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Re: Indians
| quote: | Originally posted by jonSun
Why are they so hard to deal with on a business level? They are normally very educated but when it comes to business they lack common sense. Any westernized Indians care to comment? |
Their education levels are the same as anywhere else, copious amounts of rote learning but possibly more heavily oriented by process and protocol than you will get by westerners. By and large if a westerner is in a business situation and stuck for an answer they'll wing it, look it up or ask someone who knows... that doesn't really compute in the black-white business protocol of an Indian employee.
So when an Indian gets stuck, its a case of-
Lie your arse off
Feint and change subject with a strawman argument
Please come back later
As an Indian employee, you can't go to your boss and admit you're ignorant because that means you're unfit for the job* and kind of hope one of your underlings knows just what the hell to do. Better yet, if they're wrong, you can just blame them and gloss it over with your boss!
*Fit for the job.
Ok, this isn't the US, UK or anywhere else, its India and you're one of 1.Something billion meat bags and there are no medals for coming second. Western kids are taught that they're all little snowflakes, special and entitled to be in a position because they believe they can actually do it.
Fact of the matter is, majority of human beings are idiots to some greater or lesser extent and the difference here is that idiots stay in their place emptying night soil and the only people on top are there because they've dragged their sorry arses through ten kinds of hellish levels of competition. Every hour of every day is a competition to maintain position and work towards advancement... because failure is NOT AN OPTION like it is in the happy developed world. You fail, you fall and can go run around planting rice for the rest of your life as a subsistence farmer.
If that means treading over a mound of corpses of people, floating over a river of lies in line for YOUR job that you worked for, then so be it.
At this point, getting one to admit that they're either wrong, don't know or lied about something is pretty much next to impossible. It sort of reaches an uncomfortable impasse where-
You know they're wrong
They know they're wrong
Neither of you can really do much about the other
There are some pro's to working with them, bearing in mind what I've just written isn't a blanket statement of fact for all of them. Once they've been in the western environment long enough they eventually begin a lot more lateral problem solving, delegation and improved questioning.
However, you must approach this progress in the black and white format of a statement which they can clearly understand the bounds of how they operate in the workplace. It will be followed to the letter!
OH&S? What's that? They'll work until they die at their desk, fall off a scaffold or drive off a cliff after a 40hr stint getting something finished. They are also scrupulously polite so don't make an arsehole of yourself or them just for fun.
Failing that, if being social, concise and fair fails. You can try yelling really loudly, just don't get personal about how they're a cretin/liar/idiot. But be much louder than they are because the louder and more hostile you are also means you're really bloody serious about it and they better start getting it done or for the love of god, you're going to be more pissed off and even louder next time you see them.
It does actually work 
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