our new Indian overlords

[adjunctprof]

This is a very sensitive topic for many.  Most people focus on manufacturing going to China or other parts of Asia.  What I've seen impact more middle-class and educated Americans is the mass influx of Indians taking high-tech jobs and changing the culture of many companies.

Dislcaimer: I'm not against Indians, some of my very good friends / colleagues are Indians, but even they, would never work for an Indian boss or an Indian company.

Many Indian companies now dominate the high tech sector and spreading out.  Many of them are using off-shore models, using Americans to sell work here, and do the work off-shore, at insanely low rates.  Many of them are getting into management in America, with Indian values that don't exactly value individuals or their rights.

I know of Indian companies using Indian recruiters trying to pretend to be American companies, looking for Americans to hire, or to sell to, using very questionable methods.  For instance, "Jane" (Janish in reality), or "Bob" (Bhavin), or "Adam" (Arun), or "Sean" (Satish) will call companies, trying to set up meetings to sell high tech services.  Once they find someone who responds, they try to recruit an American employee to get on the sales call to do the pitch.  Same thing with trying to get 1099 contractors or people looking for work, to find and work on their projects.

I found myself eventually working for an Indian boss.  He was fine at first, then became slowly more and more over-bearing and micro-managing.  A few times on vacation, he phoned me, and texted me, about inconsequential things.  That crossed the line for me.

I wrote off an F-bomb laden email to my boss, and basically gave an epic "FU" email (FIRE based) that I would not put up with this kind of behavior.  I never had to do that in my career before, but it seems to happen more and more with Indian bosses, who don't understand American values or autonomy to work.

I do feel a little sadness for the future generation of workers, who will have to put up with this kind of crap.  Politicians seem to focus on losing manufacturing jobs, but they are completely ignoring the loss of high paying tech jobs and other white collar jobs to Indians, which affects middle class Americans more, in my opinion, from a salary perspective and for the longer term perspective.

[adjunctprof]

How is this not blatantly racist?

How is this racist? 

I'm not dissing Indians for their skin color or religion... I'm dissing the culture and mindset of treating people like slaves, and the use of mis-leading tactics.

You're going to pull that BS card?

[fuzzed]

Smiling, nodding in agreement.   As someone who has been working with offshores for the past 7+ years, I really feel your pain.

I will say no more, but you have my 100% support.

[adjunctprof]

Smiling, nodding in agreement.   As someone who has been working with offshores for the past 7+ years, I really feel your pain.

I will say know more, but you have my 100% support.

Yup, everyone I know in this space knows this 100%.  And no, it's not fucking racist, it's reality.

The dude who is claiming this is racist doesn't know what the shit he is talking about, until it's too late.

[Million2000]

How is this not blatantly racist?

How is this racist? 

I'm not dissing Indians for their skin color or religion... I'm dissing the culture and mindset of treating people like slaves, and the use of mis-leading tactics.

You're going to pull that BS card?

You mentioned a negative aspect of a culture (in this case, management norms), so naturally in this day and age you're going to be called a racist. I was actually reading this post thinking "I bet someone is going to call him racist", sure enough the first response...

I see what you mean in my own company, hiring bottom dollar firms for work traditionally done by in house teams. I do think there has been a lot of coverage lately on H1B issues, especially on firms who explicitly hire foreign guest workers to replace their employees (I recall several high profile stories on this, especially the one about Disney), so I think this is becoming a more well known issue. While I don't work in tech, I figure my white collar job is just as susceptible to out sourcing or automation in the near future. Just another reason to save and retire early.

[Ben Hogan]

Tech industries here, and that is a trend we are seeing as well. But it's also a both ways thing, we use their resources, and they use ours. It's part of the global economy that will be played out in all countries where the government allows foreign investments.

I dont see racism here, it's just a country that is now leveraging the skills that they are perfecting, much like China with manufacturing, or U.S with oil exploration.

[big_slacker]

I think it's tough to classify an entire population or even sector so easily. For sure offshoring and it's effect on wages is something that should be discussed.

I don't find all Indian managers to be overbearing of micromanagers? I've actually never heard of that stereotype, and work with a *LOT* of Indians, half the town here is. :D

[Candace]

I've been in IT/engineering software since the 90s, and have also sold a house in the US when there were Indians on the other side of the transaction. I also spent a month in India as a tourist. In the late 90s - early 00s, I was part of a large software team comprising Americans, a bunch of French folks, some South Koreans, some Nordic types, and a lot of Indians. In short, I have a lot of exposure to several castes of Indians in the US and in India, and in several settings including work, school, social, tourism in India, and transactional negotiations in the US.

When I was in graduate school in engineering, I had at least two close Indian friends. They were wonderful, respectful, positive people whom I liked very much. In general the Indians I knew were perfect ambassadors for their country.

Over the years, and with exposure in the other arenas I mentioned above, I have become aware that their larger culture differs significantly from ours, in ways that Americans generally don't appreciate. Things that are acceptable and normal to them are affronts to us.

So it comes to the problematic reality that cultural profiling and racial profiling have a large overlap when most or all of the people from a given country (in this case, India) share a "race", whatever that means. It's unfortunate, but if we ignore cultural differences because we're afraid of "being racist", the cultural differences, and the difficulties they cause, don't go away magically because we're full of unicorns and rainbows. I should also say for the record that I'm a big lefty- very liberal on social issues. But I also believe in looking at the evidence and acknowledging the numbers.

