BPO - Boon or Bane?

I guess virtually everyody in India knows that what is the most happening story in India these days? Every job seeker in India is running to grab a pie in this field. This is the highest growing sector in India. One can get a job virtually just by doing his/her higher secondary. Lots of liquid cash in hand to spend. This is helping so many other industries in India that virtually every second sector is doing good business and talking of these young professionals with lots of disposable income. Estimated 4-5 lakh people are working in this industry which is expected to grow to 2 million by the end of this decade. Mind boggling right...So many ppl with lot of hard cash...Lot of good times ahead for all the service and other industries...No need to guess I know everybody knows what I m talking about...BPO excluding IT services. If we have to write about the good things this revolution has bring to India, i know unarguably we can write pages. No doubts and arguements at all. This is still at the nascent stage and imagine what good can this bring to India when fully developed....or what bad can it bring to India?

Whats this...Is it a spelling mistake....How can something so widely spoken about, so good for the economy, job producing thing can bring something bad to the country...Am i out of my mind? Ya i can see so many eyebrows raised....But just give me second and let me talk about things which are getting affected because of this revolution.

I was talking to one of my colleague(Indian - married with one daughter, 3 years old) here in my company. Very well spoken guy from Mumbai...Visits country once a year or 2. Came back from India 2 days back and following is the conversation we had yesterday....A - myselfSC - Sweet colleague.

A - Hi. How are u doing..

SC - Fine thank u....how are u doing...

A - Good(missed thanku ;-))...So how was India...Must be very hot....

SC- India was good and hectic as well and ya it was hot. No doubts abt that...

A - Where were u in India?

SC- Blore....

A- The most happening place...Cool place right...

SC- Haan acha tha....

A- (bewildered)Bas Acha tha?

SC- Haan...Bas jo kuch ho raha hain, i was surprised to see all that...

A- Why...Some good things are happening to the country and blore is the one city which can take the credit for all this. Now every individual in the country has a job...Isnt that gr8888....

SC - Haan woh sab theek hain...Lekin dekho ye sab India kya le kar aa raha hain...

A- Matlab(confused)...

SC - Western culture is being adopted so fast... I am not saying that this should not be done...Why cant Indians filter out all the bad things and just take in good things from west...Instead what I found out was everybody is just taking only those things which even west wants to get out of....jahan dekho raste pe aadmi gandi gandi gaali bak raha hain...No respect for elders or parents...Clubbing culture...Girls and boys staying out whole night...Doing all sort of nasty things.....Ladke ladki sab daroo cig pee rahe hain ekdam khulle aam...
India ekdam India jaisa laga hi nahi....There are so many things looking at which made me so sad....I dont think no body in the world from now on is going to talk about Indian culture and value...In fact they have already stopped...Is it really good...Abt the jobs....ye sab american companies keval munaafe ke liye hain waha...India mein salary kitni tezi se bhad rahi hain...
Soon it is going to touch the level of American salaries and they jobs from India will get outsourced to some other chealer country...This is globalization is all about...Jobs chali jaayengi lekin it will leave behind this filthy culture which is like eating our roots...I was thinking about putting my daughter in some Hostel there so that she will learn all good things about India and will have all those sanskars and values very typical to Indian..I was scared to put her in school here as u know how she will grow up to be...But now i think its no difference at all...Its one and the sa....(Interruption)

As (SC's boss) - Can u meet me?

SC- Ok Amit, will catch u up for lunch sometime...bye...

He left and I was standing there stunned...He told me some dark facts about this whole call centre thing....Which is more than one ways so true....

I started recollecting things which I have come to know from my friends...

Westernized attire(not bad) which is getting scantier and scantier even in the workplace...

Attitude of girls/boys towards sex...Literally every girl/boy in call centre business has had multiple unsafe experiences with different partners...Infact I have learnt that during 15 minutes break also in between they try to make most of it...God!

Weekends means clubbing, partying, boozing, fagging and drugging...And ofcourse sex...Nothing more than that...

Even while talking to parents they use words like f__k, B___h, ass____, D__k and whole lot of nasty words.

Live In relationships - Sort of debatable issue...

Education taking a back step as ppl find jobs very easy just after doing graduation or in some cases just after doing 12th Grade. Bad for India in the long run...Isnt it?

There are some other instances and quotes which I could have written down here but the sanctity of this blob is refraining me from jotting that down here. But isnt amazing what can western jobs bring with themselves...And more importantly and surprisingly I have not seen media covering this....Why? Isnt this big an issue for country like ours where values, respect and culture are so important...What is our society getting out of this globally known phenomenon of outsourcing....More jobs may lead to more money but will it eventually lead to more happy India...More Prosperity may lead to transient light but will it finally lead to dawn?

I know today so many independent guys and girls are making money out of this and India has made one big stride towards global recognition but I hope things at stake are not of big problem tommorow...

After a long time....

Wow!!!I am really excited to be back here. Its been a really long time since I visited this page last and I was longing :-) to come back here....

Some of the very nasty and heart warming things happened during this time though. I'll start with good things....My manager very impressed with me...Interaction increased a lot...Took lots of initiatives myself and is right now leading the whole project. Some of the team members though have almost 3 times of my exp...Feels good!!!! Got long awaited promotion. May be thats the best thing that has happened to me in past few months....Was denied 2 times earlier because of lack of exp.....Well I m not complaining now....Feeling good...Take home has also increased marginally...But guess what every penny saved extra can make my decision of coming back to India much sooner....

Now the series of bad things....Was there in New York for 3 weeks. Though was supposed to be there for 4 months...Had to come all of a sudden in middle because the project which I was suppose to support was taken away from my company....No not because of my incompetency but because of some clients internal problems...Had a very horrid time in New York....No body was helpful in the office...Everybody was looking at me with such glaring eyes as if, if they get chance they are gonna bash me in some nook or corner....There was lot of politics at the clients place and aura there wasnt very pleasing...I was hating every moment being spent there...So in a way it was good for me that our company did not get the project...The more I talk about that stay there in New York more I feel bad...Second New York Trip was a torrid experience.....Glad to be back....I must admit though that one good thing came out whole New York Fiasco for me and that was getting visibility in the company :-) Even if it was for wrong reasons.

Back to the same place and same project now....Same stuff now.....Hope things go smoothly from here :-)