I am documenting
this 1 year and 3 month long observation of a very weird social behavior of the
people of Chennai, otherwise known as “Chennaite” (by the rest of the world)
and “MadrasKaaran” by the people of Chennai. My observation does include individuals (all
total strangers to me) of both the genders and people from about all walks of
life. I would however make a mention that this observation of mine does not
necessarily conclude that all Chennaites exhibit this weird behavior but in
fact this observation would like to be documented as an indicator of potential
city-wide damage of the friendly communication habits in the future, assuming
this continues and spreads to everyone. I am a Chennaite myself and I love my city and it is that love of my city that has prompted me to document my observation of the phenomenon that I think is seriously detrimental to the long-term well being of my beloved city. My mental GPS always hits a technical
snag or an experimental error while navigating through routes that involves
more than 2 left turns or right turns. So I always stop during my travel and
ask someone on the road about the route to my destination and make sure I am on
the right heading. It is this habit of mine that gave me the fantastic
opportunity to meet and talk to different individuals in Chennai among whom I
noticed this weird element of communication that I would like to analyze today.
Thanks to all those who were generous enough to help me with the directions
during these instances.
It is an
internationally known and followed yet unwritten code for telling directions
that calls for using hand signals and gestures to explain the route to someone
who asks for one. The idea is usually to help the traveler/commuter to
understand and remember the route to his/her destination. For those who have
trouble understanding this please look at the pictures given below and thrust
your face into the palm of your hand for not understanding it before. ;)
I don’t own the
images shown above and here are the reference links for these:
When I stop and
ask someone on the road about the way to get to a specific spot in the city,
the person almost always used his/her right
hand to point to the right and
said “…take the left….” (When the
actual direction was indeed the right turn, as the hand signal had conveyed).
Non-Verbal Rocks!!! ;)
Boundary Conditions and Isometricity
Why on earth
would anyone with everything working right use the right hand to point to the
right and ask me to take that left?
If the intended
subject of the communication is actually “The Right,” why is “Left” being used
verbally?
From a
communication standpoint, the non-verbal communication is substantiated with
the verbal declaration of what is being conveyed non-verbally, except the fact
that the non-verbal and verbal communication elements completely contradict
each other, rendering the purpose of the communication deviate away from the
otherwise presumed purpose of helping the receiver receive and process the
information effectively.
Our scope right
here would be limited to the “Why?” element alone and discuss the possible
reasons that we may identify.
Possible Reasons
1.The person may be suffering from a
neuro-developmental disorder namely Gerstmann’s Syndrome which has left-right
disorientation as an indicative symptom. There may be other neuro-developmental
disorders which may cause left-right disorientation and therefore let’s just
stick with “Neuro-Developmental Disorder” and maintain things in the simpler
sense.
2.The person is already occupied mentally with
something else that he/she could not possibly make out the connection between
what he/she is intending to say and what he/she is actually saying (let alone
the hand gesture).
3.The person is contradicting his/her non-verbal
communication with his/her verbal explanation on purpose, where the intention
is to confuse or challenge the listener and let the listener struggle to
interpret the actual message being conveyed.
4.All the other million possible reasons put
together and royally ignored due to their state of insignificance with respect
to this post. ;)
Interpretation
I am no
psychologist and this post is not diagnostic in nature and therefore I just
have to waive the possibility of the neuro-developmental disorder. Even if I
were to possess such intellect, the seconds-long conversation about simple
directions may not have served as a suitable and comprehensive diagnostic tool.
I guess the concerned individuals can recall how frequently they confuse right
with left and I sincerely hope it does not put them in an alarm situation.
As for the
“occupied-with-something-else” reason, why would someone with real working
senses choose to involve in a communication while they are mentally occupied
with something else (I mean to an extent where one cannot realize that they are
saying something that is contradicting what they enacting simultaneously)?
