Bestselling Indian author paints grim view of outsourcing jobs

[DevilDog#1]

Thu Dec 29, 1:28 AM ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Shyam Mehra, 26, hates it when the Americans call him Sam. He hates it even more when his boss calls him Sam too.

That's not all. He hates his work, his "semi-girlfriend" ... and himself.

Mehra is one of the American-hating characters from a new book that has struck a chord with India's fast-growing middle class.

He could, however, easily be any of the hundreds of thousands of faceless Indians who take on western names and fake accents to provide client services to millions of foreign customers, mostly in the United States.

English-speaking young people like Mehra form the backbone of India's rapidly expanding outsourcing industry which adds 17 billion dollars to the economy and employs 700,000 people.

And just like the country's outsourcing services, which are much in demand, "One Night at the Call Center" by Chetan Bhagat is flying off the shelves.

In a month since its release in October, the book has sold more than 100,000 copies -- an impressive feat in a country where 5,000 copies of a book can ensure it a place in the bestsellers' list.

"The sales have been stunning. I do not know of any other book which has sold so many copies in such a short time in India," says publisher Kapish Mehra of Rupa & Co., which has just signed a deal for Bollywood film adaptation of the book.

He is also in talks with international publishers for foreign language rights.

The sales have come as a surprise even to Bhagat, whose first book "Five Point Someone" -- a fictional account of life at the country's top technology school, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) -- is still the number three bestseller a year after it hit the stands.

-- "Dim-witted Americans" --

"One Night at the Call Center" is a fictional account of one eventful night at a call center handling customer queries for a US-based computer and appliances company.

The book traces the story of six call center "agents" whose difficult boss, unreasonable customers, and low self-esteem take such a huge toll on them that only a phone call from God can bail them out of the crisis.

As their night shift begins, Radhika Jha becomes Regina Jones and Esha Singh becomes Eliza Singer to help their customers open their vacuum cleaners and pre-heat their ovens.

Mehra's dissatisfaction with his job and love life mirrors the confusion of young Indians who work overnight shifts in call centers and face pressure from disgruntled callers and rapidly changing social rules in dating.

When a customer starts ranting abuse down the phone, he gets a mouthful of invectives back, but only after the phone is put on mute, before the "agent" starts faking cringing politeness again.

Meanwhile, an instructor preparing trainees for the job scribbles a golden rule on the blackboard for handling difficult customers: 10=35.

"Remember, a thirty-five-year-old American's brain and IQ is the same as a 10-year-old Indian's brain ... Americans are dumb, just accept it. I don't want anyone losing their cool during the calls..." the instructor tells a class.

Bhagat, a 31-year-old investment banker based in Hong Kong, says this was a real instance which he came across on his trips to call centers during his six-month research for the book.

"My research showed me that this is what call center instructors teach the trainees," says Bhagat, who has come down hard on outsourcing jobs.

"A call center job is not any better than a sweat shop. Is this the best our young people can do," he says, defending the main theme of his book, in which the charaters find their work demeaning and unproductive.

The characters in the book hate it when they have to explain basic things to their customers, who can be rude at times.

While Bhagat takes a dim view of the backoffice work, his cardboard characters do not harbour much ambition in life either -- one gives in to sexual exploitation to become a fashion model, another gives in to her mother's insistence that she marries a software engineer in the United States.

But Bhagat insists that these jobs waste the full potential of bright, young people, who take them up out of financial compulsion.

"I was shocked to see professionally qualified journalists and bankers working at call centers. Do you think an American graduate will ever take up a job like this?" he says.

The author, who works for Deutsche Bank, says that the country needs to create better infrastructure which can also generate productive employment, rather than providing stop-gap arrangements like outsourcing which can only bring in temporary economic growth.

-- Connects with middle-class Indians --

In "One Night at the Call Center", Bhagat's characters mix self-deprecating humour with angst, office flings and text messaging lingo that appeal to the urban youth.

"I think the book sells because people can relate to the characters. Everyone knows a Shyam or a Priyanka," he says.

But the book has invited comparisons with formulaic Bollywood films, which throw in generous doses of melodrama, romance and fantasy.

Bhagat takes the criticisms in his stride, making no bones about his lack of literary ambitions.

"I have not written it for the cocktail circuit. It is unfair to compare (TV cartoon character) Bart Simpson with Shakespeare, though both are brilliant in their own ways."

The bottomline, he says, is that a work should strike a chord with people.

