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I have to agree. You shouldn't judge a whole country of people based on your experience in one company, and dealing with 90 people. Every country will have intelligent people and average workers, as well as poor workers, but it doesn't give us any right to categorize all "Indian" workers as people who can't think for themselves and can only follow customer service scripts. The fact that your previous company had 3,000 workers is irrelevent to how a person performs.
None for nothing, I think Annerk's comments do come off as a little arrogant at times as she tends to bring up how big her previous companies were, or what she's accomplished, and who she knows. You sound like you have been around enough and have solid experience, but that should also tell you that your experiences do not speak for all Indian workers in the world.
I'm not saying they do, but neither do the "Top Indian CEO's" who are obviously skewed and ethnocentric. My point is that their education system spends a lot of time training them to be "worker bees" that are skilled in what they do, but not skilled in deviating from the very specific task.
And for the record, I've only worked for two major corporations in my life. Most of my employers have had under 50 employees, many under 10. So I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that I've always worked for big companies.
I never said all Indians were poor workers. Show me where I said that.
how about this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by annerk
And what do the Indians learn? how to read through a step by step guide at a help desk and frustrate callers. They are taught by rote and can't think for themselves. No thanks.
BTW--I don't know a single Six Sigma Black Belt who wasn't born and raised in the US, and I know quite a few of them.
You basically said Indians are too dumb to learn anything on their own.
You are right, you didn't just call them poor workers, you called all Indians dumb as well!
You basically said Indians are too dumb to learn anything on their own.
You are right, you didn't just call them poor workers, you called all Indians dumb as well!
unbelievable...
You are taking it out of context. Whatever. My experience with them is that either their education or culture teaches them to perform specific tasks well, but not to be able to think outside of the box. I've worked with enough of them to see this as an overall trait over and over. I'm sure there are some that are very capable and great problem solvers, but in my experience, that is not the norm. Or at least they don't step forward to show it.
I'm not saying they do, but neither do the "Top Indian CEO's" who are obviously skewed and ethnocentric. My point is that their education system spends a lot of time training them to be "worker bees" that are skilled in what they do, but not skilled in deviating from the very specific task.
Why would you think this applies only to Indian workers? Isn't this the case with all workers from all around the world? Traditional bell curve tells us that 5-10% of the workers will be "top performers" and another 5-10% will be "poor performers", while the remainder of the 80-90% will fall right in the middle, as the "average worker." With every organization, regardless of the nationality of the employees, you will always have "star" employees and poor performing employees. But majority of the workers will be average workers, who some can consider to be paper-pushers that come in and do what they are supposed to do, and then leave at 5pm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annerk
And for the record, I've only worked for two major corporations in my life. Most of my employers have had under 50 employees, many under 10. So I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that I've always worked for big companies.
Fair enough, but my point was that your statement is wrong regardless of how small or large your previous companies were and has no relevance on how someone from a particular nation performs their job.
What bothers me about your statement is that you make it sound like the Indian education system only teaches their people to become script following customer service reps who can not think for themselves. Do you think we don't have similar workers here in the US, born and bred? There are plenty of customer service centers in the US in Florida, Vegas, N. Dakotas, Buffalo, etc. that have the same script following workers as India, so should I say that all American workers are the same and can't think for themselves?
Why would you think this applies only to Indian workers? Isn't this the case with all workers from all around the world? Traditional bell curve tells us that 5-10% of the workers will be "top performers" and another 5-10% will be "poor performers", while the remainder of the 80-90% will fall right in the middle, as the "average worker." With every organization, regardless of the nationality of the employees, you will always have "star" employees and poor performing employees. But majority of the workers will be average workers, who some can consider to be paper-pushers that come in and do what they are supposed to do, and then leave at 5pm.
MY EXPERIENCE is that US educated employees are more likely to try to think outside of the box and solve problems.
Quote:
What bothers me about your statement is that you make it sound like the Indian education system only teaches their people to become script following customer service reps who can not think for themselves. Do you think we don't have similar workers here in the US, born and bred? There are plenty of customer service centers in the US in Florida, Vegas, N. Dakotas, Buffalo, etc. that have the same script following workers as India, so should I say that all American workers are the same and can't think for themselves?
My experience is that when I reach a US call center, the person on the other end of the phone can have a conversation about the problem and how to fix it without having to read from a script. I had an unusual problem with a plane ticket. I called and got someone in an Indian call center. They read from the script and couldn't help me. I hung up and kept calling back until I got someone in the US. They resolved the problem in under 60 seconds.
My experience is that when I reach a US call center, the person on the other end of the phone can have a conversation about the problem and how to fix it without having to read from a script. I had an unusual problem with a plane ticket. I called and got someone in an Indian call center. They read from the script and couldn't help me. I hung up and kept calling back until I got someone in the US. They resolved the problem in under 60 seconds.
This is funny, I had to call Microsoft support about an issue I was having with my OS and got "Paul" from India. He was helpful, solved my problem, and what was weird was that we chatted on the phone for a bit. I asked him how the weather was in India tonight & he was like "Oh, you know where I am?" Found out the guy's name was Harpal & we shot the breeze for about 10 min. about various stuff which was pretty funny. His English was excellent, but he worked at some school teaching English to Indian students so that was to be expected.
MY EXPERIENCE is that US educated employees are more likely to try to think outside of the box and solve problems. My experience is that when I reach a US call center, the person on the other end of the phone can have a conversation about the problem and how to fix it without having to read from a script. I had an unusual problem with a plane ticket. I called and got someone in an Indian call center. They read from the script and couldn't help me. I hung up and kept calling back until I got someone in the US. They resolved the problem in under 60 seconds.
I still remain irritated and a bit dismayed where your initial response was concerned which had nothing to do with US outsourced Indian call centers but to do with the experience that you had in the IT workplace in America where East Indians happened to be employed. Your post and the statistics you posted really didn't make sense to me, I questioned it and you responded only in part.
I've had bad experiences with outcall Indian centers, bad experiences with mainland call centers. Six of one and a half dozen of the other, and living in the USVI we have, I can assure you, a multitude of issues where both on island and off island service is concerned which would have most of you tearing your hair out in a heartbeat!
Really best not to make broad generalizations about anything, Annerk. I'm sorry that the few East Indians you have encountered in the workplace have led you to make generalizations where the race and their education is concerned. All I can say is that I think you're wrong to generalize.
US outsourced Indian call centers are just a whole different kettle of fish and have absolutely NOTHING to do with the question at hand. I'm surprised that as an apparently well-educated person you would even try to correlate the two as one bears absolutely no relationship to the other. Cheers!
It's more like "Most American grads can't make ends meet on $2/hr. like college grads in India do."
Exactly. Many Indians will gladly work for next to nothing, and actually buy into this Orwellian rhetoric about Americans not being employable. Most Americans with a pulse know that IT outsourcing undercuts American workers. IT isn't rocket science.
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