I totally agree with you. As you said, accent is measured by NATIONAL-level broadcast media. This obviously varies from country to country.
Therefore, for an Indian, an American speaker would be speaking accented English, as would a Frenchman or a Russian.
All of us have accents and benchmarks can only be local.
Indians probably think of us Americans as speaking English with a very heavy accent.
Almost everybody that speaks English speaks it with an accent typical to the country of their origin. What is the "accent benchmark"?
So stop giving them hell about their accent. There are quite a few accents in America that are terribly hard to understand.
What I've always found unfortunate in America is that often a kid in school is almost always labelled a jock or a nerd. Why can't kids be encouraged to excel (or at the very least, actively participate) in both sports and academics.
Education is usually a child's best bet to a better quality of life (materially) and greater economic prosperity and a better future.
Our children shouldn't be raised thinking they'll be called "nerds" or "geeks" if they indulge in any activity that is even remotely mentally challenging.
The number of virtually illiterate and innumerate kids graduating from our schools is shocking.
Yesterday, Salon.com published a story by him titled "0wnz0red". Very interesting reading. Do check it out. You'll need to click through an ad to obtain a day pass to read the whole thing, but it's well worth it.
All that junk that lands up in your mailbox - grocery-store lists, coupons etc - somebody pays for all that. I'm sure it costs them a bit too. Still, it's delivered.
So what makes them (Microsoft/Yahoo) think that a similar scheme will stop all spam. If the spammer has to pay for each email he sends, he'll recover his costs by charging the person who's product is advertised in the spam a little extra.
and there are idiot HR who'll recruit them
You could at least have read what you had written. That's terrible grammar right there. What incentive do you need?
I agree. And I did not mean to say they were part of "Bollywood". They made movies that were part of the "parallel cinema" movement.
A very large percentage of movies screened in North Africa - as high as 97% in The Sudan - are Indian movies.
Also, Amitabh Bachchan is mobbed in whichever country he visits.
While I personally do not like Bollywood movies, it is interesting to note that their themes and treatment resonate with so many people from so many different cultures.
I remember reading an interesting article in the Econimist a few years ago.
97% of movies shown in Africa were Indian moview dubbed in the local languages. An increasing percentage of foreign filmes being screened in the Middle East, Israel, Australia and now England and the US are Indian movies.
You could argue that the success of Indian movies in England and the US is because of large immigrant population from India. However, the other countries mentioned have few Indians.
When interviewed, most people said they loved Indian movies because there was an emphasis on family bonds and respect for elders - these are the foundation of Indian society - and had much in common with the societies in these countries.
They all watched Hollywood movies too, and definitely enjoyed them, but they said that something about Indian movies struck a chord in their heart.
Indians love Hollywood movies, Indians love Bollywood and all the other regional language movies - Indians LOVE movies, period. There is a long standing tradition of film in that country, and not all the output is song-and-dance.
Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Amol Palekar to name a few are extremely gifted directors and made some of the best movies ever. So, one shouldn't make sweeping statements about an industry.
Mainstream Bollywood, like Mainstream Hollywood is all a world of make-believe...it's just the ingredients that are different.
An uncle of mine worked for many many years at TI and then Motorola. He was laid off from a very senior position earlier this year. He lost his job not because it was "outsourced" but because Motorola decided that they had to get rid of some staff. The people at the top however received pay hikes and increased bonuses.
It is alarming that companies such as Motorola do not have the kind of long-term vision and strategy required.
Maybe it's just not public corporations.
I think there needs to be a major debate between the leaders of the IT industry in both countries - I am talking about the US and India here - as to the fallout of outsourcing.
On one hand companies are cutting costs. This is something ALL companies want, and it is next to impossible to talk them into a more "expensive" line of operation.
On the other hand, outsourcing jobs has led to an enormous shortage of jobs here in the US. This is clearly unproductive and undesirable. Having been jobless for more than 5 months after graduation, I know how it feels to be desperate to get a job - something that justified my Masters degree. Sure, there are people that will say, " you could have flipped burgers" and they are correct. However, that was NOT something that I wanted to do. I got by those 5 months teaching school kids Math and Science (thank you Craigslist!).
