Yippeeee!. Let's all run out and buy something that has been

outsourced to India... I feel an overwhelming need to be disrespected. :sarcasm:

Bestselling Indian author paints grim view of outsourcing jobs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051229/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentliteratureindiaoutsourcing

"...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...."

:eyes:

The article gives me a peek into a world I probably haven't thought of much.
Like with any interaction with people, if you respect someone, they will respect you back.
I've had little interaction with out-sourced call centers. The one time I really did need some help from Microsoft, I got a very professional person who made it a mission to solve my problem.
He stayed on the phome with me three hours until it was solved. I should add here that I had one tech come to my house, and had made two phone calls to local "geek squad" places. They all said to wipe out my computer and start over.

It is already there before you pick up your phone to dial.

he says that is true. But I keep reading on DU how Americans are rude and stupid.
So is the trainer right or not? All I know is if you be nice to people, they are usually nice back.
People in call centers are just trying to make a living, whether they are here, in India, or in Katmandu.

I don't remember seeing much about Americans being stupid or rude on DU. Elsewhere maybe but not on DU.

I see it every single day. DUers are always saying how Americans are stupid.
Sometimes they are right, sometimes it's just that the poster disagrees with anothers opinion.
Here is an LBN thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2011363
Every day you will have a thread about rude service people, rude neighbors, stupid voters, stupid red staters, stupid Christians, stupid atheists, etc. It's a constant theme.

north dakota, very polite and I could understand him and likewise. problem corrected pronto. When I bought this Dell I had to have tech help and talked to three different people in the philipines before I talked to someone who could understand me or me them. My okie dialect was to much for 'em I guess.

I've heard of calls being rerouted from US area codes to call centers in India.
And cultivating an American accent is now part of the training:

Article: Microsoft's call-center business in India gets an American accent(sorry, free registration required):

BANGALORE, India — Indians working at Microsoft's new call center in Bangalore may sound a bit like they're from Seattle.
For the past year, the center's 350 employees have been taught to speak more like Americans by Seattleite Andrea Koehler, a former University of Washington language instructor, who is part of Microsoft's training team.

During a six-week language program, Koehler teaches the "technical-support professionals" to speak in a way that's clearer and easier to understand by U.S. customers who call for help with their Microsoft products.


And a quote from an archived Wired article:
"We manage to carry off the conversation but if someone suspects that we are actually in India we tell them that one of our parents is Indian but that we grew up in and are calling from the United States."

aren't part of the civilised world of cricket.

Indians are usually completely obsessed with cricket and are easily sidetracked away from new phone services and credit cards to the 'little god's' (Sachin Tendulkar) latest innings.

You could always ask them to explain cricket to you - you will gain instant respect.

for Americans to ever seriously follow the game. The only Americans I know who really understand or love the game are the anti-war Bostonian Mike Marqesee (a brilliant writer) and Ted Hayes who helped to organize the Compton Homies team.

Boring.

several battles taking place over time. Once you understand the nuances, there's nothing better.

Get a few neighborhood kids together (a total of 6 will cover the basics, you don't need a whole team), 1 bat, 1 baseball or softball, a few mitts, either a dead end street or one that forces a turn so people are forced to slow down, a flat object for second base and you have a game.

BASEBALL is ALL!!!!!

are not going to be sidetracked away from their sales call by baseball chitchat. Never in several reincarnations.

Just ask them to explain the LBW law.

I just wanted answers which they either couldn't or wouldn't supply. To find out that they are apparently trained by their supervisors to think they are superior? That's the final straw.

Another thing that irritates is when they start calling me even though I'm on the no-call list and when I tell them that little fact they try to lie their way out and then refuse to tell me who or where they are so that I can turn them in.

:grr: :nuke:

It was the certainly one of the worst jobs I've ever had. I feel sorry for these people not just because they've got a shitty job but because they have also been sold the lie that hard work (for bad bosses) is the way to 'better yourself'.

I mean these people only made advanced civilisations when we were just leaving the bronze age, they have only developed the most philosophical of religions - obviously there is much room to 'better themselves' with Ipods, credit cards and such like.

Leg before wicket = fair game.

Guess where the idea that US consumers are stupid originates.

crap in a hole in the floor and worship cows all day instead of taking jobs away from Americans? If he's so damned smart why isn't he doing something better with his life? I have little sympathy for him. When I call customer service and I'm connected to someone like "Sam", I have difficulty understanding what they are saying. A majority of these people do not speak our language well enough to make themselves understood. I bought an HP laptop a few years ago and it was defective right out of the box. After talking to a "Sam" for over three hours, and having him repeat everything he said three times so I could finally understand him I hung up, took the computer back to Circuit City and bought another computer locally from an English speaking person.
It's not really their fault, it's the American companies that are exploiting their willingness to work for a fraction of what an American would want to do the same work. Welcome to the wonderful world of Capitalism, "Sam". Soon, these companies will find another country who's citizens will work for a fraction of what they're paying you, then you can be rid of the horrible task of answering we "stupid American's" questions. You'll be back in your mud hut, crapping in a hole in the floor and worshiping cows again, just like you want.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!

