Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

"Cannot proceed," the security man at the gate in Tech Park said to my taxi driver. So I made some inquiries and got permission to visit another call center, this one in yet another gated compound of big company offices, Electronics City Phase 2. This phase was only two years old but was already filled with flourishing businesses—that is, foreign businesses with Indian employees.

I went in the evening, because that was when the callers would be dealing with the western United States, California specifically. I was led through another gateway, another security fence, into a modern building with a few Indian touches—a shrine to the elephant god, Ganesh, god of new endeavors, and an artificial waterfall. I was given an ID badge for security purposes, I was signed in, and I was shown through the labyrinthine headquarters.

"Bangalore used to be quiet and sleepy," Hardeep, the night manager, told me. "It is now working day and night. It's cosmopolitan, people from everywhere. Less than thirty percent of the people in Bangalore are local, because of IT growth."

I said, "The IT people in Mumbai said they were worried about Chinese competition."

"Yes, the Chinese are trying to compete, but they have a different mind-set. Ask a Chinese worker to tighten a screw, he will make three turns. The Indian will give an extra turn."

"I'll try to remember that. What about money?"

"Our cost of business is going up, but we are still forty to fifty percent more cost-effective. Now the IT industry in India is sixteen to eighteen billion dollars. By 2008 it will be sixty to eighty billion."

"I meant what does a call center worker earn?"

Hardeep hemmed and hawed, but I found out by nosing around that the answer was from $50 to $60 a week, often a fifty-hour week, and that might include a night shift that ended at three or four in the morning.

"We don't think about China—China is already playing a role. We think, What is the next India?"

"What's the answer?"

"Maybe Philippines. But political instability is there. Attempts have been made in Africa. Ghana was looked at, but no good results were found."

I was impatient to see and hear Indians on the phone. I hadn't managed much of this in Mumbai. Hardeep said that he could show me those rooms but that I could not divulge the names of the companies involved. I said okay, though I recognized some of them—banking and mortgage groups, and the names of some airlines.

"This wing is tech support," and he named a large airline. "Let's say someone is processing a boarding pass anywhere in the world, doing a check-in, and they have a problem with anything. They call, and the call is answered by one of these tech people."

"Can I listen?"

I cocked my head to the earphones and heard an American voice at the other end, perhaps in Los Angeles, saying, "So do I just put that ten-digit code in?"

The tech person was a friendly-looking man, about thirty, studying a computer screen as he helped the airline employee in an airport far, far away.

"This is internal organization support," Hardeep said, "not an end customer."

"What's the difference?"

"End-customer support is voice-based, requires accent—U.S. or U.K. You are identified with a particular country. 'Hello, I'm John...'"

"But it's really Mohun, isn't it?"

"For our purposes, it's John."

We were passing down a corridor and into a new room with about a hundred cubicles and workstations. At each one sat a young Indian man or woman. They looked like students working late at the library, except that they were on the phone and the room was humming with their voices. The call center employees worked from scripts, and all calls were recorded so they could be reviewed for effectiveness.

"The brand image from a consumer perspective should not change, or else the person on the phone in the U.S. will think you're taking a job away."

Which was exactly what was happening: an Indian helping an American to solve a problem with a computer or an appliance or an insurance form.

This fascinated me: Indians mimicking Americans, not just in the way they were dressed (short-sleeved shirts, blue jeans, sneakers), but in the American jobs they were doing, using broad American accents. All had American first and last names.

I met "Lynn Hayes," who was born Hasina, in Kerala, on the coast. She was twenty-two, unmarried, and worked from 5:30 P.M. until 2:30 A.M. at the call center—the best time to call California. She was cold-calling contractors in the San Francisco area, to sign them up for a home warranty company that wanted its own fix-it men.

Listening in, I heard a blunt "Who's this?"

"Lynn Hayes," Hasina said in a neutral, regionless American accent. "May I please speak to the manager?"

"He's out."

"When is he expected in the office, please?"

The accent was American, this politeness wasn't.

"I dunno," the woman at the other end said.

"May I call you back?"

"Up to you. He's pretty busy."

Lynn Hayes persisted until she was able to find a time when the manager of this firm of contractors might be in.