The Future of Global Outsourcing

Besides, business always has to remember that they've got to keep the customers happy. Unhappy customers will take their business elsewhere.

India Call Centers Suffer Storm of 4-Letter Words Executives Blame American Anger Over Outsourcing

By Rama Lakshmi Special to The Washington Post Sunday, February 27, 2005; Page A22

NEW DELHI -- Rohail Manzoor thought he had what it took to work in a telephone call center. All he had to do was pick up the phone and answer queries from American customers about their long-distance bills. He was armed with lessons on how to speak English like the Americans -- adjust the r's, say "zee" instead of "zed," "mail" instead of "post."

He even called himself "Jim," and figured he would pretend to be an American customer service agent.

But nothing prepared him for the shower of curses that came his way when he picked up the phone one night on the job.

" 'You Indians suck!' an American screamed on the phone," recalled a soft-spoken Manzoor, 25. "He was using a lot of four-letter words, too. He called me names left, right and center."

Call center executives and industry experts say abusive hate calls are commonplace, as resentment swells over the loss of American jobs to India. According to a survey in November 2004 by an Indian information technology magazine called Dataquest, about 25 percent of call center agents identified such calls as the main reason for workplace stress. The survey said the calls often were "psychologically disturbing" for workers.

"When some callers are unhappy with the service, their frustration often turns racist," said Amit Narula, 25, a call center agent. "They would say, 'This is why you should not handle our work. Indians are not good enough.' "

As a result, the call center workers are feeling stressed. Manzoor said he developed high blood pressure and chest pain in November, and quit his job. But in two months, he was back in another call center processing credit card applications for an American company.

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And while on the subject of Infrastructure problems,

High-Tech Delhi Suburb Stuck in 'Village Time Warp' Hub for Outsourcing Hampered by Corruption, Lack of Urban Infrastructure

By Rama Lakshmi Special to The Washington Post Sunday, February 20, 2005; Page A28

GURGAON, India -- Five years ago, Saurabh Chawla, a young corporate strategist, moved out of cramped and polluted New Delhi to the open spaces of suburban Gurgaon, seeking a better quality of life. As scores of software companies and call centers set up shop there, the rural outstretch hugging the capital also became a high-tech hub. Settlers like Chawla hoped Gurgaon could become a city of the future.

But today, despite the array of glitzy air-conditioned super-malls, two-car homes and sleek glbutt high-rise offices, Gurgaon residents groan about corruption, bad governance, poor roads and inadequate power and water: the same ills that plague rural India.

"This was to be a world-clbutt city of professionals, with the software companies, call centers and multinational giants setting up base here," said Chawla, 41. "Software outsourcing companies manage the London road traffic sitting right here in Gurgaon, but we cannot manage the chaos on our own roads."

Members of Gurgaon's restless new middle clbutt say their urban concerns may have been overlooked because of their location at the tip of a large, rural region.

"Those of us who came to Gurgaon have different needs," Chawla said, speaking of his suburban dream. "But the local administration and the old-style politicians here are stuck in a village time warp of caste and religion and fail to share our vision of the future."

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-- The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often buttume the appearance, and produce the effects, of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. --Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" ================================================================== "Sometimes, Evil drives a mini-van." --Desperate Housewives