadi ideas/post on Bharat-Rakshak etc. Sad to say these kids with performance IQs off the charts often make for very unbalanced individuals. You cannot fault companies for this, blame the dog-eat-dog Indian education/employment scene. Its also good in a way. These fellas are willing to slog without cribbing about work-life-balance, which matters most in Indian IT services to drive the 15% YoY growth. They don’t make the best ambassadors but conquerors never have.
“Cut out the BS stereotyping”
Is it stereotyping if its true?
I think cookie was just saying there are assholes on both sides of the world.
“These fellas are willing to slog without cribbing about work-life-balance”
If picked up, this thing is going to make some nasty juices flowing on anti-outsourcing blogs. I hope it is not substantiated, because The desi Big Blue is seen as one of the socially conscious trendsetters, or so it likes to project itself. I hope Ms Awasthi knows what she is doing. If she was so sensitive about such stuff why did she join an Indian (correction: India based) company. Or maybe India-based companies need to be careful hiring sensitive foreigners with a heightened awareness of their rights. In India we work overtime/night shifts without pay and get cussed in delicious local languages by Managers. But it is part of the job, and of the unspoken of agreement that we never complain as long as the deliverables are not on time/don’t get leave for Diwali/or proper appraisals/or rotation based on site deputation for $$s. But seriously, off on Thanksgiving? HAHA. Guys get billed for doing the work of 4 people and clocking 24 hrs before being left for home only to shower because the company does not have baths installed. She should have reported sick unless her Manager was like this one who told me that if I could visit the ‘bathroom’ at the hospital then I could come to work. Pride too much? Really, it appalls me that anything like this should matter. I fear that since she has dared to complain, she risks failing all her background checks, for Indian companies atleast. Career related snafu.
Clean water, air-conditioning, the airplane, penicillin, and and the internet, how about?
…and the TV – to watch Astha and Sanskar Channel.
I hope Ms Awasthi gets a decent compensation – history suggests that infy settles quickly.
‘ …and the color TV
“what are you talking about N American culture? what is it?”
Now what do you think the millions of North Americans who have been here in North America for circa 3 centuries, have been doing all these years? What about this place has made lots and lots of people want to come here? For my dad it was an academic research grant by an old North American University, which institution I dub a “cultural achievement.” Your cultural sensitivity barometer needs tuning. And by the way–what brings you here?
ooops–of course I am not forgetting the Native American “Indians” who have been here much longer. But I think this comment is referring to North Americans of non-Native descent. btw, “North America” includes Mexico. I guess they have a culture because they have spicier food traditions.
Are people upthread really trying to define culture? Here, let me help:
American culture = obesity, making people remove shoes before flying because someone tried to set his shoes on fire once just be glad he didn’t try setting his pants on fire, feeling entitled to rape the environment, balloons running away without young boys in them, asinine media analysis, sanctimonious and cynical politicians, xenophobia against Mexicans and Hispanics, can’t drive or recycle if you’re dark skinned, distract attention by hanging nooses on doors in the middle of the night, government turning a blind eye to flood victims, leaders have included someone who claimed to be attacked by a killer rabbit and someone who choked on a pretzel.
Indian culture = diabetes, making people remove shoes even if they’re diabetic and have vulnerable feet, feeling entitled to rape the domestic help, young boys selling balloons on the beach when they should be in school, asinine media analysis, sanctimonious and cynical politicians, xenophobia against Bangladeshis and Nepalis, can’t find a date or get married if you’re dark skinned, distract attention by garlanding Ambedkar statues with chappals in the middle of the night, government turning a blind eye to riot victims, leaders have included someone who talks to dead people and someone who drank their own urine.
In other words, the two are totally different.
