Why are techies in India unproductive?
Specifically Indians when working from India.
I used to joke to my American colleagues that it’s because we have the self-imposed “difficult” task of keeping up with pop-culture and memes of both countries - India and USA. On the Indian side we give our mindspace and time to know what the deal is with Uorfi Javed and the Bollywood Wives, watch CTRL and Ulajh and the latest season of Panchayat, taking breaks in between only to watch Aatman Desai’s latest reels only a few hundred times each. And once we are done with that, we start over again and read about SF’s homelessness for the umpteenth time, worry about Sunita Williams, watch Jennifer Aniston’s ATLAS and the latest season of Bridgerton (remember the scam party?) and finally spend hours reading articles on Hacker News. Oh wait did I forget Anime and Korean Drama - those are 2 separate entire countries’ worth of content. And don’t get me started on gaming, although we do pick and choose our poison and I have yet to come across someone who watches series AND does gaming - well maybe if you are a game streamer, or basically lukhha - then you might be those rare ones who do both.
But recently, I came up with a new hypothesis. I just read this article and watched a youtube video:
I don’t know how much more productive the same techie becomes when she moves from India to the USA, but their salaries (and probably also their cost of living) do become 4 times as much.
Speaking of the devil, J just raised a JIRA ticket - a reasonable request from the user point of view - that will need me to get consensus among a few people before it is implemented. So I need to sign off, and get on a few calls and waste a few context switch cycles of my colleagues, tiring them out until they relent - which should be easy, since they are working from India.
I used to joke to my American colleagues that it’s because we have the self-imposed “difficult” task of keeping up with pop-culture and memes of both countries - India and USA. On the Indian side we give our mindspace and time to know what the deal is with Uorfi Javed and the Bollywood Wives, watch CTRL and Ulajh and the latest season of Panchayat, taking breaks in between only to watch Aatman Desai’s latest reels only a few hundred times each. And once we are done with that, we start over again and read about SF’s homelessness for the umpteenth time, worry about Sunita Williams, watch Jennifer Aniston’s ATLAS and the latest season of Bridgerton (remember the scam party?) and finally spend hours reading articles on Hacker News. Oh wait did I forget Anime and Korean Drama - those are 2 separate entire countries’ worth of content. And don’t get me started on gaming, although we do pick and choose our poison and I have yet to come across someone who watches series AND does gaming - well maybe if you are a game streamer, or basically lukhha - then you might be those rare ones who do both.
But recently, I came up with a new hypothesis. I just read this article and watched a youtube video:
- Is Population Density the Reason Americans Can’t Discuss Politics? — Stuff George Write
- Why you’re so tired
I don’t know how much more productive the same techie becomes when she moves from India to the USA, but their salaries (and probably also their cost of living) do become 4 times as much.
Speaking of the devil, J just raised a JIRA ticket - a reasonable request from the user point of view - that will need me to get consensus among a few people before it is implemented. So I need to sign off, and get on a few calls and waste a few context switch cycles of my colleagues, tiring them out until they relent - which should be easy, since they are working from India.
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Life in India is a series of bilateral negotiations