It's 4 p.m. at the customer's home, but it's well past midnight in the Indian city of Bangalore, where Biswas sits in a cubicle, taking phone calls from a country she knows only through the movies and sitcoms like Friends. Company rules discourage her from telling customers they are talking to an operator in a foreign country, and Biswas and her colleagues make an attempt to echo the American accents on the other end of the line. If asked where she is, Biswas simply says the phone company, VarTec Telecom, is headquartered in Dallas. "Once upon a time they didn't ask where we were," she says, "but now they do."
Little wonder. The practice of using foreign contractors to provide services to American businesses—known as outsourcing—has become a hot-button issue here in the U.S. Although hard information on the number of jobs lost is difficult to come by, some experts put the figure in the hundreds of thousands. Now the presidential election campaign has contributed to an emotional debate over companies that ship jobs to workers abroad who earn a fraction of what their U.S. counterparts make. The lower salaries save companies money—and, in theory, result in cheaper goods and services that save customers in this country money. But that's no consolation to workers like former call-center employee David Benarrous, 33, who was laid off by VarTec from his $26,000-a-year job just about the time the company shifted operations to India two years ago. "Outsourcing," he says, "is an evil little business." (See box, page 112.)
For him, perhaps, but not for Biswas, who believes she's helping the U.S. economy by buying American goods with the money she's earned. "The call center is a great place to work," she says of a job that pays her 9,500 rupees, or around $210, a month—more than double the typical starting salary for an Indian college graduate. The daughter of an engineer and a homemaker from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), she prefers Levi's to saris, lives alone in her own apartment and occasionally hits discos with her pals—freedoms unheard of in her mother's day. With her spare cash she pays for Internet access, her cell phone and a gym membership. Meanwhile, Biswas's traditional-minded parents have hired a matchmaker to find her a husband. "They've arranged for me to meet two or three boys at Pizza Hut," she says. "But every time I run home to my flat, ring [my parents] up and say, 'No!' "
Along with Western-style affluence, however, have come Western-style headaches for some of those who have benefited most from outsourcing. Real estate prices have risen sharply in Bangalore, India's high-tech capital, and costs there are generally higher than in other parts of the country. "The money I make goes by the end of the month," says K.K. Sunil, 32, another VarTec operator, who earns more than he ever has—though it still doesn't go far. He has earned just enough to buy the tiny house he shares with his wife and parents, whom he supports financially. In fact, space is so tight that Sunil and his wife share a bed with Sunil's mother. Not that working the night shift five days a week leaves much time for family. "We worry about thieves while he's away at work," complains his wife, Padmaja, 26. "I would prefer he earn less money and have a day job." Sunil himself fears that his own job may someday be outsourced, moving on to another country such as China, where wages are even lower.
Yet applications for new jobs at HTMT, the Indian contractor that handles VarTec's calls, far outstrip available positions, and the company perks are widely praised. Workers take part in singing, chess, debate clubs and even an annual fashion show. "We have a real social scene for singles here," says Biswas. To master American culture, workers attend an 18-day training course, learning to imitate regional dialects and picking up phrases like "I'm outta here." For the most part, though, she says, callers from the States don't seem bothered to be speaking to an Indian—as long as she can be of help. Says Biswas: "Americans really do appreciate someone being able to fix their problems."
J.D. Heyman. Pete Norman in Bangalore, Darla Atlas in Dallas and Wendy Grossman in Austin
- Contributors:
- Pete Norman,
- Darla Atlas,
- Wendy Grossman.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
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