When American management hires say only whites, or only americans, it is discrimination.
when infosys management hires 99% desis save for a token gora, it is their business model and outsourcing.
just saying.
is the lady in question a DBD or an ABD ? Does anyone know ? Linkedin throws her up as currently working in Accenture… As someone who has been a manager in India based IT firms the standard unwritten policy has been – dont hire ABDs – they create more trouble than they are worth. Goras are ok as they bring some benefits but desis raised in the West dont bring any of the advantages but bring all the disadvantages. Global hiring was initiated by Indian companies for filling up the Marketing function and primarily because ‘phoren’ candidates are very good communicators. However what most desi firms have now realized is that “phoren” crowd brings in a lot of drama. IT for many desis is like I-banking – a pot of gold and working hours are non existent. My advice – if you cant stand the heat get out of the kitchen. I did. Be a community organizer – you can have all the time off you want…… Infosys may settle but all that Awasthi has done is to ensure “fit” is more rigorously scrutinised. The Manager and HR person who hired her are looking at the end of their careers – not the ones who mocked her.
is this your personal view or a restatement of the unspoken infosys/wipro hr policy or both?
The first part is incorrect. I work in the US for an Indian company and we regularly hire ABCDs.
HR has little to do with this. Old boy network (includes girls) ensures that word gets around. Group think is not uncommon. If one has to deliver a certain % of growth YoY then one does what one has to do. My personal viewpoint has been neutral. I have not gone out of my way to either hire or not hire. It is the same unspoken policy when a white lady crosses the road when she sees a black man on an empty street at night.
ABCDs? – you just reinforced my point.
Ha. the desi slave mentality surviveseven after all these years. The one who is the ‘best slave’ si what these people will hire. Melbourne desi, I will bite.
Right. Why do that when you can hire a gulti bunch with a fake resume willing to work for his daily avakkai/rice.
Right. afterall, cannot really put the guys who cannot put two sentences together in english infront of the client when you are trying to make a pitch.
True. Afterall, all desi companies sell is their country’s poverty.
Point. Cannot really ask them to use the company bathrooms and a suitcase under their desk instead of renting an apartment.
Right, which is why the crowd almost always has a 10 year resume even if they are only 18.
Rrriiight.. exactly what does all this ‘heat’ produce? Please dont say ‘software’.
Thank God. I dont want to see India and Indians remain slaves for centuries to come.
Yeah, that Murthy guy tried till the national Anthem thing finally exposed his gora-boot-licking attitude.
Till INfosys runs afoul with labour laws again. The clients, pretty much all first world, have labour laws. Eventually Murthy and his boys will succeed in bribing everyon there too (often projects are obtained after huge Indian rupee despoits are made in desi client mangers’ bank accounts, right?), till then there are these annoyances you guys will have to deal with.
Yup. slaves and slavemasters you are, and you will remain.
If there was any intelligence in the company they could have made products that mattered. No, even after 25 years they cannot, nor do they plan to. They excel in only one thing – cheap pimps who provide ‘consultants’. You dont need much intelligence for that.
oh well.
Your comments are true. I dont dispute any of it.
jobs in India. Good jobs – you may not agree with me but jobs were very hard to come by till the late 1990’s Watch a few desi movies from the 70’s 80′ 90’s to see the angst.
No. always in kind never cash. Eg Fully funded family trip to the Olympics for 2 weeks
had that thought. However, Olympics might be too esoteric for some of them. a couple of desh trips with vacations in singapore en-route for entire family is not unheard of. Plus a nicely arranged plot/villa with Prestige in bangalore at a very very nice price. Dont know how they approach non-desis, but yeah, the olympics trip might come in handy there. like the golf-club memberships.