The OP, while perhaps being a bit dark ("overlords"?), is drawing attention to real issues that occur when differing cultures try to mix business and groups of people together. These are things it pays to be aware of when entering into partnerships, agreements, etc. and if traveling in another country. If you value American ideals of respect and inclusion, it will pay to make sure your Indian counterparts do as well. It's not racist to understand that there are major differences in culture and to put in place firm understandings about things that matter to us. Given those understandings and penalties for not keeping agreements, then forward progress is possible in business and other fronts.

I'm sure I'll get major flames for this. But my firsthand experience tells me it's all true.

[gaja]

Outsourcing IT jobs to India has been a trend in Norway. It often works very badly, because the companies that do this do very little to counteract the culture clashes. In Norway, we don't like hierarky. The employee will tell the boss, in not very nice words, if he doesn't agree with the boss' ideas. The management is used to this, and if nobody protests, they will think that everything is ok.

We had a case recently, where a big bank spent millions and several years on developing a web based payment system. The Indian IT people worked hard, and delivered a lot of code, but due to their cultural norms they couldn't tell the employer that the entire idea was impossible to implement, and that the programmes they were writing never would work. Or, they probably did, in very polite words framed in a way that the blunt Norwegians did not understand. Due to lack of progress, the bank finally got someone in that told them the truth, and the entire project was scrapped. Could local people have done a better job? Probably not. But they would probably have stopped the project at an earlier date.

We also had a case where the oil company outsourced too much of the IT systems to India, without ensuring there were enough training and security structure. This almost ended with an offshore platform blowing up, because the remote IT guys didn't know that you can't just take down the system to reboot it for several hours in the middle of operation. They were running hundreds of similar systems, from shops to public offices to oil platforms. The guy who caused the crises didn't even know what type of processes he stopped. In Norway, the norm would be that the person/persons responsible for the IT system of that oil rig would have a secure, well paid job, and feel personally responsible that everything worked ok. It is common for them to take part in social activities with the platform operators, drillers, engineers, geologists, etc. By outsourceing to the other side of the world, and treating people as they are machines who should only do the minimum for maximum profit, you also loose the relationship angle. You will save a lot of money, until something bad happens.

This has nothing to do with racism; there are plenty of Indian IT guys, economists and engineers who are working in Norway and doing a better job than most Norwegians. The problem comes when you outsource to save money, without understanding what you are loosing. BTW; we also see the US work policy, where you can loose your job overnight, and have to jump when your boss tell you to, as a big problem. Nothing motivates people as much as feeling appriciated and that their work matters. People who feel that their job is in danger, will keep their head down and look for a way out.

I've heard similar stories from shipbuilders, although they usually outsource to other parts of the world, like Singapore or Poland. In most large project, there is some room for short cuts; if you measure something a few millimeters off, most times it won't matter. The problem is that if you outsource the building of the hull to one side of the world, and the engine to the other side, and they both measure a bit off, you can end up with an engine that doesn't fit the hull. Dialogue and cooperation takes time and resources, but it is very costly if you don't do it.

[BTDretire]

I don't see this as racist, I see it as pointing out differences in culture. And yes, I think some cultures are more exceptional than others. But, I'm just showing my cultural bias.
 Here are two TED talks, pointing out a glaring difference.
 Just happened to watch these yesterday.
You may find it a little gross.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35Vw29tay0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1VA5jqmRo

[fuzzed]

If a resource has the proper skills to do the job, then there are no issues.   In the race to the bottom/maximizing shareholder wealth, the "Can the person do the job?"  question loses out to how much money will we save (and how large will my bonus be).

I have been working with offshores for about 7+ years, and I always felt about 1 in 20 were really good at their job.  I don't blame the other 19 though, they are just looking to feed their families, advance their life.  It is not their fault they are being hired to do a job they are not qualified for.

Last week I found this article, which seemed to backup my very scientific hypothesis ..

https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut-out-for-high-skill-programming-jobs/

I work for a very large IT megacorp and work with a lot of very large megacorps who essentially removed a very large percentage of their NA workers and replaced them with H1B's and offshores.

[mm1970]

I can relate, but I'd like to add that assimilation does occur, as does for most other cultures.

My 2nd gen Indian friends are definitely Americans, and those that have married Indians from India - have assimilated their spouses.

The culture is maybe a tad bit more severe than my rural/ German ancestry-type hard work culture.

[Laserjet3051]

This is a very sensitive topic for many.  Most people focus on manufacturing going to China or other parts of Asia.  What I've seen impact more middle-class and educated Americans is the mass influx of Indians taking high-tech jobs and changing the culture of many companies. I see exactly the same thing in tech.

Dislcaimer: I'm not against Indians, some of my very good friends / colleagues are Indians, but even they, would never work for an Indian boss or an Indian company.

Many Indian companies now dominate the high tech sector and spreading out.  Many of them are using off-shore models, using Americans to sell work here, and do the work off-shore, at insanely low rates.  Many of them are getting into management in America, with Indian values that don't exactly value individuals or their rights. I concur 100%

I know of Indian companies using Indian recruiters trying to pretend to be American companies, looking for Americans to hire, or to sell to, using very questionable methods.  For instance, "Jane" (Janish in reality), or "Bob" (Bhavin), or "Adam" (Arun), or "Sean" (Satish) will call companies, trying to set up meetings to sell high tech services.  Once they find someone who responds, they try to recruit an American employee to get on the sales call to do the pitch.  Same thing with trying to get 1099 contractors or people looking for work, to find and work on their projects. I knew I couldnt be the only person seeing this as well. "Cindy Johnson" sends me an email then follows up with a phone call, at which point I realize this is just another Indian recruiter faking their way through the process trying to mislead me.