Assuming the person is occupied with something else and then proceeds to speak
to someone, it would only mean that their brain would have cordoned off a
minute section of itself for the conversation. But we must consider the fact
that we are, in the end, only human and it is normal to confuse the left with
right. The question however is that, what are the chances that almost everyone
that I asked for directions might have been mentally occupied with something
else, over a period of 1 year and 3 months?It has to be mentioned that there were a few instances where the
generous minds correctly mentioned the route to my destination without
confusing left with right but these are clearly outliers that have to be gently
ignored. Irrespective of one’s state of being “mentally occupied with something
else,” is it not normal brain function to analyze what has to be conveyed prior
to actually conveying it in any form of communication? We cannot demand the
analysis of the “correctness” of the message since that would mandate a
philosophical bent entirely based on idealism. We can however demand the
analysis of the “consistency” of the message conveyed in verbal and non-verbal
formats. In other words, one can verify their words and actions to make them
consistent with each other. When the right hand is used to point to the right,
the logical verbal form of the message would include a “right” and definitely
not a “left.” I am sure even a dead duck would nod in agreement to this idea.
The brain
chooses to listen to a question, process an answer and deliver it non-verbally
and verbally, except the verbal part would completely walk up and down the ass
of the non-verbal part which by some mysterious ways is attributed to the fact
that the brain was occupied with something else. How the friggety frat is this
even plausible? More than that how come this happens almost every time I ask
someone for directions? Honestly, this analysis just needs more information
which, as for the moment, is unavailable to me because I have no freakin idea
about it.
As for the
reason of “purposefully distorting information” during any communication, I
have to say it is a rather interesting one to look at, for this really tells a
tale about “short-span communications” between complete strangers in the Big
City Ecosystem. I go on long rides on my motorcycle and most of the spots I
ride through are comparatively rural. I ask for directions the same way I do in
my city and I never had anyone confuse left with right or just threw random
directions at me and let me figure it out. In fact the rural folk had the
generosity to explain the route to me very clearly and most of them asked me if
I had got it right. I thank them for their generosity to spare their time for
me and even more, their cultural dominance over the city-dwellers in the
effective communications context. The city-folk too are generous but not as
proficient as the country folk when it comes to effective communication.
Now why would
someone deliberately distort information during a communication and let the
listener struggle to interpret the right thing? Why would someone say “left”
when they are actually meaning “right” just because they want to be discreet to
the listener and impose a sense of “nothing-is-free” when the nature of the
conversation is not argumentative? In fact it is a simple case of explaining
the directions to some lost traveler who has asked for directions. The very
intent of such distortion is an indication of an element of misanthropy in a
person’s socio-psychological construct. In other words, if the person
deliberately succumbs to a self-imposed question of “Why should I be very clear
with my communication?” and eventually distorts the messages conveyed, then it
indicates a possibility of dust and rust in the top deck. If this is not the
case, then what kind of Marijuana dipped in salsa causes someone to point to
the right with their right hand and deliberately say “Left”?????? I am sure
such a person would be no stranger to blue elephants in baggy pants playing
banjos.
Concluding this
rant, I would like to mention that I sincerely hope the right-left confusion
does not spread like an epidemic. Whatever may be the reason, communicating
effectively is a symbol of civilization and a platform for portraying one’s
culture in terms of social behavior. While we are human and are bound to be
occasional victims of mal-functioning perceptual and motor skills, it is a
positive thing to keep attempting to communicate effectively and at times, help
lost travelers find their way to the destinations of their choice.
It is
interesting to note that there has been considerable academic research in the
Left-Right Orientation topic. Find below the link to an online experiment
created by Dr. Eric H. Chudler, who is the Executive Director of Center for
Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and a Research Associate Professor in the Dept.
of Bio-Engineering at University of Washington:
Anyone can put themselves through this test to find out to what extent they confuse the
directions in their mind. I put myself through it and the results show that I
fall under the 11% of the total responders so far who show a difference of 4-6
seconds between the two tests. Not too shabby… ;)
For those of you
who might love to indulge themselves in something additional related to this
topic, here are the links:
Next time you
tell directions to someone, please make sure you say what you think or intend
to say and make sure the other person has understood it. If we decide to take
the pain of helping someone, let’s just do it in a complete sense and let
fundamental physics live in peace. It is always wonderful to let Verbal and
Non-Verbal communications stay on the same team.
