Posted on 12/29/2005 11:53:03 AM PST by pganini
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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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."
"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. "
Doesn't sound like a bunch of a friendlies to me.
every time I get an Indian on the phone in a call center I hang up.
Maybe he prefers to be called Sham.
You hate America so much? Fine, then quit your jobs and go back to whatever it is you do that pays more from your country. Problem solved. Of course if you're greedy and want those American bucks, then you should be hating yourself, because you're a hypocrite.
that's what I do too. And they don't like it when you dont' want to buy their crap -- and they try to keep you on the line and when you said "No, i just don't want to add the protection plan to my credit card", then sometimes they act REALLY rude after that.
Try talking to them in pig latin - great fun!
I hate it when I have these guys on the phone. 15 minutes of introduction 1 minute of solution.
Most of them are scripted -- i tried interrupting one guy once and tell him i am not interseted in credit protection plan or whatever he's pitching and he just goes on and on.. then i hung up the phone. Then he calls back, yell something at me (couldn't tell due to the accent) and then he hung up. Of course, i can't call back to complain because he's offshore.
They teach the same thing at call centers here.
People that call in are stupid about whatever they are calling about, or they wouldn't need to resort to calling in.
I'm an engineer. I have PhD in geology. Run a company. Own several more. Fly planes. Build computers.
And was baffeled to death by the assembly instructions on a faucet over Christmas, such that I had to call India.
Happens.
Sounds like "Office Space" in Hindi.
(Apuvoice) "Oh yes, if you could properly place de cover sheet on de TPS reports, dat would be most great, yes." (/Apuvoice)
}:-)4
The author does have a poisoned and incorrect view of economics that is shared with his subjects (might be why they are stuck working in a call center). He should know, though, that the number of these jobs are going to be reduced as online automated systems take over.
Probably the worse outsourcer of phone support is Dell - but if you use their online chat support, not only is it much faster, but the people on the other side are Americans.
I work with Dell quite a bit. Over the past two days I've been working with "Melville", but I have a feeling that's not his given name.
I ask for someone who can speak American.
"I hate you Americans, because you don't memorize your convection oven users manual like I do. I know more about convection ovens than any 10 Americans. You are all so stupid."
"Hey Ganesh, how many appliances do you own".
"Ha ha ha. I don't have electricity, you fat, stupid American..."
Yup, same here. They won't hear a word you say until they are done reading their lines...Now I just say "wrong number". Hope they are confused.
And if there were more attractive jobs available to
these people (and there will be), they would take them,
slowly driving up the price of off-shoring "support".
And the ones who actually know anything are always
the first to leave.
And here I thought they'd become like Americans... looks like they're well on their way to becoming Europeans instead.
Heh, i tried calling Dell support once, what a nightmare. Trying to cancel an order. they said it was cancelled, and then still got delivered to my house.
I actually asked one of the guy that i talked to "Where are you guys located? India?" He said "No, we're in Round Rock, Texas" :^) Somehow, i think he's lying.
If I call a help desk or service center and think I got Quik-E-Mart, I promptly put that company on my 'avoid' list. Ebonics can be bad, but nothing compared to someone reading a script in English from their computer screen when English is clearly not their native tongue.
No, certainly not.
Interesting how, rather than just quitting the "horrible" job and erasing this "awful" experience from his mind, he writes a book which is geared towards a relatively well-paid market of potential purchasers. A good capitalist, I'd say, although the words whiner and ingrate also come to mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.