I found myself eventually working for an Indian boss.  He was fine at first, then became slowly more and more over-bearing and micro-managing.  A few times on vacation, he phoned me, and texted me, about inconsequential things.  That crossed the line for me.

I wrote off an F-bomb laden email to my boss, and basically gave an epic "FU" email (FIRE based) that I would not put up with this kind of behavior.  I never had to do that in my career before, but it seems to happen more and more with Indian bosses, who don't understand American values or autonomy to work.

I do feel a little sadness for the future generation of workers, who will have to put up with this kind of crap.  Politicians seem to focus on losing manufacturing jobs, but they are completely ignoring the loss of high paying tech jobs and other white collar jobs to Indians, which affects middle class Americans more, in my opinion, from a salary perspective and for the longer term perspective.

TRUTH. But just last week the current administration stated in a policy position they were looking to curb H1B abuses, which are RAMPANT. Let's see if any meaningful change occurs.

[Scandium]

values that don't exactly value individuals or their rights.

..to sell to, using very questionable methods. 

[..] boss.  He was fine at first, then became slowly more and more over-bearing and micro-managing.  A few times on vacation, he phoned me, and texted me, about inconsequential things.  That crossed the line for me.

I'm dissing the culture and mindset of treating people like slaves, and the use of mis-leading tactics.

Eh, so this could just as well apply to corporate America too. There's no mandated leave, there's no parental leave. Most work "at will", i.e. you can be fired on the day. Only ~15% are in unions. Minimum wage has not increased for decades. Huge employers hire temp workers with no benefits (which government then provide). By OECD standards companies pay low tax rates, regulation is low and government benefits for people are minimal. I don't we need to talk about advertising and sales tactics..

So this is rich coming from someone in a nation which mainly exits to suppress, pollute and exploit it's people to enrich the upper classes.

[dividendman]

A couple of points:

1) What's the actual problem? It's a massive seller's market for high tech folks out there. If you don't like your boss go get 15% to 25% more pay and work somewhere else. If you can't find a job somewhere else in this market, you just aren't good.

2) The united states simply does not graduate enough folks in STEM fields to meet the its needs. So they either have to outsource, or insource. Note that tamping down on H1Bs is actually going to hurt because now megacorps are just starting offices elsewhere (like Canada) and Canada gets to collect the taxes off of these folks and gets their economy stimulated with the spending from these folks.

3) I agree that Indian/Chinese cultures aren't very progressive in some areas, like the deferring to authority, etc. I'm also a third generation Canadian (grandparents from India) and there is TONS about the culture I HATE. That said I agree that all 2nd and later generation Indians are pretty much westernized (like me).

4) I've had bosses that are recent immigrants from the east as well as westerners for generations... I've had crappy bosses with each background.

[Shwaa]

I work in Data Warehouse for a megacorp.  Our offshore team in India is horrendous and a constant drain on our project deliverables. I work with very competent Indian people on my project team locally and they are frustrated and say this problem is rampant overseas.  Unqualified, cheap labor.

[Luck12]

Eh, so this could just as well apply to corporate America too. There's no mandated leave, there's no parental leave. Most work "at will", i.e. you can be fired on the day. Only ~15% are in unions. Minimum wage has not increased for decades. Huge employers hire temp workers with no benefits (which government then provide). By OECD standards companies pay low tax rates, regulation is low and government benefits for people are minimal. I don't we need to talk about advertising and sales tactics..

So this is rich coming from someone in a nation which mainly exits to suppress, pollute and exploit it's people to enrich the upper classes.

+1.   But since most of the upper execs and Wall St is white males, well you know... 

[starguru]

I'm not worried.  In my experience the saying "you get what you pay for" applies.  I know of dozens of projects that have been offshored only to fail because quality was laughably bad.  To be fair, a few have worked out ok, and plenty of software projects developed in house fail too. 

[Gimesalot]

He was fine at first, then became slowly more and more over-bearing and micro-managing.  A few times on vacation, he phoned me, and texted me, about inconsequential things.  That crossed the line for me.
...don't understand American values or autonomy to work.

Sounds exactly like my White American-as-Apple-Pie boss who demanded that I be available for a 16- hour out-of-state workday with less than 48 hours notice.  Who calls me on my personal cell phone all the time despite repeated requests not to do so, and who is "tired of me taking so much vacation" (2 weeks over 4 months including Christmas, New Years, and Mardi Gras).

The job of any boss, white, Indian, purple, is to make their employees work more for less. Some know how to sugar coat it and some don't.

[Laserjet3051]

A couple of points:

1) What's the actual problem? It's a massive seller's market for high tech folks out there. If you don't like your boss go get 15% to 25% more pay and work somewhere else. If you can't find a job somewhere else in this market, you just aren't good.

2) The united states simply does not graduate enough folks in STEM fields to meet the its needs. So they either have to outsource, or insource. Note that tamping down on H1Bs is actually going to hurt because now megacorps are just starting offices elsewhere (like Canada) and Canada gets to collect the taxes off of these folks and gets their economy stimulated with the spending from these folks. Not true in biopharma. Please rethink your unfounded conclusion.

3) I agree that Indian/Chinese cultures aren't very progressive in some areas, like the deferring to authority, etc. I'm also a third generation Canadian (grandparents from India) and there is TONS about the culture I HATE. That said I agree that all 2nd and later generation Indians are pretty much westernized (like me).

