Monday, April 21, 2008

Outsourcing Stress

The nature and being of Indian Society has changed drastically over
the last few years, there is no doubt about this. For those of us who
visit every other year we see the rapid changed fast forwarding in
front of our eyes with every visit. Each time I visit, I notice the
latent stress that did not exist several years ago, when life was more
laid back and priorities were very different. Today, everyone is more
preoccuped with work, managing dual income households, where money is
not the issue but time is.

I saw this article in the Chicago Tribune, and I felt that it was
right on. Read this excerpt below.

"After two years working nights at a U.S. company's computer call
center, Vamsi knew it was time to quit when his 6-year-old son brought
home a school portrait he'd drawn of his father, asleep in bed.
"He was asked to draw a picture of his mom and dad, and he drew me
sleeping. That's the only way he ever saw me," remembers the
31-year-old, who like many southern Indians goes by only one name. "He
never saw me doing anything else."
Indians may have taken over three-quarters of the world's call-center
jobs, but they've also taken on the stresses of those jobs: weight
gain, depression, boredom and, often, relationship troubles."

Call centers are just one example of an industry that is catering to a
different part of the world. So many other sectors are in the same
boat. Friends and family that live in India, maintain the same hours
and schedules that I maintain on the east coast. I can see the stress
that this puts on their family life and their personal relationships.

With stress come otehr problems such as substance abuse,increasing
divorce rates, unstable children and the list is endless.
"A study last year in the Indian Journal of Sleep Medicine found that
40 percent of call-center workers surveyed smoked, compared with 7
percent of a control group, and 36 percent had more than two alcoholic
drinks a week, against 2 percent of the control group. Another 27
percent of call-center workers also reported using sleeping pills or
other drugs, often in an effort to combat the sleep deprivation that
nags overnight workers," says the Tribune article.

Read the full piece at--
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-india-stress_nu_goeringapr20,0,6517218.story

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As long as one is not clear as what one wants in life these confusions are bound to happen.
They have to be very clear about family values & money . These days there are no family values & people are attached to materialistic living.
They do not respect elders.
They have become self centered.
Any amount of Yoga,Art of living Courses, Taichi courses will not make them happy.
They have to search their own souls to and analyse to find true happiness & resonably satisfactory living.