Some Americans have taken to harassing the Indians to whom their jobs have been outsourced. So much for the ideal of the free market, huh? People should just stop pretending to be pro-capitalism and admit that deep down inside they need super socialistic support for their lives and their jobs.
: I just called to say 'I hate you'
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - For those who thought that the anti-outsourcing backlash against India, one of the biggest back-end service providers to multinational firms in the world, was an issue limited to the US presidential elections, they have it wrong.
In what has been termed individual vigilantism by the people affected, there are reports that an increasing number of blatantly racist and abusive hate calls are being made to harass Indian call-center operators who take queries from US customers, sitting in India. Curiously, this phenomenon has taken on alarming proportions consequent to the results of the US elections, with incumbent George W Bush considered to be more positively inclined toward outsourcing, in contrast to John Kerry, who lost the polls.
The Internet, for one, which always provides a forum for what is running through people's minds, has proliferated with messages that urge fellow US citizens to wipe out the movement of jobs away from the US, which has resulted in the coinage "Getting Bangalored". Call-center executives, who form a chunk of the jobs that have moved offshore, especially to India, given its large English-speaking population, are facing the brunt of the ire. The following is just a small sample of what is making the rounds, though many are not printable due to explicit language:
Q: I'm curious as to what kind of responses you have been getting. Do you use curse words at them?
A: I made an Indian woman cry and promise to quit her job in 60 seconds. You can do it too!
Actually, the usual response is confusion ... I get the impression these are not the brightest bulbs in India's chandeliers. Often, they give me a "courtesy laugh" as if I were joking and ask how they can help me. Usually, I limit the calls to 60 seconds anyway, so I can call back and really hammer them. I've been doing this about 20 minutes a day. It's great fun.
I have inside knowledge of call centers, having worked in several. It's crucial that the agents be efficient. Barraging them with 60-second calls will ruin their stats and also lower their morale. Eventually, they'll start thinking "another damn rude American" every time a call comes up. All of this will have a cumulative effect. If 100 people across the US would commit to spending 10 minutes a day, we could cripple them, and bring those jobs back.
Indians are particularly miffed at a recent parody aired by a radio station that made a call to an Indian call center. The conversation that followed was laced with hate, sexism and racism. American radio jockeys Star and Buc Wild, in a terrible attempt to be make people laugh, broadcast an abusive call that was placed to an Indian call-center worker. The "call" was aired during their morning show on Philadelphia's Power 99 FM radio, wherein the caller places an order for beads, inquires whether the call has been outsourced to India and then abuses her. While the producers thought the script was funny, it has provoked angry responses among Indians all over the world. Though the script has been removed from the official website of the radio station, it has been picked up by several blogs on the Internet. The transcript reads as follows:
Steena (executive in India): This is Steena. How may I help you?
Star: Hi, Stain-a, you say?
Steena: Yes.
Star: (In fake Indian accent) Yeah, I called and I just got hung up on. I'm calling from America about the quick beads for my daughter's, uh, hair. Quick beads.
Steena: Okay. May I have your ZIP code please?
Star: 10274.
Steena: 10274?
Star: Yes. Get it right. Now are you in India? Because I just spoke to someone in India who hung up on me.
Steena: Thank you. I am from India, ma'am.
Star: Okay. So my call is being outsourced to India.
Steena: That's right.
Star: In ... in regards to my six-year-old, white American daughter who wants to get the quick beads like Serena and Venus Williams.
Steena: Now. I'll definitely place an order for that. See ...
Star: What's that?
Steena: ... In the ad, she called to place a quick bead of counier. To ensure proper handling ...
Star: Ma'am, I don't know what the hell you're saying. Hang on a second. Let me try and get something straight here. The quick beads, like Venus and Serena Williams, that to advertise to - to the white kids on television. This call has been outsourced to India?
Steena: That's right.
Star: Well, ma'am, what the 'eff would you know about an American white girl's - uh, uh - hair? And quick beads.
Steena: Just to inform you, ma'am, we're a national chain services company. And we're just taking calls on the opposite ...
Star: Listen, bitch! Don't get slick with the mouth! Don't you get slick with me, bitch!
Steena: Now if you continue to speak this language, I will disconnect the call.
Star: Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I'll come out there and choke the eff out of you. (laughter)
Star: You're a filthy rat eater. I'm calling about my American six-year-old white girl. How dare you outsource my call? Get off the line, bitch! (Laughter, end of tape)
Star: Pull it up. (Laughter)
Star: Heard they listen well out there.
This is not the first time the two, especially Star, have been involved with a distasteful and unseemly episode. Star had earlier staged singer-actress Aaliyah's death on air. He played a bloodcurdling scream followed by a loud crash - Aaliyah had died in a plane crash. Buc Wild was on vacation then, but Star's then co-host, Miss Jones, was disgusted and walked off the show.
However, in the latest instance Star has correctly, even if unethically, approximated what is turning out to be quite a common occurrence now - of sober Americans, instead of the usual drunken ones that exist everywhere, calling just to abuse. There are now several complaints, being widely reported by the media in India, of call-center executives having to deal with customers who are downright uncouth. Executives working in call centers now say that there are at the receiving end of nasty phone calls more than ever before.
"Earlier, people would get abusive if we didn't answer their questions satisfactorily. Now, I get calls - on some days up to five a shift - from people who are calling only to abuse," Shalini J, a 22-year-old engineering graduate who works in a major call center in Mumbai, has been quoted as saying.
Some prominent call centers in India such as Wipro, Spectramind, Daksh, Exl and Convergys have tried to bring about technological changes as well as staff training to deal with the problem. As per the norms followed by them and the guidelines set by clients, no call can be disconnected once it is received. Some call centers have installed screeners and filters to blank numbers with a repeated record of abusive calling. Others have given the option to executives to mute their response when the caller is being unnecessarily rude. This prevents the caller from hearing any spur of the moment retort by the call center executive who can continue with the conversation once the tirade is hopefully over. In this way the concerned executive can keep his/her cool and avoid being stressed, one very common complaint among call center operators who have to keep long night hours to keep US time in India as well as deal with a barrage of inquiries.
The macro picture, however, seems to be bright for Indian offshore service providers. According to estimates, the business and process outsourcing industry will gross US$5.7 billion in revenue in the year 2005. A recent McKinsey report on the information technology-enabled sector has revised previous figures of $17 billion to $21-24 billion by the year 2008, with India slated to garner 25% of the offshore market, with the US the largest source, providing 60% of the business.
Estimates suggest that 200,000 to 400,000 jobs have moved from the US since the outsourcing trend began in the 1990s, which is still a fraction of 138 million jobs in the US. The Information Technology Association of America says only about 2% of the 10 million computer-related jobs have been sent abroad; 12% of IT companies have "outsourced" work, compared to 3% of non-IT firms. The most high-end projection is by Forrester Research - a loss of 3.3 million jobs by 2015, including 1.7 million back-office jobs and 473,000 IT jobs - which will create a dent in the US job market and not the wreck everyone fears.
With US industry firmly backing outsourcing, given productivity increases, higher profits and lower costs, one does hope that the latest distasteful happenings are just a blip in the phone lines.