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I have embedded YouTube videos that have content that might be disturbing to some due to the nature of its (violent) content. So watch the videos at your own discretion. You can click here to download the pdf version of this post which will not have the disturbing videos.
I would like to bring to your
attention something that has in the recent times, caught the attention of media
and public in this region of the world, the claims of war crimes in Sri Lanka
during the military ambush executed by the Sri Lankan government to put an end
to the Tamil rebel uprising. The Sri Lankan government succeeded in killing the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the military ambush. However, several
events during the ambush that got documented on photographs and videos seem to
project the idea that the Sri Lankan military had violated international human
rights laws. As per the videos and photographs that have been publicized by the
international mass media, the Sri Lankan soldiers have methodically executed
their prisoners of war and also abused and killed civilians in the process. Now
for those who are not clear about the photographic/video documentation, please
find below the documentary as telecast by Channel-4, a british public service
television broadcaster:
These given below are some more
links of similar video footages that have been released to substantiate the war
crimes claim:
Before we begin, I would like to
make it very clear that the issue has language-based-ethnicity as the root
cause. I do not approve of the acts of human rights violation committed.
However, the accused here is the Sri Lankan government, including the military
agencies, operatives and heads of the Sri Lankan government. Just because there
is a language-based-ethnicity in the system, it is absolutely foolish to
consider all native Sinhalese speakers and Buddhists from Sri Lanka to be the
potential perpetrators of the criminal acts. Those who are responsible for the
inhuman acts are criminal suspects, irrespective of their native language or
religion. The main reason I am trying to make this clear is because, I speak
Tamil. Tamil is my native language. But I am Indian as I was born in India. Apparently,
folks around my place here are agitated over the war crimes that were committed
in Sri Lanka and are expressing their anger against the Sinhalese-Buddhist
government of Sri Lanka. There is however, certain section of the population
that has the clarity regarding their inferences and implications on the matter.
The causes for the inhuman acts are ethnic identities and the need for establishment
of ethnic superiority in the Sri Lankan society. That doesn’t mean all
Sinhalese-Buddhists approve of what the Sri Lankan government has done. I have
very good friends who are Sinhalese speaking Sri Lankans. I have enjoyed their
company in my classroom, workspace and even on the cricket field. We never had
any differences with respect to ethnicity. A very good Sinhalese friend of mine
has even worked for a Tamil organization in Sri Lanka in the past. Just because
certain sections of the local mass media here in India have been repeatedly
referring to ethnic identities, the issue under scrutiny has been grossly misunderstood
and the craving need for ethnic classification of the accused has taken over
the objectivity. So, we will be attempting to analyze and interpret the
incidents that took place in Sri Lanka with the perspective of human rights
violations and the responsible perpetrators. Their native language and religion
is of no use to us since we do not have the objective of spreading contempt and
envious thoughts against the ethnicity of the perpetrators. A criminal is a
criminal, irrespective of what language he/she speaks and what faith he/she
follows.
The Tamil LTTE Cadres and
civilians massacred in Sri Lanka are Sri Lankans by birth. The LTTE was formed
to protect the Tamil-speaking Sri Lankans and they took to arms demanding a
separate state of their own. This war has been going on for decades and after a
series of cease-fire agreements and failed bi-lateral talks, the Sri Lankan
government decided to put an end to the rebel uprising. Now from a democratic
stand-point, any government cannot be blamed for attempting to curb internal
military conflict due to a rebel uprising. The LTTE took to arms and they were
met with arms by the Sri Lankan government. What sparks the debate is the fact
that the Sri Lankan government has allowed its forces to go above and beyond
the international laws to methodically execute prisoners of war and civilians.
Adding fuel to fire is the sexual abuse and physical torture that the victims
were subjected to.