Anyways, my point is that the reasons behind why companies outsource is more or less clear. Whether they understand, appreciate or care for the fall out is what we need to know. If possible, the heads of all the companies that do outsource should be interviewed to find out if they realize the affect this is having on local economies.
The free-market, anti-protection doctrine is something we have preached to the world. Now it affects us directly. How are we going to deal with it?
Should we stop training for such jobs and automatically assume that people in other countries will get them? That is ridiculous. But if one isn't reasonably certain that he/she'll find a job in the field they've trained for, who is fool enough to tread that path?
A misconception or misrepresentation that I see rather often on these fora is that "the Indians/Chinese are stealing our jobs". They are not stealing them - companies here in the US are GIVING THEM AWAY. It is AMERICAN managers giving away AMERICAN jobs - jobs that the Indians and Chinese are gladly accepting.
I don't know when and how this is going to end, but dialog is clearly required.
Could this possibly be a fake? You would think Microsoft would plaster the website with TMs, and legalese.
Also is it common practice for big corps to use SurveyMonkey. If they are being so open about it, why didn't they have it someplace on Microsoft's site?
I have to correct you here: Most call-centre workers are actually paid very little.
What a fully qualified doctor earns depends on which city he is in, whether he's working for a govt. hospital or a private hospital.
So if you're comparing a city based call center worker's pay with that of a doctor in a rural govt. hospital, perhaps he'd earn the same amount - but then you'd have to factor in the cost of living
There's a wide range of factors that make certain aspects of living in India cheaper than in the US. Not everything is.
Also, one must remember that the purchasing power of a rupee and a dollar are not the same.
You will find that in India, things involving labor of any kind - eg. construction work, hairdressing, carpentry etc. are much cheaper than here in the US. This is a direct result of a large working population. This is also the reason why even though you have a large pool of skilled programmers, they are not as expensive to hire as programmers in the US.
And as I said in my previous post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89880&c id=776 7099) it is YOUR manager/CEO/Overlord HERE in the US, that's making the decisions that affect your life.
Today it is India - for reasons that have been stated many times in these fora - that's benefiting from the US and Western European countries outsourcing jobs. Tomorrow it could be Vietnam, it could be any other country that has a large enough number of programmers.
Let me add to the statistics given above. Every year in India there are at least 500,000-600,000 students enrolling in Engineering courses - most of them in Comp.Sci and Electrical Engg. Assuming 50% of these are comp.sci engineers and just 10% of these people are good (and that is a very conservative estimate) you have 25000 GOOD programmers.
Some of them move on to do an MS or an MBA. Some of them start working. So the number of programmers being added to the computer industry workforce in India every year includes the engineers that start working, plus all the other worthless idiots that signed up for an engineering course and learnt VB/VC++/whatever's in vogue in 14 days.
Bit of a no-contest there isn't it? So, you either have to hope your boss will not outsource (and the incentives for that may not decrease) or work your way up a bit and somehow become indispensable.
The days of expertise in one area seem to be coming to an end. I have to face this at work everyday - but it's good. It keeps you on your toes
It's always great when people talk so freely about things they know nothing about. I personally know people from the US, France and Germany that work in India. They apply and get work permits, just like in the US. The process may take a little longer in certain cases, but the legal provisions exist.
Next, they are not interested in lowballing jobs out of the rest of the world, and it's not as if the entire nation works in call-centers. If jobs are being sent there, then it is due to the decisions of managers from the US and other countries. So it is AMERICANS or EUROPEANS taking those decisions - blame them! If you stop sending jobs there, all those employed in this business will take up something else. Why don't people understand this?