What abt the story that infosys exec in California kept that woman around as a possible enticement to clients and the reason they settled fast was not to get any of that leaked out? Once I heard that, I was actually happy that Ms. Patil ended up as the Indian president, not the Murthy guy.
yeah, cant dispute that. Had a classmate, a real rouge, goon – violence, politics, drugs, knife-fights, what not. family money ensured an engineering degree in a capitation-fee college, completed in 6 years, barely. Had the 80s-90s continued, he would have ended up feeding off the family money with a bought-school-teacher job in some private engg college. Well, thanks to al this now, software architect is the latest avatar he’s wearing. good? dont know. But I guess that does not matter much in contracting.
i was talking about non desis. Desis are much cheaper – a Prestige villa is over paying
at least IT has “civilized” him
No comment. Phaneesh is stil married to the same woman – I think. Corporations around the world have unofficial “pools” for client servicing – Indian companies are just learning the game and are not very good at it. American and French companies are absolutely brilliant at it.
In flagrante delictohas been standard operating procedure for several millenia in every sphere of life. welcome to the real world.
well I meant the woman who accused the exec..
Yeah I agree a Prestige villa might actually be overpaying, unless, ofcourse, the desi company was dealing black money in purchasing it. Indians knew the game quite well, but not the finesse on a larger scale..I guess. Still, Knew a prof once, who had a consulting business on his side, and a somewhat good looking and well-dressed desi (all this in desh only) ladki as one of his staff. Now, say a project is late, and client sends a young engineer (or not so young) to check on the project, and who gets sent for taking the guy to lunch? desis are cheaper, so nothing more than a lunch was needed I guess euro/us ‘consulting’ companies have made this an artform, ever seen the femme fatale ‘consultants of the big five (no not the coding rank and file, but the ones who grab the business? Guess infosys and co will have to recruit heavily from the north and dip into Kingfisher pool for that..
anyways. I guess we both agree that the coder/managers still have a lot of rough edges to polish and cologne to purchase and laddus to eat to sweeten the air and mouth
Well this sounds sometihng like from the past.I worked for Infosys some 5 years back in US and I had a manager who is from IIM but who wouldnt fit any definition of a manager.An utterly lazy and dissilusioned guy who was always pissed off at other managers who cut above him without an MBA.This guy had issues with most subordinates and had at several occasions raised his hand as if to hit subordinates.This might be a one off case but this guy is now a engagement manager.
There is some truth in things about Phaneesh murthy and the manager like above since Infosys is not serious about having a fair workplace.Infosys is now rotten with politics, no wonder there is a Nandan Nilekani and Pai faction at the top !!
Another instance that I can support this ladys accusation : Infosys cheats their employees with overtime or pager pay.I was one who had 2000 odd dollars to be paid to me for pager and overtime support work but they kept prologing the payment (the said manager above) and finally they said we cant pay !! But they go ahead and bill the customer at a higher rate for overtime.
Another bad practice that infosys and most other companies do is this – For short term travle they bill the customer for the Business class ticket but make the employee take the economy class and pocket the difference.One could say its ok, but then is it fair then to penalize employees who come up with fake bills !! How different are the two ? Especially for a company that mouths all the time how Value oriented their company is. Infosys needs a lot of clean up .
the best way to avoid coming in when working for an indian company is to say that you have a family wedding to attend. this works even when working in the west for an indian office. some weddings have so many different functions, you can stretch this out to 2 or 3 days. also you can say you are helping out in the preparations for the weddings. and make sure you tell people you have lots of cousins in the area you live in and you can marry them off when you are unwilling to come to the office at weekends or holidays.
my cousin works for infosys in the UK and his hours are very reasonable. i guess he must be lucky. my friends in american owned IT companies also have to work all hours. best to just become a professor.
Yes, lets do away with this ‘capitalist exploitation’ as the Arundhati Roy camp calls it, and forego the trillion dollar profits. I am sure that will be hedging our bets against future enslavement.
Lets just say the heat produces Damascus steel, an industry with the highest number of CMM 5 certified organizations in the world (America is second) Highest number of winners of the prestigious Deming Prize. Oh, and it does produce software too, my baby (my team’s baby actually) is running on telco production databases billing transactions of a hundred thousand idle american teenagers (the production rollout for ‘The youth bundle’) who don’t have anything better to do than talk long hours about their sex lives. Long life to them.