The videos and photographs show
the dead bodies of victims naked and mutilated. The male victims were stripped
naked, hands tied behind their backs and eyes tied before they were shot from
point blank distance. The female victims were stripped naked, raped and hacked/shot
to death. I remember that at one point in the Channel-4’s documentary, the Sri
Lankan soldiers comment about one of the female victims still moaning while
they were loading their bodies on to a truck. This is quite a repetition of the
holocaust that devastated Germany in the past, except there were no
sophisticated Gas Chambers and organized Ghettos. Additional claims against the
Sri Lankan government point out that the international UN-backed organizations
and journalists were not allowed to operate in the war-hit regions of Sri Lanka
and meet the rehabilitation and emergency medical needs of the wounded and
displaced.
As per the report submitted by
the Panel of Experts to the UN Secretary General on the Accountability in Sri
Lanka, the panel approves of having identified “Credible Allegations” and has
classified them into categories as given below in the excerpts from the report’s
executive summary:
About the Sri Lankan Government:
“Thus in conclusion, the Panel found credible allegations that comprise
five core categories of potential serious violations committed by government of
Sri Lanka: (i) killing of civilians through widespread shelling; (ii) shelling
of hospitals and humanitarian objects; (iii) denial of humanitarian assistance;
(iv) human rights violations suffered by victims and survivors, including both the
IDP’s and suspected LTTE Cadre; and (v) human rights violations outside the conflict
zone, including against the media and the critics of the government.”
About the LTTE:
“The Panel’s determination of credible allegations against the LTTE
associated with the final stages of the war reveal six core categories of
potential serious violations: (i) using civilians as human buffer; (ii) killing
civilians attempting to flee LTTE control; (iii) using military equipment in
the proximity of civilians; (iv) forced recruitment of children; (v) forced
labour; and (vi) killing of civilians through suicide attacks.”
Now the question to be asked is
that, in spite of the Panel identifying credible allegations with regards to
serious violations why hasn’t the International Criminal Court initiated any
legal action to ascertain the truth? In case of Germany, the government that
did the war crimes fell and it was convenient for the next interim government
to initiate legal action against the perpetrators. In Sri Lanka, unfortunately,
the perpetrators are still under the shade of power. Therefore all the
communications as documented in the report and the specifics of the recent resolution all beat around the bush of the Sri Lankan authorities to implement
recommendations and ensure things are done right. Frankly, this is the biggest
political joke of this decade. Asking an administration tainted with
accusations of genocide and war crimes to make sure their planned
rehabilitation efforts are executed in the appropriate manner is like asking
the murderer to choose to apologize to the family of the victims whom he/she
killed.
The reality of the situation may
be hard to digest but the simple fact is that innocents have died and those
that are responsible for the death and displacement of innocent civilians in
Sri Lanka are still walking free and most probably will continue to do so. The
only way Rajapaksa and the Sri Lankan government under his leadership can be
tried for war crime is when the Sri Lankan government falls. In all the cases
of tyrant leaders that were tried and convicted for war crimes in the past,
with or without international intervention, the trials took place in the courts
of the country that served as the origin for the war crime and/or the
perpetrators of the war crimes. Given this predicament, even if by a remote
chance, the current Sri Lankan government is tried at a court for war crimes,
there are high chances that Rajapaksa and team would walk out free in the end.
The moment an administration smells legal action against its leaders, they will
either vanish to other countries or retire from the post. So during the trial
they can easily declare that they are not in power anymore and they were not
entirely responsible for what had happened. A few unlucky individuals may get
convicted and they too would get an offer of political asylum from another
country and accept respectful banishment from homeland as a consequence of
their actions.
The conclusion of the Internal Review Panel Report on Sri Lanka admits that the UN failed to adequately respond to
the events that occurred in Sri Lanka. This is the indication that
international organizations make compromises with their policies and procedures
as long as they know they won’t be in trouble. The United Nations has all the
resources and political authority to intervene and operate on issues related to
genocide and war crimes but it failed to protect the innocent civilians of Sri
Lanka and did not make any move to exert its policies with force. Only when the
news got out in the media, they released the report admitting their failures. No
point in playing the blame game now that the innocents are already dead but it
has to be noted that even the policies and procedures of United Nations and its
subsidiaries are not entirely self-sufficient and fail-safe. When things go
wrong, there is United Nations but when the UN goes wrong, nobody knows about
it until it writes a report on itself and releases it publicly. I would however
appreciate the honesty of United Nations to acknowledge and admit its failure
in Sri Lanka. Please click here to download the pdf version of the report.