Next, talking about what you would earn in India. What you earn will definitely see you living comfortably. If you are going to rate standard of life by the exact same parameters you would use to do so in the US, then the difference will definitely be drastic. However, part of moving to another country should be a willingness to adapt to a change in life. It's not so different out there - they have a lot of the same brands we do - but somethings will definitely need getting accustomed to. People there will almost always treat you extremely well and you will never feel unwelcome.
I see the validity of your point of view, and to an extent I feel the same (reg preventing the offences).
However, what we need is a multi-faceted approach: prevention and cure. For as long as it takes to reach that ideal where there are no sex offenders (among other undesirable social elements).
Who knows if that will ever be a possibility?
Kinda unfortunate that I didn't have a laptop before I graduated from USC...just a few months ago. They've installed an excellent WiFi network all over campus, and all my laptop-toting friends told me it was really hassle-free.
Just curious...how many other campuses have state-of-the-art networks? Stand up and be counted!
Very interesting Hobbex. It's interesting to hear about the role of the civil services in other countries.
My father is a civil servant in India, and while it was never a tempting career choice, I am very interested in politics and government administration.
Does anybody know what the equivalent service in America is?
In India, the officers of the Election Commission are from the Indian Administrative Service, the administrative wing of the Civil Services. This is largely a legacy of the British, and thus the similarities in structure.
These officers work with whichever party is in power - they are really the engines that drive any kind of policy-making or administrative decisions - not the politicians that come and go every five years.
The Election Commission deals with all matters involved in the holding of elections whether to State assemblies or national elections.
There are also three Chief Election Commissioners. This is to ensure that no one person in charge of making decisions can favor any particular party.
"I agree with the overall point your making, but the spread of European diseases to the Americas wasn't exactly intentional. Nor was the spread of syphillis from the Americas" Pardon my ignorance, but I believe it was very intentional. Cortez and the others that followed him from Spain gave the tribes they came in contact with blankets laced with the smallpox virus. This is well documented even by spanish missionaries
Slashdot Mirror
I totally agree with you. As you said, accent is measured by NATIONAL-level broadcast media. This obviously varies from country to country. Therefore, for an Indian, an American speaker would be speaking accented English, as would a Frenchman or a Russian. All of us have accents and benchmarks can only be local.
Indians probably think of us Americans as speaking English with a very heavy accent. Almost everybody that speaks English speaks it with an accent typical to the country of their origin. What is the "accent benchmark"? So stop giving them hell about their accent. There are quite a few accents in America that are terribly hard to understand.
What I've always found unfortunate in America is that often a kid in school is almost always labelled a jock or a nerd. Why can't kids be encouraged to excel (or at the very least, actively participate) in both sports and academics.
Education is usually a child's best bet to a better quality of life (materially) and greater economic prosperity and a better future.
Our children shouldn't be raised thinking they'll be called "nerds" or "geeks" if they indulge in any activity that is even remotely mentally challenging.
The number of virtually illiterate and innumerate kids graduating from our schools is shocking.
Sorry, my bad!
Yesterday, Salon.com published a story by him titled "0wnz0red". Very interesting reading. Do check it out. You'll need to click through an ad to obtain a day pass to read the whole thing, but it's well worth it.
LUDDITE!!! hehe, just kidding :)
All that junk that lands up in your mailbox - grocery-store lists, coupons etc - somebody pays for all that. I'm sure it costs them a bit too. Still, it's delivered.
So what makes them (Microsoft/Yahoo) think that a similar scheme will stop all spam. If the spammer has to pay for each email he sends, he'll recover his costs by charging the person who's product is advertised in the spam a little extra.
and there are idiot HR who'll recruit them You could at least have read what you had written. That's terrible grammar right there. What incentive do you need?
I agree. And I did not mean to say they were part of "Bollywood". They made movies that were part of the "parallel cinema" movement.
A very large percentage of movies screened in North Africa - as high as 97% in The Sudan - are Indian movies.
Also, Amitabh Bachchan is mobbed in whichever country he visits.
While I personally do not like Bollywood movies, it is interesting to note that their themes and treatment resonate with so many people from so many different cultures.