4) I've had bosses that are recent immigrants from the east as well as westerners for generations... I've had crappy bosses with each background.

[Jrr85]

Eh, so this could just as well apply to corporate America too. There's no mandated leave, there's no parental leave. Most work "at will", i.e. you can be fired on the day. Only ~15% are in unions. Minimum wage has not increased for decades.

  Yep, I remember the last minimum wage increase decades ago when Obama was president and we were nearing the end of the first decade of this millennium.  Those decades have flown by and almost feel more like seven years than decades. 

Huge employers hire temp workers with no benefits (which government then provide). By OECD standards companies pay low tax rates, regulation is low and government benefits for people are minimal.

Our effective corporate tax rates are relatively high.  Not eye popping like the sticker marginal rate, but still on the higher end. 

[GU]

How is your post not blatantly racist?

Indian (as in ancestry from the Indian subcontinent) is a race?  Please explain.

[CptCool]

Eh, so this could just as well apply to corporate America too. There's no mandated leave, there's no parental leave. Most work "at will", i.e. you can be fired on the day. Only ~15% are in unions. Minimum wage has not increased for decades.

  Yep, I remember the last minimum wage increase decades ago when Obama was president and we were nearing the end of the first decade of this millennium.  Those decades have flown by and almost feel more like seven years than decades. 

Wasn't this passed in 2007 & signed by Bush? It went into effect over 1-2 years later I think, but still I agree with you - definitely not decades, but it was still 10 years ago

[dividendman]

A couple of points:

1) What's the actual problem? It's a massive seller's market for high tech folks out there. If you don't like your boss go get 15% to 25% more pay and work somewhere else. If you can't find a job somewhere else in this market, you just aren't good.

2) The united states simply does not graduate enough folks in STEM fields to meet the its needs. So they either have to outsource, or insource. Note that tamping down on H1Bs is actually going to hurt because now megacorps are just starting offices elsewhere (like Canada) and Canada gets to collect the taxes off of these folks and gets their economy stimulated with the spending from these folks. Not true in biopharma. Please rethink your unfounded conclusion.

3) I agree that Indian/Chinese cultures aren't very progressive in some areas, like the deferring to authority, etc. I'm also a third generation Canadian (grandparents from India) and there is TONS about the culture I HATE. That said I agree that all 2nd and later generation Indians are pretty much westernized (like me).

4) I've had bosses that are recent immigrants from the east as well as westerners for generations... I've had crappy bosses with each background.

I'm speaking in aggregate. Obviously there are segments of every area that do badly.

Here's an article from the NYT that shows people in all jobs are getting screwed (the lower paid people are getting paid lower and the higher paid people are getting paid more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/business/economy/salary-gap-widens-as-top-workers-in-specialized-fields-reap-rewards.html?_r=0

except for... you guessed it STEM jobs, where there are across the board compensation increases! They even call out biopharma specifically as an area where wages are going up fast.


Here is a report from the department of commerce: http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/stemfinalyjuly14_1.pdf

Not only do STEM jobs command higher salaries than their non-STEM counterparts, but the gap has been growing. Why would the salaries of these STEM workers (in aggregate) be growing compared to their non-STEM counterparts if there was no demand? Look at the graph on the third page. Also the real salaries have been growing at a fast clip (much faster than inflation).

I'm not sure what you're arguing against, but if there was significant surplus of STEM workers in the US I don't think the wages would be growing quite so rapidly.

Anecdotally, I've worked for 3 megacorps in IT in the past 7 years and we've always had a hard time finding qualified workers even when the average compensations of the jobs posted ranged from 120k for new grads to well over 200k.

So, perhaps you should re-think your unfounded conclusions. Mine are founded on actual studies.

[big_slacker]

Anecdotally, I've worked for 3 megacorps in IT in the past 7 years and we've always had a hard time finding qualified workers even when the average compensations of the jobs posted ranged from 120k for new grads to well over 200k.

So, perhaps you should re-think your unfounded conclusions. Mine are founded on actual studies.

Here as well. We've had multiple jobs on my team in the mid $100's open so long they were in danger of being closed out. It's not hard to find people, but it's hard to find truly qualified people.

[Laserjet3051]

A couple of points:

1) What's the actual problem? It's a massive seller's market for high tech folks out there. If you don't like your boss go get 15% to 25% more pay and work somewhere else. If you can't find a job somewhere else in this market, you just aren't good.

2) The united states simply does not graduate enough folks in STEM fields to meet the its needs. So they either have to outsource, or insource. Note that tamping down on H1Bs is actually going to hurt because now megacorps are just starting offices elsewhere (like Canada) and Canada gets to collect the taxes off of these folks and gets their economy stimulated with the spending from these folks. Not true in biopharma. Please rethink your unfounded conclusion.

3) I agree that Indian/Chinese cultures aren't very progressive in some areas, like the deferring to authority, etc. I'm also a third generation Canadian (grandparents from India) and there is TONS about the culture I HATE. That said I agree that all 2nd and later generation Indians are pretty much westernized (like me).

4) I've had bosses that are recent immigrants from the east as well as westerners for generations... I've had crappy bosses with each background.

I'm speaking in aggregate. Obviously there are segments of every area that do badly.

Here's an article from the NYT that shows people in all jobs are getting screwed (the lower paid people are getting paid lower and the higher paid people are getting paid more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/business/economy/salary-gap-widens-as-top-workers-in-specialized-fields-reap-rewards.html?_r=0

except for... you guessed it STEM jobs, where there are across the board compensation increases! They even call out biopharma specifically as an area where wages are going up fast.