There is however a big lesson for
all of us to learn from what has happened in Sri Lanka. As mankind progresses
into a new dimension of civilization, the concept of ethnic identities has
grown exponentially in the hearts of humans that goes way beyond the realms of
spirit of nationalism. Man has started to learn the importance of his own
ethnic identity in an effort to remember where he comes from and what makes him
unique. Man has started taking his native language, religion and culture more
seriously than before. But the alarming fact is that this has taken the grip of
reality to fade away in many a mind and has distorted the way the inferences
are made. Now in order to protect one’s own ethnic identity, man has learned to
hate other ethnicity and similar identities. This type of “hating others to
protect self” type of ideologies have been spreading fast in the past few
decades and at times have resulted in large scale violence. The uprising or
Tamil rebels, which is a case of separatist terrorism and the subsequent methodical
execution of prisoners of war and Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka by its own
government is just one example. How far can man go for the sake of his faith,
language and ethnic identities? Since when did man create this element of
civilization that calls for denouncement and damage of other cultures as an act
of retaliation to protect one’s own culture? If hating another culture is
justifiable in any sense, then what should we call the culture that teaches someone
to hate other cultures? After all, personal choices are but a result of
cultural impact on one’s thoughts, sparing the insane and ill-informed.
The Tamils of Sri Lanka have
their origins in India. Even though there are claims that they are natives of
Sri Lanka, history has it that a major portion of their ancestors were
transported from India (from the state of Tamilnadu) to work in the farms and
plantations in Sri Lanka. Over the years they settled in Sri Lanka. The
cultural rift between the Sinhalese speaking Sri Lankans and Tamil speaking Sri
Lankans, in my view, must have begun because of a non-existent or badly
structured immigration policy in Sri Lanka. If the government had devised the
immigration policies appropriately and officially accepted the naturalization
of Tamils, then the opportunity for discriminating the Tamils would have been
eliminated long back. We however cannot waive the possibilities of other social
reasons that may have initiated the discrimination of Tamils, which resulted in
the LTTE uprising and the sub-sequent war for separate state that consumed
lives for decades before culminating in the methodical execution of Tamils by
the Sri Lankan government. What we need now is speedy rehabilitation efforts to
stabilize the displaced-and-luckily-alive Tamil civilians and legal reforms in
Sri Lanka that may ensure equal rights to all citizens. An addition to it would
be a revamp of UN procedures to deal with anomalies faced while implementing
its policies around the world. At least the “We tried, failed and so they died”
explanation may not be used again in response to a mass murder situation. What more can we expect in the wake of the Lankan Genocide?
On a very different note [a shameless plug], if you are interested in unique tamil short films, feel free to visithttps://www.summamovies.com/. I couldn't tolerate the mass masala entertainers anymore and decided I will do my best to produce content with substance. I have a long a way to go as a producer and a start-up founder, but I am glad our journey has begun. I look forward to your support. Each film on our site costs INR 15. Thanks!!!
Before I begin, this is by far the longest post I have written. In case you are not a big fan of scrolling to much in the browser please click here to download the pdf version of this post. ;)
Here’s what I
have been attempting to comprehend for over a year….I did take time off to
share other opinions of mine…while I pondered over this topic in the back of my
mind…I haven’t figured it out completely but I guess it is time to put it out
there and hope, in the process, I would figure out the rest. However, what I am absolutely sure about is the fact that the topic we will discuss below is something that deals with an illegitimate employment system that adversely affects the wages and working conditions of US workers in the US who come from different walks of life.
This piece of
writing specifically concentrates on my observations, inferences, decisions and
choices that I made during the short period of time I spent job-searching in
the United States. It is my brief stint with the flexi-staffing fraternity in
the United States that I am trying to describe, explore and possibly bring out
the harsh realities that I think would keep you informed…….I am going to be as
objective as possible and that would mean that we will be looking at the
flexi-staffing funny games from a Structure-Mechanics-WorkFlow standpoint…we
would however make an attempt to interpret the subliminal layers of the vicious
system that I think is consuming mankind at a rapid rate globally. I had been
through a system that calls for, advocates, supplies and implements fake
resumes, with falsified information regarding one’s educational and
professional qualifications and experience for the sake of obtaining
employment. The cruelty of the system lies in the fact that the candidates are
forced to compromise their integrity for the financial benefit and the
short-cut to the paper-work that would help them stay in the United States.………………………..and
we might as well begin….
