Moving to Singapore...

Now you know why the long gap between posts.

It's cause I am moving, lock stock & barrel, to the city state of Singapore. I will still be working for the same company, but in Singapore instead of India.

The reasons for the move are many.

I personally think that Singapore is a very nice place. Very clean, very safe. Has all the trimmings of a first world country & still has a very Asian touch.

Singapore is, and has been trying to maintain this for some time, the hub for a lot of things in this part of the world. It competes with the likes of Hong King for the status of the financial hub for Asia Pacific. It has a huge telecommunications infrastructure, it has one of the busiest ports in the world. So despite all the things being talked about the Singapore economy, it is far from being a sleepy economy.

I am sure the way business is done in Singapore as compared to the way it is done back home in India is very different. It will be a good learning experience to see how business is done in other parts of the world.

Another reason is travel. When you are in India, you have to travel...whether you like it or not. That's cause there is business happening all over the country & there is no way you can just stay in one place. Not so for Singapore, primarily because it is a very small country. All business happens here & people catering to the business in Singapore dont have to travel out of the country at all. So I will now get to go back home every evening & spend time with my wife & daughter.

And there a lot of things to do for kids. So many places for kids to have a lot of fun. Just hoping my daughter likes this place.

So, all in all, I think this move will be good for me personally as well as professionally and will be good for family as well.

From now on, all the posts are from Singapore. So you can definately expect Singlish to be the medium of communication sometimes :-)

Advertising Bribery

In a world getting into the moral sphere, with every world leader justifying decisions with a moral highground, the necessity to act & live morally is the way of life today.

Evils like bribery, unjustified payment for getting your work done, are the problems the modern world faces.

And bribery comes in many shapes & forms. From paying an employee of the local magistrate to sucking up to your boss, there are many types of bribery with money not being the only commodity being used as currency.

Which brings me to a completely different, & yet related, point.

I see adverts which show a man setting up a great dinner for his woman, a man rushing to pick up his partner at the airport & gifting her a diamond ring, a woman being serenaded by a group picked out by her partner,....

The number of adverts soft selling to women is staggering and, in my opinion, extremely irritating.

Not that I dont plan a dinner for my wife or not gift here jewellery when the occasion calls for it. My objection is to the sheer onesidedness of the ad world in targetting women.

There is not a single ad, not one, which depicts a woman going out of the way to do something special for the man. Not one. Doesn't it look like a weird thing?

Why should that happen? I understand that women are more susceptible to this kind of soft sell, but men like to be flattered too. We like being pampered once in a while.

But that's not what the ads are showing. What I think they show is blatant bribery.

I'll buy you stuff, you stay happy. Or better still, I'll buy you jewellery, don't get grumpy.

Have these ad people thought for a moment that a single ad showing the reverse of the situation will feel SO GOOD to the all ignored male group. But I'm sure the ad will get rejected by the female group as they are not used to this kind of idea.

Heaven forbid if an ad comes out where the woman surprises her man with a great golf set. Most of the women would go around thinking "that's a collosal waste of money, especially on a golf course. I could get so many diamonds in my next bracelet."

Outright bribery, I say. We men would genuinely gift our women if the same rule applied to us. The fact that jewellery is taken to be a "great gift" whereas something like a golf set or an iPod is taken as a waste of money is where the problem is.

And we actually advertise & promote bribery. Yeck!

Where was the BPO industry when we were growing up?

I tell you...the BPO industry is growing at an enormous pace here in India.

In case you dont know what BPO is, it stands for Business Process Outsourcing. When large organisations realise that they have more people in their backend operations than they have in their core business, they outsource these non-business-critical (or sometimes NOT) functions to companies who specialize in these activities.

What that has resulted in India is an explosion of call centers manned by young 20-somethings who have found a great way to make money right after finishing college (or NOT). A direct outcome of this is a lot of young people with a lot of cash to blow.

While I am not against young people having a lot of money to freak out, I have my reservations. This access to money so early in life, I feel, makes these people to lose sight of the simple fact that there is life beyond being a call center operator. So, instead of learning skills which may take these people to better & brighter futures, the lure of currency is a strong distraction for these people. What I fear is they will end up as a bunch of angry & miserable 30-somethings if they carry on.

Another "distraction" (no pun intended here) for a lot of these people here is the number of people of the opposite sex working with them for the same long hours. These are the people they spend more than half their lives with in office & maybe more after office hours. The proximity of so many like minded people does push a lot of people, lonely or otherwise, down the path towards intimacy.

Recently, The Register (a site which I like both for their incisive journalism and witty commentary) and the India Times reported this:

"For many BPO employees, the office space is not just a professional domain.
Instead, it symbolises one's personal space, thanks to long hours being spent in
office. From making friends to cultivating relationships, BPO units are slowly
becoming hubs where inter-personal bonding takes place. And it comes as little
surprise that many also give vent to their sexual urges in the office space."

Whoa! What the hell was I thinking when I was studying to get some decent job? The perks on this one just cannot be matched!

A recently published report in a local newspaper mentioned a BPO (name not disclosed, obviously) had to get it's drainage system fixed due to excessive number of condoms being flushed down the toilets.

Now if I was growing up in today's BPO-dominated India and had just passed out of college, what job could have offered me the chance to earn money & get laid at the same time?

The temptation is too great.

All I can say is... earning a salary which pays me to listen patiently to irate customers & having carnal knowledge of a collegue (or more) on the side does not sound like a bad idea. But I would rather sit in my cosy office & blog about it.

Way to go, BPO!