"My books touch the Indian middle class, where I also come from. I understand their problems, and can make them entertaining."

Bhagat says that while he is having fun working on the screenplay for the film adaptation, his book is also a message to young people not to give up their dreams for a few thousand rupees.

"Look, I have done the entire elitist thing by going to IIT and IIM (Indian Institute of Management), but I do not see any point in sitting in my ivory tower if my message cannot reach people."

I gotta read this book!!

[Dr. Bullet]

He hates his work, his "semi-girlfriend" ... and himself.

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Yeah, people are going to be rude, but that's the way it goes. I realize this is just a story, but it's the way he really sees things. Manning a phone here isn't any better. People will always be rude. What people fail to understand is, these people have no clue how it runs, and for all the hype of computers and their ease, they think it should run flawlessly for their every need. It doesn't help that they get someone they can hardly understand, and probably vice versa.

Hey, I've got the perfect solution: everyone needs to get smart about computers, so we can dump all the outsourcing, then they can really have something to whine about: unemployment It's so good, it fits!


I'm in a wonderful mood tonight

[SilentTrigger]

Outsourceing is company suicide for up to 90% of all compaines that outsource. We will just have to wait till they realice that them self. As the newer countires wont have the low sallerys for eternity, people arnt stupid heh soner or later the sallerys will be at the same level or higher then the country it was in from the start.

[BADDOG]

Looks like that book will be a very intersting read.

I agree with Silent sooner or later these people will demand higher salaries and then the outsourcing won't seem like such a great idea!

Warm Regards and good find DD bro!!!!

Steve/Baddog

[Lakie]

youre all thinking on a 1 dimensional level though, there will always bee somewhere to outsource too where wages are cheap, used to be in japan, then it was china for a while, now its india and pakistan soon itll be someone else then thereyll be someone else and it goes on and on...

That and you dont really see it, but countrys that get the outsourcing work are outsourcing it themselves...

[BADDOG]

It's fairly obvious that any nation will seek to maximise it's own economy Mike so outsourceing the outsourceing is an ineviatble progression in economic development for any nation. However there will also inevitably come a time where people globally will demand higher wages and a better standard of living so it may not be so economically efficient to continue this practice apart from the negative impact on the original nations economy and the effect on employment levels in that nation and the inevitable political consequences of job losses which may lead in turn to a loss of a market place to the nations who at the moment, benefit from outsourceing.

Warm Regards

[SilentTrigger]

Originally posted by BB/Mike*MFA*
youre all thinking on a 1 dimensional level though, there will always bee somewhere to outsource too where wages are cheap, used to be in japan, then it was china for a while, now its india and pakistan soon itll be someone else then thereyll be someone else and it goes on and on...

That and you dont really see it, but countrys that get the outsourcing work are outsourcing it themselves...

Yep, soon it will be USA and Sweden

[Hellfighter]

in the USA i call 1-800-555-1212 and ask for the company name and their 800 or toll-free number in the USA and the city the 800 number is listed.

i call some support info in the pass got Africa, China, S-Korea

thing is in their own country's these company's are located in out source job to save money, on the other hand it put people in their own country out of work and some cases put whole family on the street.

yes it help poor 3rd world country's out, but it hurts their own country people out.

wish there was a to lower the cost of liven and tax's to help people get their own jobs back and stop the out sourcing totally.

not very good to see a mom on the street with her two kids under the age of 5yrs. some big time company's area even moving totally out of their country to save bigger money.

[Dr. Bullet]

People will never globally demand higher wages. There's always going to be someone that needs work, and they'll be willing to go lower so they can get that job. Just look at all the sub-minimum wage jobs that Mexicans do. No one wants to do the jobs, and the companies don't want to pay minimum wage- enter Mexicans. They can't get minimum wage jobs due to legality issues, so they take the lower wage. Both they and the company benefit.

There will always be a "Mexican" willing to take lower wages. Always.

[BADDOG]

Originally posted by Dr. Bullet
People will never globally demand higher wages. There's always going to be someone that needs work, and they'll be willing to go lower so they can get that job. Just look at all the sub-minimum wage jobs that Mexicans do. No one wants to do the jobs, and the companies don't want to pay minimum wage- enter Mexicans. They can't get minimum wage jobs due to legality issues, so they take the lower wage. Both they and the company benefit.

There will always be a "Mexican" willing to take lower wages. Always.

Sad to think that people can be exploited in that way bro but I suppose "equality" is like "peace" unobtainable......

Warm Regards