Now that we have
begun, we must identify our position and point of view in the system so as to
stay informed on what we would look at specifically. This topic we have in
front of us is very vast and I do not know or understand it completely to give
you the wholesome picture. Getting to the specifics, we would keep our
observations to the IT-Industry in the United States that is catering to
multiple industries in so many ways. All the large corporations do not carry
out all their operations as an in-house effort and instead outsource them to
various contractors who would do the work for them. From the IT stand-point,
the companies would hire software service providers who would run the IT
operations for them. These companies (Contractors) in turn would outsource
part(s) of their work to smaller software firms (Sub-Contractors). These
contracting and sub-contracting companies would have a skeleton work-force
(permanent employees) and a floating work-force (temporary
employees/consultants) who together would coordinate efforts to carry out the
work outsourced by the Big Guy. We would be exploring into how these
contractors and sub-contractors end up getting their “Floating Work Force,”
more precisely, the modus operandi of “Consultancies” in the flexi-staffing services.
Are you ready? Let’s Rock n Roll!!!
Game’s Got Structure
Figure 1
We begin with
some Flexi-Staffing jargon, if I may call it so. The Big Corporation that
outsources its IT/Operations would be the End-Client, the Contracting/Sub-Contracting
companies would be the Mid-Clients, and the HR/Recruitment Partners of the Mid
Clients would be the Consultancies who have the “Consultants” on payroll. Throw
in a “Vendor”…Wonder what they are? They are recruitment agencies that receive
the position requirements and forward them to their partner-consultancies…..kind
of Consultancy of Consultancies…..confused? Well, I am… ;)
Now going from
the bottom up, referring to Figure 1 as given above, the consultants would be
the “Please-get-Me-A-Job” desperate job-seekers who are ready to go as
flexi-staff since their attempts to find full-time employment hasn’t been
successful yet. I was one among them when I got into the system. The Marketers
would be the recruitment professionals responsible for gathering position
requirements from Mid-Clients, Vendors and Job Portals and forward them to the
eager Consultants. The Consultancies would call themselves as a “…..fast
growing provider of IT, ERP and Project Management solutions to leading clients
in the commercial and government sectors…”but all they would do is provide flexi-staff to IT clients in ways that
are not very obviously known to everyone around.I guess we have gone over the system
structure from either direction. It is time we get to the Physics of the
system….
The Game Begins
The candidates
who are desperate for a H1B Visa submit their resumes to the Consultancies and
their recruiters respond with a call/email. The so-called interview goes on for
about 15 minutes and the only thing that gets assessed is confidence in speech
and openness to work in different domains. Little do the candidates know about
the nightmares they are about to face. Finally an offer letter is sent to them
through email.