For the same reason Carrefour was better off not dissing the Chinese. Because some businessmen are savvy and don’t easily succumb to petty hair trigger calls to patriotism. As long as Murthy’s company contributes huge amounts to the Indian exchequer as turnover tax, he is a patriot.
Nice. What do you do for a living? I am sure its dignified enough for you to share with us. My call is you are one of those ad/marketing gasbags who have no hard skills and raw intelligence beyond some communication skills acquired as part of their privileged upbringing. Jealous that kids from rural India are getting H1Bs while all your dad can buy for you is a student visa.
A large number of banks run their Finacle product. They are also working on RFID products. Please check your facts before you make yourself look like an ass. If the majority of their income comes from services whats wrong with that? There is a market for it, and they should continue tapping ignoring dogmatic idiots who don’t know the ABCs of economics.
KolaNutTechie on December 6, 2009 8:27 AM · Direct link
rrrighht..”crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. may history forget that ye were our countrymen.”
ooh, trillion dollars profits? You mean your country’s entire GDP, almost, comes from IT? lay off the exaggeration, shall we?
living in fear, arent we?
oooh? you guys wrote the database doing trillions of transactions? guess not.. oh your baby is looking a lot less glamorous now. CMM5? yeah yet another tool these companies use to mask their core incompetencies and MCA graduate armies.. yawn, is jargon all you have? tell me the # of shrink wrapped software or even enterprise software you guys have written, being IT superpower and all?
Riiight.. oh forget that. everyone knows that Infosys and their likes wrote Unix, MacOs, C++, C#, Java, Oracle, SAP, MySQL, Linux.. pretty much all software comes from the Indian labs and american teenager types only go on to write bad applicaiton code using all these.. in any programming bulletin board you can only see pathetic pleas for help from assignment seeking american teenagers right? “please sir I have project due tomorrow sir very argent sir give me code sir no need to explain sir sir sir sir”. Rrrright?
.
It’s called ‘principles’, kiddo..
Yup if a gora gives enough dollars I take it Murthy will spit on the flag too..
As if he has a choice there. Not that he is not trying, fudging expenses of his armies etc..
well atleast not a slave like you. Guess all you want. Right about rural India H1bs. Fakes resumes can get you anywhere.
ditto, boy, ditto..
rriight.. thank god prostitution is illegal, otherwise I dunno what you guys might have developed your next ‘service’ on.. not that this is any different..
Man, you are leaking juices out of enough orifices for me to do some nice profiling.
“Your country” So you are American? I know where those feelings come from.
Sorry I can’t get through to marketing types with what Production system for a big telco would mean. Any rookie Techie would put the transaction count at around a billion. Then again why should I feel sorry for your ignorance?
Again, cut the hyperbole. Slaves don’t make 6 lkh Rs pa 2 years out of college. Also they don’t get paid for no work. Indian techies on bench do – months at a time. Slaves are usually quite frustrated people though….. consider Rob who got told to walk out of the cubicle he has been in for several years with all his belongings in a box, because his job has been outsourced to Raj, in Bangalore
Learn to brush with your left hand first.
“I hope Ms Awasthi knows what she is doing. If she was so sensitive about such stuff why did she join an Indian (correction: India based) company. Or maybe India-based companies need to be careful hiring sensitive foreigners with a heightened awareness of their rights. In India we work overtime/night shifts without pay and get cussed in delicious local languages by Managers. But it is part of the job, and of the unspoken of agreement that we never complain as long as the deliverables are not on time/don’t get leave for Diwali/or proper appraisals/or rotation based on site deputation for $$s. But seriously, off on Thanksgiving? HAHA.”
Seriously, off on an American holiday in America. It is part of the job.
You seem to think that employers hiring people to work in offices in California shouldn’t have to follow American and Californian labor laws for how they treat these people as long as their headquarters are in India. That makes no sense.