I remember reading an interesting article in the Econimist a few years ago.
97% of movies shown in Africa were Indian moview dubbed in the local languages. An increasing percentage of foreign filmes being screened in the Middle East, Israel, Australia and now England and the US are Indian movies.
You could argue that the success of Indian movies in England and the US is because of large immigrant population from India. However, the other countries mentioned have few Indians.
When interviewed, most people said they loved Indian movies because there was an emphasis on family bonds and respect for elders - these are the foundation of Indian society - and had much in common with the societies in these countries.
They all watched Hollywood movies too, and definitely enjoyed them, but they said that something about Indian movies struck a chord in their heart.
Indians love Hollywood movies, Indians love Bollywood and all the other regional language movies - Indians LOVE movies, period. There is a long standing tradition of film in that country, and not all the output is song-and-dance.
Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Amol Palekar to name a few are extremely gifted directors and made some of the best movies ever. So, one shouldn't make sweeping statements about an industry.
Mainstream Bollywood, like Mainstream Hollywood is all a world of make-believe...it's just the ingredients that are different.
An uncle of mine worked for many many years at TI and then Motorola. He was laid off from a very senior position earlier this year. He lost his job not because it was "outsourced" but because Motorola decided that they had to get rid of some staff. The people at the top however received pay hikes and increased bonuses. It is alarming that companies such as Motorola do not have the kind of long-term vision and strategy required. Maybe it's just not public corporations.
No problem, this was just to correct an error.
I think there needs to be a major debate between the leaders of the IT industry in both countries - I am talking about the US and India here - as to the fallout of outsourcing.
On one hand companies are cutting costs. This is something ALL companies want, and it is next to impossible to talk them into a more "expensive" line of operation.
On the other hand, outsourcing jobs has led to an enormous shortage of jobs here in the US. This is clearly unproductive and undesirable. Having been jobless for more than 5 months after graduation, I know how it feels to be desperate to get a job - something that justified my Masters degree. Sure, there are people that will say, " you could have flipped burgers" and they are correct. However, that was NOT something that I wanted to do. I got by those 5 months teaching school kids Math and Science (thank you Craigslist!).
Anyways, my point is that the reasons behind why companies outsource is more or less clear. Whether they understand, appreciate or care for the fall out is what we need to know. If possible, the heads of all the companies that do outsource should be interviewed to find out if they realize the affect this is having on local economies.
The free-market, anti-protection doctrine is something we have preached to the world. Now it affects us directly. How are we going to deal with it?
Should we stop training for such jobs and automatically assume that people in other countries will get them? That is ridiculous. But if one isn't reasonably certain that he/she'll find a job in the field they've trained for, who is fool enough to tread that path?
A misconception or misrepresentation that I see rather often on these fora is that "the Indians/Chinese are stealing our jobs". They are not stealing them - companies here in the US are GIVING THEM AWAY. It is AMERICAN managers giving away AMERICAN jobs - jobs that the Indians and Chinese are gladly accepting.
I don't know when and how this is going to end, but dialog is clearly required.
Infosys is an INDIAN company. They have a branch here in the US.
Could this possibly be a fake? You would think Microsoft would plaster the website with TMs, and legalese.
Also is it common practice for big corps to use SurveyMonkey. If they are being so open about it, why didn't they have it someplace on Microsoft's site?
Just a thought..
What a fully qualified doctor earns depends on which city he is in, whether he's working for a govt. hospital or a private hospital.
So if you're comparing a city based call center worker's pay with that of a doctor in a rural govt. hospital, perhaps he'd earn the same amount - but then you'd have to factor in the cost of living
There's a wide range of factors that make certain aspects of living in India cheaper than in the US. Not everything is. Also, one must remember that the purchasing power of a rupee and a dollar are not the same. You will find that in India, things involving labor of any kind - eg. construction work, hairdressing, carpentry etc. are much cheaper than here in the US. This is a direct result of a large working population. This is also the reason why even though you have a large pool of skilled programmers, they are not as expensive to hire as programmers in the US.