Here is a report from the department of commerce: http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/stemfinalyjuly14_1.pdf

Not only do STEM jobs command higher salaries than their non-STEM counterparts, but the gap has been growing. Why would the salaries of these STEM workers (in aggregate) be growing compared to their non-STEM counterparts if there was no demand? Look at the graph on the third page. Also the real salaries have been growing at a fast clip (much faster than inflation).

I'm not sure what you're arguing against, but if there was significant surplus of STEM workers in the US I don't think the wages would be growing quite so rapidly.

Anecdotally, I've worked for 3 megacorps in IT in the past 7 years and we've always had a hard time finding qualified workers even when the average compensations of the jobs posted ranged from 120k for new grads to well over 200k.

So, perhaps you should re-think your unfounded conclusions. Mine are founded on actual studies.

what those data fail to reveal in the biopharma industry is the massive consolidation (M&As) thus reducing the # of workers required. I know countless American molecular biologists, pharmacologists, electrophysiologists, etc, who cannot land a job in their field, let alone quibble over their pay being high enough. The story is far more complex than that NYT articles purports and the last time I think I read a NYT article, they were sure of a Hillary win for the presidency. lol

[Dave1442397]

I have been working with offshores for about 7+ years, and I always felt about 1 in 20 were really good at their job.  I don't blame the other 19 though, they are just looking to feed their families, advance their life.  It is not their fault they are being hired to do a job they are not qualified for.

Last week I found this article, which seemed to backup my very scientific hypothesis ..

https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut-out-for-high-skill-programming-jobs/

I work for a very large IT megacorp and work with a lot of very large megacorps who essentially removed a very large percentage of their NA workers and replaced them with H1B's and offshores.

I've been working with offshore people for around four years, and I've had the exact same experience. The one guy who was eager to learn and actually took notes when you answered his questions picked up and left after two years. He's now in the US on an H1B visa.

The standard routine is:

1) Us: Write specs in pseudocode, tell them where to find sample code, or even just write the actual code and give it to them.
2) Them: "We're all done".
3) Us: Check code, reject crap they copied from twenty-year-old obsolete code, spell out all the errors, send it back.
4) Them: "We're all done".
5) Us: Check code, give up, do it ourselves.

Our department wouldn't even hire people in the US without 10+ years experience, and they expect Indian college grads to jump into a system with 18,000,000 lines of code and get things done. It's not happening.

Upper management keep pushing them on us, but having resorted to spelling out the simplest tasks and still getting garbage back, we tend to give them a part of the project that we can easily do ourselves and pretend they did it.

[fuzzed]

The standard routine is:

1) Us: Write specs in pseudocode, tell them where to find sample code, or even just write the actual code and give it to them.
2) Them: "We're all done".
3) Us: Check code, reject crap they copied from twenty-year-old obsolete code, spell out all the errors, send it back.
4) Them: "We're all done".
5) Us: Check code, give up, do it ourselves.

I howled when read that.  I was on a project with a similar experience, except we repeated these steps for almost 2 months.   At that time, we decided to run out the contract so to speak, we asked them to find some code, any code, and comment it.  If they were not sure, just take a guess.

I think we still finished on time, as those steps you listed were killing our productivity.

This thread has been very therapeutic for me in many ways, I sometimes think it was just me who experiences this.

Thank you to the OP for starting this thread.

[MrsPete]

Three comments:

- Yes, this is racist. 

- I don't work with even one single Indian person; to tell truth, I don't know any Indian people.  I don't believe we have even a single Indian student at the school where I teach.  I'm not against meeting them, but for whatever reason, we just don't have Indian people in the South.  Or at least not in my mid-sized town.

- Still, I do see the things you describe in the workplace.  When I graduated from college, the world of work was a much friendlier place.  My conclusion:  Since I see the things you describe, yet we have few-to-no-Indians here, I have to assume this is the direction in which society is moving. 

[dividendman]

I'm speaking in aggregate. Obviously there are segments of every area that do badly.

Here's an article from the NYT that shows people in all jobs are getting screwed (the lower paid people are getting paid lower and the higher paid people are getting paid more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/business/economy/salary-gap-widens-as-top-workers-in-specialized-fields-reap-rewards.html?_r=0

except for... you guessed it STEM jobs, where there are across the board compensation increases! They even call out biopharma specifically as an area where wages are going up fast.


Here is a report from the department of commerce: http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/stemfinalyjuly14_1.pdf

Not only do STEM jobs command higher salaries than their non-STEM counterparts, but the gap has been growing. Why would the salaries of these STEM workers (in aggregate) be growing compared to their non-STEM counterparts if there was no demand? Look at the graph on the third page. Also the real salaries have been growing at a fast clip (much faster than inflation).

I'm not sure what you're arguing against, but if there was significant surplus of STEM workers in the US I don't think the wages would be growing quite so rapidly.

Anecdotally, I've worked for 3 megacorps in IT in the past 7 years and we've always had a hard time finding qualified workers even when the average compensations of the jobs posted ranged from 120k for new grads to well over 200k.