And it really pisses me off. It's just a very simple, pretty common, Anglo-Norse, 6 letter surname and it comes back at me with 3 of the 6 letters wrong.

My HP news letter is just one of the things I've gotten like this.

Second one sounds more DU-ish.

:shrug:
Is it the 10=35?

While that isn't accurate as far as my understanding of IQ goes, it fits my experience in the classroom. I'm sure the Indian students in my American classroom don't represent the entire population of India, but in every case they've been more intellectually advanced than their American peers. I don't mean just grades or test scores. I mean thinking skills, too. I've had plenty of gifted American kids, too, but none that surpassed the Indian kids in my classes. Only one teacher's experience, but I've been in public ed for 23 years now.

Personally, I put that down to American values. As a whole, I find American culture to be anti-intellectual. And it shows.

Peddle it elsewhere.

Are you now the DU gatekeeper? :rofl:

It's not baloney. As I already indicated, my experience may not represent the whole. But it is accurate, regardless.

How many Indians have you spent the last 23 years with? Taught any of their kids? Any American kids? Conferenced with American and Indian parents? What credentials are you basing your "baloney" on?

Are you trying to say that American culture is not anti-intellectual? What do you base that on?

Are you just hungry for lunch?

Are you calling me a liar?

What?

belittled, or degraded her/his students. While not a teacher, I have had more than 23 years of close, even personal, contact with a lot of teachers. As far as I'm concerned your credentials and your credibility are lacking.

Go peddle it elsewhere. I'm not buying. ...Silly me, I assumed you'd automatically add the last sentence of that Americanism on your own.

I've never badmouthed, belittled, or degraded my students, ever, in thought or deed. Of course, never having met me, or seen me interact with my students and their families, you'd hardly be expected to know that. Happily, my professional credentials and credibility have been inspected, approved, and appreciated by 2 states and districts, six schools, colleagues across many states and districts, and students and their families numbering in the thousand+ range. I hardly need your uninformed assessment, but if it boosts your self-esteem, go for it.

Noticing the anti-intellectual bent in American culture isn't denigrating my students in any way. Observing, and reporting, that cultures outside of America value intellectual development more than America does isn't badmouthing my students, either. That's exactly where the difference in intellectual development comes from; cultural values and what kind of conversations and activities take priority. A culture that values and uses intellect as an integral part of their daily lives will nourish more intellectual development than a culture that values other things. Knowing what conditions exist in the world my students come from is an essential part of knowing how best to facilitate their growth.

There's nothing for you to buy; I'm not selling anything. What does that mean, anyway? "Go peddle it elsewhere." Go peddle exactly what elsewhere? You don't have to agree, but when you post something on a public discussion board, it invites discussion, and some of that discussion includes disagreement. Sometimes someone who has knowledge or experience directly related to a statement you make may add their voice. That's the way it works. As a member of DU, I get to respond to any thread that draws my attention. You don't get to filter out dissent, unless you choose to hit the "ignore" button. Then it will be you "going elsewhere." Personally, I don't "ignore" anyone; I can take the heat. I'm not going anywhere.

You replied:



That's about as singular an example of anti-intellectualism as I've seen here today.

On what do you base your opinion that LWolf lacks credentials and credibility?

Please be specific.

It applies. There are a lot of things wrong with this country. Ignorance or lack of IQ is not one of them.

for your comment about credibility.

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051227/cm_usatoday/educationalblackhole;_ylt=A0SOwl02M7FD6nsBxyD9wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA-->





Then there's the whole ID thing.

This is an Indian writer, writing for an Indian audience, and quite frankly I think he is making some pretty good observations about Americans and our society. Hell, it is observations that even Americans make on a regular basis in all sorts of ways. "Clerks" was a movie that explored this, Hunter Thompson made a living off of this, hell, even posters on this board write about how rude, ill-informed, and anti-intellectual their fellow citizens are. And they are all quite accurate in their observations.

So why are people getting upset that an Indian, dealing with American customers, comes to the same conclusions that we do? Is it simply because he is an Indian? How jingoistic, and how far that attitude goes to prove Sam's point quite well.

but they did take my jobs.

Part time I work the phones (I know you all hate me/so spare me the bull horns I've gotten those, already)

When they called about my credit card bill (Indians) two years ago, it pissed me off because if they hadn't taken all the call jobs I could've gotten a part time job to pay it.

And the only reason it was a big credit card bill was because it was dental (I had No other choice)


Edited to add: now almost every sales call I get is Indian and when I call for tech support, I do try and be nice and buy the world some coke. Or is it a coke, I forget.