Insulting British callers

[xoxoxoBruce]

A story on Telegraph.co.uk, claims that the nasty Brits are causing health problems for the twenty-somethings, manning call centers in India.

Research carried out by India's booming call centre industry has found the 1.6 million people who work in them, mostly in their twenties, are plagued by ailments arising from the stress of dealing with irate customers.

The Indian government is so concerned about the problem that it is preparing to launch a health strategy for the workers.

A study conducted by Strathclyde University for the Union of IT Enabled Services, which informally represents call centre workers, found that 77 per cent felt "very" pressurised and 45 per cent identified difficult customers as the main source of their stress.

The salaries paid by the call centre industry have transformed the lives of a generation of young, middle-class Indians, giving them independence and money to spend on shopping, eating out, holidays and parties, but the price is proving high.

"Youngsters love spending the kind of money their parents only dreamt about, but I'm worried that stress and illness will turn them into zombies," said Karthik Shekhar, the union's general secretary.

At first I though they were talking about help desk calls for computer problems, but further reading says they are also talking about catalog sales and the resultant complaints.

Nidhi Aggarwal, 24, said she had never heard some of the insulting language used - including the word "Paki" as a term of abuse - before she began taking orders for a British catalogue company, which routes its customers' calls to a Bangalore call centre.

"At first, I thought I'd get used to it, but it's been a year now and it's not getting easier," she said.

"On its own, maybe I could cope with the abuse, but there's also the stress of finishing calls in one minute and hardly having time for breaks."

Miss Aggarwal, an English graduate, said she planned to quit, tired of wishing customers a good morning only to hear: "Oh, I'm through to India am I? Put me through to someone who can understand English, you f****** cow."

I hardly think this is only Brits, just the British slant for a British paper, as these call centers in India get worldwide business.
If they want to reap the rewards of the "first world" business climate, they are going to experience the pressure cooker that climate lives in.