So, perhaps you should re-think your unfounded conclusions. Mine are founded on actual studies.

what those data fail to reveal in the biopharma industry is the massive consolidation (M&As) thus reducing the # of workers required. I know countless American molecular biologists, pharmacologists, electrophysiologists, etc, who cannot land a job in their field, let alone quibble over their pay being high enough. The story is far more complex than that NYT articles purports and the last time I think I read a NYT article, they were sure of a Hillary win for the presidency. lol

Oh! Cool. I didn't realize you had not reading the NYT as a source and I failed to see your source of... well, I guess you proclaiming some kind of consolidation that's costing jobs... those are two really strong sources so I agree with you now. You're right STEM jobs are in decline and we're all doomed and Indians are taking what's left of the jobs... I guess we should just die :(

[PDXTabs]

Ignoring the national origin and potentially valid conversation that we could have about Indian culture (the merging of a traditionally patriarchal cast based society with British bureaucracy), perhaps we should just talk about the H1B visa system.

H1B visas absolutely do exploit immigrant workers (living in the USA) while putting downward pressure on wages for US born workers. I'm 100% okay with letting a ton of immigrants in (more than we do now), but they should be coming in with the right to work wherever they want for whatever the prevailing wage is. By tying them to one employer and not even making them eligible for preeminent residency status, ever, everyone (except the employers) is getting screwed.

[beltim]

I'm speaking in aggregate. Obviously there are segments of every area that do badly.

Here's an article from the NYT that shows people in all jobs are getting screwed (the lower paid people are getting paid lower and the higher paid people are getting paid more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/business/economy/salary-gap-widens-as-top-workers-in-specialized-fields-reap-rewards.html?_r=0

except for... you guessed it STEM jobs, where there are across the board compensation increases! They even call out biopharma specifically as an area where wages are going up fast.


Here is a report from the department of commerce: http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/stemfinalyjuly14_1.pdf

Not only do STEM jobs command higher salaries than their non-STEM counterparts, but the gap has been growing. Why would the salaries of these STEM workers (in aggregate) be growing compared to their non-STEM counterparts if there was no demand? Look at the graph on the third page. Also the real salaries have been growing at a fast clip (much faster than inflation).

I'm not sure what you're arguing against, but if there was significant surplus of STEM workers in the US I don't think the wages would be growing quite so rapidly.

Anecdotally, I've worked for 3 megacorps in IT in the past 7 years and we've always had a hard time finding qualified workers even when the average compensations of the jobs posted ranged from 120k for new grads to well over 200k.

So, perhaps you should re-think your unfounded conclusions. Mine are founded on actual studies.

what those data fail to reveal in the biopharma industry is the massive consolidation (M&As) thus reducing the # of workers required. I know countless American molecular biologists, pharmacologists, electrophysiologists, etc, who cannot land a job in their field, let alone quibble over their pay being high enough. The story is far more complex than that NYT articles purports and the last time I think I read a NYT article, they were sure of a Hillary win for the presidency. lol

Oh! Cool. I didn't realize you had not reading the NYT as a source and I failed to see your source of... well, I guess you proclaiming some kind of consolidation that's costing jobs... those are two really strong sources so I agree with you now. You're right STEM jobs are in decline and we're all doomed and Indians are taking what's left of the jobs... I guess we should just die :(

Sometimes you can both be right.  dividendman, it's hard to argue from your data that the US doesn't train enough STEM workers when your data shows that two-thirds of STEM majors work outside of STEM.  Similarly, your wage data is broken down by college major, not employer or job type.  This would support people not being able to find a job in their field, though, and without negating the generally low employment in particular fields (perhaps such as IT).  It also fits with the NYT article mentioning increases access of executive offices to STEM majors. 

In any case, I doubt that 200k developer jobs are the same market as the electrophysiologists that laserjet mentions.

[FrugalToque]

We are, of course, watching a thread like this, given the inflammatory title.

As long as we're sticking to discussing the clash of cultures and not making sweeping generalizations about people, we're on relatively acceptable grounds.

For myself, my first job back in the late 90s featured two gentlemen from India.  One was determined to write everything miserable he could on our reviews in order to depress our salaries and make his numbers look good.  He liked to ask for lines-of-code counts every day to measure our progress.  The other, well, he left India precisely to avoid people like the first guy.

Can't say I can make any sweeping statements about a billion people based on my personal experiences.

Toque.

[Ben Hogan]

Can't say I can make any sweeping statements about a billion people based on my personal experiences.

Thats spot on, the world wants a simple explanation about all the social phenomenons, when people really have to be evaluated on a singular base and not as a group. Lack of an understanding of culture leads to alot of these issues including generalization statement.  Hopefully some of this can get solved by social coaching that has been implemented in alot of international companies.

[scottnews]

Some of the problem may be with the Indian culture overselling itself.  Others with management and communication.  I work closely with our corporate IT call center.   About 50% are Americans, 25% from the Philippines, 25% from India, and one graveyard shift guy from China.   When our users get someone from India, many hang up and recall.  Odds are they will get someone from the other 2 locations.  They can not understand what the Indian reps are saying.  Much of their job is talking on the phone…  Who interviewed these guys?

I’ve brought this up with the call center manager.   He makes some excuse, have the user contact me with the ticket number…   As the conversation goes on, he just doesn’t care.   He mentions they almost hired an American with Indian descent for a local position.    He thought that was a riot.   We did hire a local call rep with a foreign accent.  People always ask him where he is from.   Call center manager thinks that’s funny to.  He doesn’t try to break these communication problems down and quantify it into a cost.  He has no desire.   He doesn’t seem to break things down and think granular.

Another case is the opposite, when the call center was all American.   One of our child companies in France made cutbacks during the recession.  There was nothing left of their IT support, so one day IT gets an email saying we are now supporting company X in France.   That’s it, no file server names, print server names, administrative passwords, AD structure… nothing.  3 days later we get another email saying “Does anybody speak French.”    That relationship lasted about 18 months.   We did upgrade their presses and fixed the network issues, but I’m sure they were glad to hire some IT people and be done with us.

