India's BPO workforce works hard, parties hard

Monday, 17 May 2004, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: They party hard at five-stars, buy branded apparel, pick up the latest gizmos, go on long drives, hang around multiplexes... and pay for it all on their own. They are in their early 20s, but they work in world class environment and earn anything between 8,000 and 25,000. And never mind if the big bucks come at the cost of sleep! Meet the high-spending young workforce behind the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector that has made India famous the world over. "I like to have a blast at the discs on weekends," says Deepika Pahwa, 20, a customer care executive who works at a call centre firm called Saffron Global Ltd. "Transportation and food are provided at a very nominal cost by the company. My expenses only include house rent; the rest of the salary I spend on eating out and having fun with friends," she says. They don't hold great professional degrees. Most of them are plain graduates, but with excellent communication skills. When India sleeps, they are awake, buzzing with the daytime activities of Americans and Britons. "Basically, we call centre guys enjoy night life. We go out in the late evenings and freak out till early morning," says Sanjay Gupta, 25, a technical support executive at V-Customer for eight months. This lifestyle has its dangers. Cautions Pankaj Taneja, a Delhi-based doctor: "People lose their sleep and appetite due to the abnormal working hours. "They contact acidity and other gastro-intestinal disorders like constipation. Their eyes are affected, they develop chronic headaches." But who's listening? Nowadays pubs and discs in Indian metros are flooded with call centre workers. They work on a fraction of the salary that their American counterparts get, but that still translates into a lot. Answering phones for global clients is a plum job indeed. Ninety-nine percent of the BPO employees own cell phones and credit cards and have a hip-hop lifestyle. Enough to pull youngsters from various corners of India to the metros in search of a quick buck, a trendy life-style - and freedom! "There is a sense of independence. We enjoy a lot, with no one keeping an eye on us," said Rigvedi Sharma, 22, a customer care executive at Daksh eServices who hails from Assam. Going on outings with colleagues and team members to nearby hill stations is also common among India's BPO workers. "As soon as I get my salary, I go for shopping to the malls in and around Delhi," says Shweta Rajpal, 22, a customer care executive with Wipro Spectramind for more than a year. Some, of course, save up for parents and siblings knowing that the attrition rate is high in this industry, and few are able to last longer than a year. "I always aspired to present a car to my family, and I did," said a proud Dhruv Kohli, 23, who has been a senior customer care executive with Daksh eServices for a year and a half. Most are entitled to two consecutive offs in a week - not essentially weekends. Call centres in India are believed to have millions of employees - and counting. Not all parents of young call centre workers are happy. While some complain about daughters having to stay out the whole night, others say the big bucks can spoil their kids. "It took me years to earn the kind of money these youngsters earn. I am not sure they are mature enough to handle it," said Anirban Basu, a 55-year-old father of two. Other parents, however, say it is okay for the youngsters to party on holidays as they have such a physically and mentally trying job the rest of the week. Work hard, and party hard, that seems to be the motto of India's young BPO workers all right!
Source: IANS