I totally agree with you.
c id=776 7099)
And as I said in my previous post
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89880&
it is YOUR manager/CEO/Overlord HERE in the US, that's making the decisions that affect your life.
Today it is India - for reasons that have been stated many times in these fora - that's benefiting from the US and Western European countries outsourcing jobs. Tomorrow it could be Vietnam, it could be any other country that has a large enough number of programmers.
Let me add to the statistics given above. Every year in India there are at least 500,000-600,000 students enrolling in Engineering courses - most of them in Comp.Sci and Electrical Engg. Assuming 50% of these are comp.sci engineers and just 10% of these people are good (and that is a very conservative estimate) you have 25000 GOOD programmers.
Some of them move on to do an MS or an MBA. Some of them start working. So the number of programmers being added to the computer industry workforce in India every year includes the engineers that start working, plus all the other worthless idiots that signed up for an engineering course and learnt VB/VC++/whatever's in vogue in 14 days.
Bit of a no-contest there isn't it? So, you either have to hope your boss will not outsource (and the incentives for that may not decrease) or work your way up a bit and somehow become indispensable.
The days of expertise in one area seem to be coming to an end. I have to face this at work everyday - but it's good. It keeps you on your toes
It's always great when people talk so freely about things they know nothing about. I personally know people from the US, France and Germany that work in India. They apply and get work permits, just like in the US. The process may take a little longer in certain cases, but the legal provisions exist.
Next, they are not interested in lowballing jobs out of the rest of the world, and it's not as if the entire nation works in call-centers. If jobs are being sent there, then it is due to the decisions of managers from the US and other countries. So it is AMERICANS or EUROPEANS taking those decisions - blame them! If you stop sending jobs there, all those employed in this business will take up something else. Why don't people understand this?
Next, talking about what you would earn in India. What you earn will definitely see you living comfortably. If you are going to rate standard of life by the exact same parameters you would use to do so in the US, then the difference will definitely be drastic. However, part of moving to another country should be a willingness to adapt to a change in life. It's not so different out there - they have a lot of the same brands we do - but somethings will definitely need getting accustomed to. People there will almost always treat you extremely well and you will never feel unwelcome.
I see the validity of your point of view, and to an extent I feel the same (reg preventing the offences). However, what we need is a multi-faceted approach: prevention and cure. For as long as it takes to reach that ideal where there are no sex offenders (among other undesirable social elements). Who knows if that will ever be a possibility?
A lot of work would need to go into updating the database viz. Michael Jackson's picture there...don't you think?
Kinda unfortunate that I didn't have a laptop before I graduated from USC...just a few months ago. They've installed an excellent WiFi network all over campus, and all my laptop-toting friends told me it was really hassle-free.
Just curious...how many other campuses have state-of-the-art networks? Stand up and be counted!
Very interesting Hobbex. It's interesting to hear about the role of the civil services in other countries.
My father is a civil servant in India, and while it was never a tempting career choice, I am very interested in politics and government administration.
Does anybody know what the equivalent service in America is?
In India, the officers of the Election Commission are from the Indian Administrative Service, the administrative wing of the Civil Services. This is largely a legacy of the British, and thus the similarities in structure.
These officers work with whichever party is in power - they are really the engines that drive any kind of policy-making or administrative decisions - not the politicians that come and go every five years.
The Election Commission deals with all matters involved in the holding of elections whether to State assemblies or national elections.
There are also three Chief Election Commissioners. This is to ensure that no one person in charge of making decisions can favor any particular party.
As it is in India. A strong central/federal non-partisan Election Commission is essential for the upholding of democratic principles.
"I agree with the overall point your making, but the spread of European diseases to the Americas wasn't exactly intentional. Nor was the spread of syphillis from the Americas" Pardon my ignorance, but I believe it was very intentional. Cortez and the others that followed him from Spain gave the tribes they came in contact with blankets laced with the smallpox virus. This is well documented even by spanish missionaries