[Sibley]

Culture differences are real, and can cause real problems. Doesn't mean that we can't figure out how to work together effectively.

If the work output is not up to the required standard, then that is another issue which needs to be addressed. I'm not in IT, but my company recently outsourced the IT help desk. It has been bumpy. I don't know the causes though, and can't say that it's the new outsourced provider or internal people that have caused the problems I've run into.

Personally, I have a difficult time with accents in general, not limited to certain languages. This is a result of my lack of long-term exposure to those accents. Once I've spent enough time hearing an accent, my ability understand it improves significantly. I also know multiple people from India or of Indian descent. In general, I find them to be just like other people - some good, some bad, some middling. I may or may not like them, but I don't like all the WASPs I know either.

[Davids]

I work with Indians in an accounting/finance function. The problem is they lack the intuition, the analytical skills. They have weak communication skills, they think everything sHould work the same when they fail to realize there are so many different scenarios. I have trained them so much and yet they still do not get it. But this is the trend, employers moving work offshore to save money. The problem is these decisions are Brodsky penny wise pound foolish. But when people several levels above you want something done you have to do it. Indians are good at a repetitive process that does not change, they are horrible at adapting and using simple intuition.

[dividendman]

Oh! Cool. I didn't realize you had not reading the NYT as a source and I failed to see your source of... well, I guess you proclaiming some kind of consolidation that's costing jobs... those are two really strong sources so I agree with you now. You're right STEM jobs are in decline and we're all doomed and Indians are taking what's left of the jobs... I guess we should just die :(

Sometimes you can both be right.  dividendman, it's hard to argue from your data that the US doesn't train enough STEM workers when your data shows that two-thirds of STEM majors work outside of STEM.  Similarly, your wage data is broken down by college major, not employer or job type.  This would support people not being able to find a job in their field, though, and without negating the generally low employment in particular fields (perhaps such as IT).  It also fits with the NYT article mentioning increases access of executive offices to STEM majors. 

In any case, I doubt that 200k developer jobs are the same market as the electrophysiologists that laserjet mentions.

The bold part is interesting (in that we both read different things from the same data). I read the article and it was saying that it wasn't that there weren't STEM jobs for these folks, it was that their analytical skills were so in demand that other industries were actively seeking them out, thereby exacerbating the lack of STEM folks to fill the jobs, not the opposite!

I agree that high-tech is an extreme case of the STEM shortage (hence the wages).

[scottnews]

Well, this is interesting

An Indian company that has been accused of abusing the H-1B visa process says it will hire 10,000 American workers over the next two years.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/infosys-to-hire-10000-american-workers/

[ImCheap]

The standard routine is:

1) Us: Write specs in pseudocode, tell them where to find sample code, or even just write the actual code and give it to them.
2) Them: "We're all done".
3) Us: Check code, reject crap they copied from twenty-year-old obsolete code, spell out all the errors, send it back.
4) Them: "We're all done".
5) Us: Check code, give up, do it ourselves.

I howled when read that.  I was on a project with a similar experience, except we repeated these steps for almost 2 months.   At that time, we decided to run out the contract so to speak, we asked them to find some code, any code, and comment it.  If they were not sure, just take a guess.

I think we still finished on time, as those steps you listed were killing our productivity.

This thread has been very therapeutic for me in many ways, I sometimes think it was just me who experiences this.

Thank you to the OP for starting this thread.

O my, this is right on the nuts. 7-8 years ago the boss man had this great idea to have some building MEP engineering drawings done, just replace your "code" with "drawings" above!

You were nicer than I was. I just kept sending back the drawings with a note it was not drawing to the current NEC, Plumbing code, etc., please update. This went on for about 6 months, it was complete mess of time and dollars.

[adjunctprof]

Three comments:

- Yes, this is racist. 

- I don't work with even one single Indian person; to tell truth, I don't know any Indian people.  I don't believe we have even a single Indian student at the school where I teach.  I'm not against meeting them, but for whatever reason, we just don't have Indian people in the South.  Or at least not in my mid-sized town.

- Still, I do see the things you describe in the workplace.  When I graduated from college, the world of work was a much friendlier place.  My conclusion:  Since I see the things you describe, yet we have few-to-no-Indians here, I have to assume this is the direction in which society is moving.

while I respect your opinion, I'd like to inform you that you are incorrect.

I work in a "United Nations" of high level management consulting firm, with people from all over the world.  I rarely work with Caucasians Americans, in fact.  Out of all of the folks we work with, it is particularly interesting to notice some more common behaviors from those of Indian descent.   A few of those Indians are among my best friends, and they detest the behavior I have noted.

Those who have worked extensively with Indians can attest to the truth of my statement, as shown by those who have worked extensively with off-shore teams or been misled by Indian recruiters.

I would like to suggest that you are living in a bubble, when you profess you have no experience with them.

I'm not suggesting that other nationalities don't have their issues, or that people get out of line... they do... but as an aggregate, it is worthwhile noting the common denominator of those who tend to say "yes" to every thing, and also try to "cheat" the system and others.

[adjunctprof]

The standard routine is:

1) Us: Write specs in pseudocode, tell them where to find sample code, or even just write the actual code and give it to them.
2) Them: "We're all done".
3) Us: Check code, reject crap they copied from twenty-year-old obsolete code, spell out all the errors, send it back.
4) Them: "We're all done".
5) Us: Check code, give up, do it ourselves.

