Wired News astounds with Say Hello to Sanjeep, Er, Sam:
Some were told that comprehending Sylvester Stallone was the final frontier in understanding American diction. Others were asked to watch Titanic and Ally McBeal, so they could mimic an acceptable American accent.I wonder how many of these goofballs are just having fun with telemarketers? Probably not enough.
But no amount of training prepared them for what was to come.
More than 30,000 employees at Indian call centers, among whom Radhika becomes Ruth and Satish becomes Steve, are told to adopt American names and say they are calling from a U.S. city in order to put their American customers at ease.
Their training includes a smattering of U.S. history and geography, along with speech therapy so that they will sound "American." Some call centers are adorned with American flags to give a cultural feel to the place.
Along the way, these employees are exposed to a way of life that can come into direct conflict with their conservative values and, sometimes, their sanity.
Partho Banerjee, a 24-year-old employee at a call center in Mumbai for TransWorks, a computer outsourcing company, blushes when he recalls a sales pitch that he made to a 45-year-old American woman.
"She asked me to marry her," he said.
On another occasion, Partho let his accent slip and had to confess after being pointedly questioned that he was, in fact, an Indian sitting next to a telephone in Mumbai.
"The man told me, 'You guys blew up the WTC,'" he said. "I tried to explain India had nothing to do with it, but he just banged the phone down."
Another employee at the TransWorks call center named Maulik Bhansali, 22, spoke to a man who kissed him over the phone many times before apologizing, "Sorry, if you are not gay. Is there anybody else in your company who is?"
Mandakini Pradhan, 21, once dialed an American home in an attempt to sell a caller ID system. The man told her, "Aren't you the girl who lives next door? Can you see me? I am naked."
I'll save up consideration of the apparent shortage of homegrown telemarketers for another day.