I present to you
some samples (click to download):
The Payrate
Document pretty much says how this game is played. The mid-client would charge
the end-client a certain amount per hour for the consultant hired. Since he
creates the opportunity for this consultant position, he would take a certain
percentage of the hourly rate and would give the rest to the consultancy or the
vendor. Now if it was the vendor that gave the requirement to the consultancy,
he would take his share of the loot and give the rest to the consultancy. The
consultancy would have an agreement with the consultant as described in the
Payrate document and would pay the consultant accordingly. Now since many
players are involved in this game, the financial component gets bigger. To
accommodate the financial component, the mid-client would claim that he would
require a 8 years experienced candidate for a temporary position and would
require $120 per hour as the salary for the 8 years experienced candidate. The
end-client has very little or no say in this because he just wants the work
done and is willing to pay for it as per the agreement. Now the end-client
however would sometimes demand to interview and assess the consultant prior to
finalizing the temporary employment. So the mid client would take $40 from the
$120 and give the remainder $80 to the vendor. The vendor would have an
agreement with his partner consultancies as to how much per hour will be his
share. It is usually around $30. So he would take his share and give the
remaining $50 to the consultancy. Let’s say the consultant is a new guy and is
within first 6 months of his employment with the consultancy. In that case as
per the Payrate document given above, the consultant would get $25 per hour for
the work he/she would execute at the mid-client’s or the end-client’s site
during the course of the project. I have used $120 as an example figure and the
pay rate may vary from position to position. The Figure.2 given below would
explain this schematically:
Figure 2
Now the twist in
the screenplay is that this consultant will not be an actual 8 years
experienced candidate. He/she would be a fresher just out of college with a
master’s degree. Since the mid-client needs an 8-years experienced candidate,
the requirement would be drafted accordingly and the forwarded down the line as
shown in Figure.1. The consultancy would supply the consultant with fake resumes
that would match the job/position requirement and ask him/her to update it with
necessary contact information. We will get there as we progress. We still have
to familiarize with the recruitment and induction of flexi-staff employees into
the consultancies.
The candidates
are asked to relocate to where the Consultancy is. Those who live nearby
commute as usual but Out-of-Towners are offered accommodation by the Consultancy.
It usually is a set of apartments shared by the Out-of-Towners. Now the picture
gets slightly dark. A typical double bedroom apartment would have around 7 to
10 guys sharing the space. Some consultancies offer mattresses too. So each
room would have 2 or 3 inmates. There is a hierarchy in such apartments. The
Living-Room dwellers are newbies and they are yet to be inducted into the
brotherhood. The Inmates of the Master Bedroom are the Big-Daddies of the
Brotherhood, who are the supposed to lead the brotherhood and therefore get to
lay the ground rules for the pack to follow. The Inmates of the Guest Bedroom
are the Dukes who are eagerly waiting to become the future Big Daddies.
The first day of
reporting is always the “First-Day-to-New School” experience…..New faces, new
atmosphere and new territories. The candidates are briefed on how the
flexi-staffing happens and a contract is given to all of them to sign. Trust me
that contract is nothing more than a big joke. It definitely had a lot of legal
jargon that went above my head at MACH 2 but when I was given one, I took a day
to read through it, signed it and gave it to the manager. I was not given a
copy of the signed contract. The contract signing formality is a scare tactic
employed by the consultancy to send the message across to the candidate that in
case someone wants out; he/she will be in deep trouble because of this
contract. So the first thing that consultancies usually do is to instill a
sense of insecurity in the minds of the new recruits that would motivate the
employees to be willing to make any compromise, whatsoever, for the sake of
survival and in the process become totally dependent on the consultancy. After
all, it is the dire need for a piece of paper called H1B Visa that makes these
individuals make all the compromises. I had been there and I decided to make
those compromises for the same reasons. I just could not handle that truth
within me and I never went on any project as a consultant.
Training to Lie
The consultancy
I was with specialized in the Business Analyst/Quality Analyst/Systems Analyst
positions in the IT industry. So the training I went through was specific to
these positions.
The training
begins with the initial brainwashing of the new recruits that aims at cementing
the opinion of faking the experience for financial benefit is nothing wrong and
in fact it is the fastest way to grow professionally. Statements like “…why
begin from level zero when you can begin from level 5 or 6?” and “…You follow
my instructions…I will make sure you get your H1B and Green Card on time…Don’t
worry….I am there….” are continuously repeated in front of the newly recruited
consultants. The trainer and manager always try to get the answer “Yes” out of
the consultants, rewarding them with the promise of better future in the United
States. Most consultants fail to realize that such talks are the practical
application of good old Socratic Method of Persuasion…..kind of Modern Day
Dogma with the spiritual part being replaced by professional/survival needs.
