Office Tigers: Outsourced in Chennai

Sama

just finished watching the first episode of Office Tigers on the Sundance Channel on cable....about a company in Chennai that does work for investment bankers in the US.

and people here wonder why jobs are being outsourced when Chennai office workers are more than happy to work 14 hours a day in a windowless office....

most of the scenes are inside, but they do show Chennai, day and night...that's why I watched it!

the American boss of the company has lived at the Taj Commodore (sp?) for 6 years.....

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My India, 2005-2008

icetea

Yes, the spell of a BPO job works for a while, until people realise that it's not really worth it and leave for better jobs. The money is quite attractive, but then when your back and eyes start hurting badly and when you understand that there are little prospects of climbing up the ladder, or that your personal life is more important, then you drop out. Attrition is very high in this industry, no wonder BPOs are always on a hiring spree. But then, the good news is that there are PLENTY of people out here dying to take their place.

It doesn't really pay off, but it takes a while to understand that. The money isn't all that fabulously great either, even by Indian standards, and what is even sadder for BPO employees is that they are heading nowhere. People tend to move on once they get married and settle down, or when they start thinking of building a real career.

Nick-H

Taj Coromandel. Here's their websiteI never knew that before!

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Nick-H

There is a ladder. Mrs N's son is doing pretty well at climbing it .

Sama

they said the average salary for a manager is $9,700 US/year

cubicle types are more and more visiting the yoga school in Chennai where I study for their private therapeutic yoga classes for the same problems that westerners have had for years -- bad backs, bad necks, stress, tension....

they showed a line going out the door and down the street of people who were applying for jobs. They showed the applicants going through an initial round of testing -- a typing test for 3 minutes at 40 words per minute as a minimum. Most people failed at that. The second video on the link that I posted is the typing test.

The American boss said that they hire only 2% of their applicants.

One scene was a manager telling his group that they should not even think of calling in sick, because being sick is "juvenile". He told them to take an Immodium to "plug it up", take a painkiller, and come to work.

There's a saying here: "Europeans work to live, Americans live to work". now Indians....

The company, which really IS called Office Tigers, is in the same neighborhood as the Taj hotel as the boss said it's a 2 minute run from the hotel.

I think there are 3 more episodes.

crvlvr

Its pretty sad to see some bright kids dropout of college for call center jobs. Many of the non-IT outsourced jobs don't offer much of a future.

Nick-H

There are many levels of management. And, for every manager, many, many non-management workers!

As for this Coramandel business; I don't know about trees, but suddenly remember, it's the 'coramandel coast', isn't it?

Merchant

Consider the upside of such jobs--you get to work in an air-conditioned, windowless office. You are not sitting at a desk in an un-airconditioned government building. You are not driving a rickshaw or plowing a field. You salary is higher than your father's ever was, even on the eve of his retirement. You are young professional, working with other young professionals. You make more money than a senior-level college professor. $10,000 in India will go a very long way.

crvlvr

I agree with Merchant's assessment in the short run. But, many of these jobs , for example call center ones, can pretty much be a dead end job. Its great for some in their 20s, after that what next ?

icetea

What Merchant says is absolutely true, but let's also not forget the fact that most of these jobs involve night shifts. Moreover, shifts tend to change quite often because of rotation, so these people find themselves waking and sleeping at the oddest of hours. It's a very strange lifestyle.

At least from what I have seen, many call centre people don't really have much of a life apart from work, and that ultimately does start to matter. It's (monotonous) work (at the oddest hours in the night), food, sleep, work, food, sleep, and little satisfaction. Money was max. 15.000 Rs at Sutherland when I last asked, and that too with all the top performance incentives added. Now this is good money here, but priorities change in time.

Sure, you get to work with young people like you, and breaks are indeed packed with fun, but then the moment you start thinking about marriage and starting a family, you have to look beyond this type of jobs. I have seen quite a few call centre girls, some of them my roommates, now they really didn't have much of a life...honestly. They were mostly sleeping throughout the day, I really didn't envy them a bit. And all the quality checking, monitoring and cross-checking they were subjected to, well, it sounded quite distressing. They were just puppets in this huge BPO show, and although the enthusiasm of speaking to foreign clients was still there, I could see that they were quite worn-out. Some of them did move on to different jobs in between, although their performance was very good.

Still, I don't mean to imply at all that it's an unhealthy trend or a life of slavery, nothing like that. It's a good job option, but for a limited period of time.

rangss

Ahem! Ahem! Yours truly works at OfficeTiger, Chennai (not Office Tigers). My back was visible in that movie you saw, Yogagal

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...and I took the road less travelled.

rangss

Having been in this industry for the last 7 years...I am afraid I have a different view...growth, money, satisfaction et all.

rangss

The dude was playing it to the camera! He will never dare to say that in a different time and situation.

Nick-H

Amazing coincidence! And Rangss --- I wish you'd finish the sublimating and maybe try kipling instead....

The people I know in the industry certainly don't paint a black or futureless picture of it. In terms of the possibility of promotion, is it any worse than any other? Management, by its nature, will always be in the minority

I would say that it has a damn site more future than a Rs3000/month shop job...

Moving up the tree requires real management ability and specialist skills, like the ability to talk real American English or British English that will take in the customer --- and it can be done, despite the complaints of incomprehensibility made by customers of some of the big PC company help desks.

And many, many other employees move on, or out, when getting married.

edwardseco

Oh I don't know but I feel that Rangss is pretty much reporting his experience. From my people's side, although they work long hours compared to a babu job in government, they make amounts and live better than was imaginable in "the old days" described so nostalgically above. Just got my neice's photos from Kerala. She travels more than I do these days. I am the poor uncle from Amrika. Its a different culture that may be incomprehensible to many of us who can't keep up. Ah, time and age..