I howled when read that.  I was on a project with a similar experience, except we repeated these steps for almost 2 months.   At that time, we decided to run out the contract so to speak, we asked them to find some code, any code, and comment it.  If they were not sure, just take a guess.

I think we still finished on time, as those steps you listed were killing our productivity.

This thread has been very therapeutic for me in many ways, I sometimes think it was just me who experiences this.

Thank you to the OP for starting this thread.

My pleasure.  This is been swirling in my mind for years... I've never seen this openly discussed, and I'm seeing the trend accelerating towards Indian companies embedding themselves in the US.  My world went from 5-10% Indian 15-20 years ago, to about 90 - 95% Indian companies recently.  It is amazing how much has changed in such a short span of time.

My hope is those Indians who are successful in the US slowly adopt US values, and start to influence the Indians overseas.  I see some of that happening, but I'm not certain to the degree of effectiveness or pervasiveness it is happening or will happen.

[adjunctprof]

How is this not blatantly racist?

How is this racist? 

I'm not dissing Indians for their skin color or religion... I'm dissing the culture and mindset of treating people like slaves, and the use of mis-leading tactics.

You're going to pull that BS card?

You mentioned a negative aspect of a culture (in this case, management norms), so naturally in this day and age you're going to be called a racist. I was actually reading this post thinking "I bet someone is going to call him racist", sure enough the first response...

I see what you mean in my own company, hiring bottom dollar firms for work traditionally done by in house teams. I do think there has been a lot of coverage lately on H1B issues, especially on firms who explicitly hire foreign guest workers to replace their employees (I recall several high profile stories on this, especially the one about Disney), so I think this is becoming a more well known issue. While I don't work in tech, I figure my white collar job is just as susceptible to out sourcing or automation in the near future. Just another reason to save and retire early.

LOL you were spot on.

I will say this - I work with Mexicans, Latinos, Chinese, Malaysian, Vietnemese, Philipinos, Russians, and of course the usual South Africans, Australians, British, and more European countries.

I have to say for the most part, those other folks from those places I mentioned are a joy to work with.  Most of them come from cultures where family is valued most above all else, and they bring a different kind of mindset to work where they treat people like family.  I rarely have to deal with exceptional issues with those folks.

The one minor quibble I have with my Russian colleagues is that they like to drink Vodka almost every night...while I...um, don't... :)

[adjunctprof]

Well, this is interesting

An Indian company that has been accused of abusing the H-1B visa process says it will hire 10,000 American workers over the next two years.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/infosys-to-hire-10000-american-workers/

Good to see something is being done about this.

I see abuses of this every day.  I see postings for positions, that look like they were deliberately designed to bring a particular person to the US.  I'll often inquire, and suggest a referral I'm aware of... and the reply is "this posting is for XXXX whom we are looking to bring over"...

Quite illegal, but so is speeding above the posted speed limit... what can you do?  It's staggering the amount of H-1B visa abuse that goes on, even in my limited corner of the world.

[Debonair]

Culture clashes at work can be interesting or a huge headache. I have seen plenty of meetings were all the expats are hiding a pained look behind smiles. Watching two people argue over what apple cider is,  intertaining.

I think the managers that overcome it the best are the ones that are conscious of it. Mind you that does not mean making a big deal about it either. It honestly does not seem hard to win expats (or people in general) over.

Honestly I remember my life becoming so much easier after taking a class on Coursera about conflict management and culture.

[singh02]

I believe the word fuck is apreciated by MMM, so fuck u to the OP. :) 

Saying that I do not work in tech (healthcare actaully).  And my American corporation boss is just as bad as everything that is listed here.  I believe it's is easy to blame the race, and overlook the real problem here: American corporations taking advantage of the US Law system and finding the cheapest replacement to maximize profits for the top few.  In this case, the cheapest option has been h1b workers who are often new grads that speak another language with different accepted cultural norms.  I think blaming an entire race let's the corporation go free and ultimately doesn't stop the corporatin abuse.  I would recommend the OP to realize this and vote and affect change politically with this big picture in mind instead of his petty racist rant that takes the focus off the real problem.

[cloudsail]

Slightly off-topic: Has anyone watched the show Outsourced? Seriously hilarious stuff, my husband and I were so sad when it got canceled. I think it was probably because only people who have worked with teams in India would get the jokes.

[cloudsail]

At my last company talking to some new grads here on student visas, I learned that there are Indian recruiting/training companies that in addition to teaching skills code-camp style, will also give you fake work experience and fake references to pad your resume. They can also set you up to work for shady companies that have a deal with them. In both cases they get to keep a portion of your salary for the first X years.

I was in disbelief. How is this not a form of human trafficking??

[fuzzed]

Slightly off-topic: Has anyone watched the show Outsourced? Seriously hilarious stuff, my husband and I were so sad when it got canceled. I think it was probably because only people who have worked with teams in India would get the jokes.

I saw the movie, but did not realize there was a series.   I did find it quite funny and very close to home.
I will have to check out the series.

[lbmustache]

I found myself eventually working for an Indian boss.  He was fine at first, then became slowly more and more over-bearing and micro-managing.  A few times on vacation, he phoned me, and texted me, about inconsequential things.  That crossed the line for me.
 
I never had to do that in my career before, but it seems to happen more and more with Indian bosses, who don't understand American values or autonomy to work.

As an aside, I've had plenty of white bosses do the same thing. I quite frankly assumed that this WAS part of American values in the workplace.