Social Trap -The BPO Agent

My post on the Talent Trap a week ago, has evoked some interesting responses , some of my friends recognized the implications, while some others felt that development is an individual issue and there are limitations to the extent that an employer can facilitate development .....I believe that the truth is somewhere in between , however the responses to my post has inspired me to look at another phenomenan which I would like to call the social trap . In this post , I would examine the dimensions of the social trap based on my personal experience with the call center industry .......

Circa 2005 , location Bangalore , venue- founder's day of a prominent call center company. I was the guest of the CEO and travelled all the way from Mumbai with an air of expectancy ....

The celebrations began with the ceremonial speech by the CEO , followed by honoring the exceptional employees of the year ...somewhat similar to the old economy .......but then it all started ........they called it a culture show ........I have seen cultural shows before but this was different ...the kids were attired in costume which were indeed global ( I hope you get what i actually mean!!) and were putting up a performance which was far beyond my imagination , in terms of choreography , professionalism etc etc ......I felt like a dinosaur and looked at my colleague and told him " P -this is indeed brilliant ....he responded saying -Welcome to the world of the BPO..." , i said to myself , I wished i worked in this sector ......however the real story unfolded a bit later ....

The Social Trap -Evidence 1

The show had some event managers who decided that they would randomly select some employees from the floor and engage with them on the dias .....a good idea if executed well....the first guy to come on the dias was a decent looking Kannada fellow and this is what happened thereafter .....

The Event Manager (E) - Hi , thanks for coming to the dias , whats your name ?

Respondent - Namez Jerry (he meant my names is..)..... I will refer to him as J from now on ...

Me- The fellow looks like Jawant Gowda , or Janardhana Murthy or J Karnard ....why does he call himself Jerry ....well it did not take time for me to realise that Call center agents have American names which helps them to be more acceptable to their customers . However , I tried hard to put myself in his situation and failed to understand why I would not call myself Niladri and automatically respond as Niel (even if i worked in the call center industry...) ...I told myself "this is a different generation so don't be judgmental ".....

What happened thereafter is even more shocking ......

E- So what did you do all day

J - I kinda , woke up in the morn and called up my gal ...and told her ,need some kinda time to shit .....and then take her out for a date .....then the unmentionables which i prefer not to document even in a harmless post like this ......the accent was perfect ...i had heard people speak like that in the Mid-west

Me- have I heard him right , did he say shit ? , was my automatic response ...of course he did , these people talk about morning chores in gay abandon in a public gathering ...!! . I decided to do some further investigation on the background of J , and as I would have expected , J comes from the outskirts of Bangalore , from a place called Maddur .

For those of us who are unaware of Maddur , it's a hamlet on the Bangalore -Mysore road and most of the villagers are probably agriculturists ...and J is probably the first generation that has ventured out to the city for easy cash ...thanks to the BPO industry

The more I thought about J the more i was perplexed , a part of me bowed down with reverence to the captains of the IT and IT enabled services for having provided employment to thousands of people like J , the other part of the me thought about the Social trap ....according to me you are in a social trap when " displacement without moderation happens from your roots and are transported to a make believe world , which is not yours and never will be.."

J was transported to a world , where he talks like an american , apes them in whatever he does , but at the end of the day retires to his small one room apartment in some non-descript ,pot-hole infested part of the city....he is trapped between two cultures and he is too young to realise it .......

Social Trap- Evidence 2

I like frequenting discotheques and in my younger days have been a reasonable party animal .....my haunt in Bangalore is a place called "Spin" . In this visit , I went to Spin with a couple of old friends of mine . Before we proceed any further, I would like to also tell you that I have a bad habit of observing people in public places like disco's ...and i have been doing this for years .... I find great pleasure in spotting the BTM 's (Behenjis Turned Modern ) in Delhi ..the Ghatis in Mumbai , etc etc ..... I was not hoping to see something like that in Bangalore ...but to my surprise , I say this young group of gals in their late teens and early twenties ...dressed in (not skimpy, but close enough) colorful attire coming in ......I asked my well informed friend...who are these people .....pat came the reply...BPO kids .....

I went closer to the group and observed them , the ladies were wearing contemporary fashion but in wierd color combo's , hair done up in geen and brown.....a fascinating variant of the BTM's .....they were calling themselves Steffi , Anna, Stacy......wow , I am sure their names are Saritha , Anitha , Sunitha , and after the voice and culture acclimatization program ....they have morphed into Steffi , Anna and Stacy......and have taken to smoking , drinking ....and who knows what else

I am not judgemental about personal preferences and habits , but the feeling i was left with was that these young people have gotten themselves wonderfully in the "social trap" and like J have no clue about its implications .

After a few years the attractiveness of the BPO industry will come down (it's already coming down with shrinking margins and commodatization) and as these young people grow old their salaries will not be enough to sustain a life style of a Steffi or a J ....once you have a bad habit , it stays with you for long ........and few years in the BPO , I am sure they will find it difficult to relate to their parents , their peers (who did not go to a BPO) , their cousins , etc ....and would definitely not migrate to the US ...so what's in store for these trapped people ? , where do they go from here now ....what suggestions do you have to give them....pls write it ...trust me this is serious.........