Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Don't call us, call them
|
Bangalore has hundreds of young people who dream in dollars, celebrate Halloween, and roll their `R's even if they don't work in a call centre
|
`Young achievers', call centre style, are not meant to last. They are either fired or go looking for greener pastures.
IN SCHOOL we were taught how to insert commas in large numbers to mark thousands, lakhs, and crores. "Units, tens, hundreds..." we'd say in an undertone as we counted three from the right, comma, counted two, comma, two, comma — and that's as far as we'd go. Our little heads would nearly pop as we tried to imagine gigantic numbers. Rolling our eyes in delight, we'd cry, "One hundred crores! My!"
Everything is in millions today, American-style. Large figures have lost their potency. Even the old expression, "That's the 64,000-dollar question", has been marked up to "the million-dollar question". Bangalore, which is perhaps India's most Americanised city, has hundreds of young people who dream in dollars, celebrate Halloween, and roll their R's even if they don't work in a call centre — or should I say "center"?
Ah, the ubiquitous call centre, aren't you fed up with the hoopla? Media reports paint a glowing picture of the BPO sector, which, though it sounds like an oil company, actually refers to what it does: business process outsourcing. They tell us that last year it created the most number of jobs: 110,000 (note where the comma sits, old reader). They go on in puke worthy fashion about how it contributes to the "feel-good factor". Bangalore is its nerve centre.
Wake up and smell the boiled avarekai. Examine the call centre ads strewn across newspaper supplements. They can be identified by these key words: technical support, customer care, global environment, walk-in interviews, night hours, communication skills, and English language. Now why do you suppose the minimum experience required is sometimes as low as six months? "Don't hop from job to job and head nowhere," goes the caption of one ad. "Just when you thought call centre jobs were dead ends," begins another. Companies are well aware of the high turnover. Our "young achievers" don't last. They're either sacked for "poor performance", or seek greener pastures. "I'll quit before they fire me" is their attitude — pure defence mechanism.
Now that doesn't sound like a promising note on which to begin a "challenging career" in a "leading / number one" company in the "sunrise sector". Employees see a lot of sunrises, to be sure. Just when they think they've crossed the worst with the 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift, along comes the 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. that turns their brains to soup, and a 2 a.m. to 11 a.m. that crushes what's left of their spirit. Gee whiz, there's a pickup van, free of charge, which rounds them up and drops them off. The hidden cost: four hours extra on to-and-fro.
They're chewed up and spat out but they don't care. Quick money is the balm. Your neighbour's son who has just finished PUC wants to stop studying and join a "contact center". His friend with the barely sprouting moustache is already a "team leader". If, in a few years, the BPO wave moves to China or Korea, what then? Maybe they can form an unemployed undergraduates association and petition the government.
The government? Don't make me laugh. It's a dirty word if you're middle class. "Privatise or perish" is your slogan. You applaud while essential services slip into private hands for you fondly believe it will improve efficiency. I get a funny feeling that in the not too distant future you'll be longing for a musty government office where clerks sit thumbing ledgers. Want to know why? Because the best way to complain is to thump a table, not talk to an anonymous voice with a phony name. And that's where our call centre heroes come in.
Don't be under the impression that they're just Toms, Dicks, and Harriets servicing clients in America. They are among us. BPO has entered our lives. I'll tell you what outsourcing, as I understand it, means in plain English. You run a business: banking, insurance, manufacturing, whatever. You don't want to be bothered with queries and complaints, so you re-direct them to a call centre, where a bunch of sleep-starved zombies handle your customers.
The customer, too, is at the receiving end. A friend in Mumbai spent 45 days chasing the missing final instalment of her housing loan. She achieved little more than getting to know a battalion of pleasant-voiced youngsters on a fake-first-name basis. She wasn't aware that she had reached a call centre, where calls are rotated among the employees, and was puzzled as to why every time she dialled the same number she would hear a different voice.
I can foresee a time when I call to complain about my power bill and I'm answered by a Preethi. She wants to know my bill number, bill date, bill amount, postal address, units consumed. I spend five minutes telling her.
"What's the number on your electricity meter?"
"How do I know?"
"Could you check and call back, ma'am?"
I check and call back.
"Hello, this is Chetan."
"I was in Chennai last month and you've billed me for 6,529 units."
"Your bill number? Bill date?" And so on for five minutes.
"The numbers on your train tickets to and from Chennai?"
I hang myself with the phone wire.
C.K. MEENA
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