The
technical/core knowledge of the Business Analyst/Quality Analyst positions are
condensed and rammed into the brains of the consultants within a time span of
about 4 weeks. The primary objective is to enable the consultant defend his/her
resume during the telephonic and face-to-face interviews. A handful of software
related to software testing such as Load-Runner, QTP are introduced to the
consultants so that they are familiarized with the software functionalities and
interfaces that would help them survive the tough situations at the workplace
and most importantly help them answer the questions correctly during the
interviews. The consultancy’s primary aim would be to enable the consultant
clear the interviews and secure a placement in any project. What the consultant
wishes to do is absolutely immaterial because the consultant is a liability to
the consultancy until placed in a project.Once the consultant secures a placement, he/she becomes a source of
revenue and therefore a completely different format of respect and camaraderie
is offered to them from then on. It has to be noted that the batch of
consultants getting trained on software development, testing and maintenance
would be from a diverse set of educational backgrounds ranging from electrical engineering
to marketing management. They make the compromise because they have been
convinced by the consultancy to be “Open to options” so that they will do their
best to get the consultants well settled in the United States. One can only
imagine how a brain trained for years in one field gets all the new technology
information and stacks it for a make-believe act of pretense that would help
portray the consultant as a professional with years of experience in the IT
industry.
During the
training period, the newly recruited consultants are offered a set of fake
resumes related to Business Analyst/Quality Analyst/Systems Analyst and are
asked to go through them to get a “feel” of how their resumes are going to be
while they are being marketed to mid-clients and end-clients as experienced
professionals. The consultants are given a sample position and experience
domain and are asked to prepare a sample fake resume that would meet the
requirement. A mock interview/resume analysis is done as a class so that the
entire batch gets to know what to do and what not to do while fabricating
resumes for requirements. This training goes to the nuts and bolts of resume
writing where the specifics are discussed elaborately such as the date/time
lines of each project that is included in the resume. Depending on the level of
intimacy and moral surrender of the consultant to the management, a specific
set of resumes are forwarded to each consultant individually. The game layer in
any consultancy is always a zero sum game where the consultants are made to
believe that one’s gain will be loss to the others and every day they stay with the
consultancy without securing a placement in a project, they are losing money.
So the rat race begins right there. Consultants go to great lengths, trying to
get a good impression in the minds of the consultancy’s senior personnel so
that they get a “Good Set of Fake Resumes” that others don’t get. The want for
a set of descriptions of interesting projects that may lure the
vendor/mid-client to call for an interview grows exponentially at this stage of
the training. There is a paradigm shift we need to note here. From accepting to
defend fake resumes in the beginning, the consultants go to the far extreme of
scrambling for good-looking fake resumes. The confidentiality that goes along
with “Resume Preparation” would easily pass the confidentiality that the United
States Government would implement for the sake of its National Security
measures. The consultancy briefs each consultant separately and informs all of
them individually that they are special than the rest of the lot and that they
just need to follow management’s instructions and everything will fall in
place. Again this Good Cop-Bad Cop routine is to ensure that the consultants
have generated a state of fear believing the zero-sum-game that when others get
into a project, they would be just there…losing everything. Therefore each
consultant in his/her own way would make genuine efforts to get the confidence
of the senior personnel of the consultancy and prepare hard to make…well FAKE
RESUMES. The following are samples of fake resumes (that I came across during
my time with the flexi-staffing system) for the positions of Business
Analyst/Quality Analyst/Systems Analyst in various domains:
(Click the respective link given below to download)
The resumes
shown above are just samples. You can imagine a position and there will be at
least 10 suitable resumes for that imaginary position. These resumes have
different grades of quality too!!! The ones given above are supposed to be
“Vanilla Resumes” which means that these are the most exploited and most
common, which in turn means that these would not attract as many calls as the
other “Killer Resumes” that are available to a select clan of consultants
namely the Brotherhood of Ass-Kissers. Those “Killer Resumes” apparently get so
much attention of the recruiters that consultants who got and worked with those
“Killer Resumes” got fantastic projects and amazing work opportunities. Vanilla
or Killer, it really doesn’t matter because all of those resumes are absolutely
unoriginal with falsified information of all kinds. Except for the consultant’s
contact information, everything on these resumes is false and quite frankly way
above my head. These resumes have a lot of IT-related technical information
that I have never heard or read about anywhere. The consultants therefore get
trained on how to create killer resumes that can attract calls from recruiters.
Very few of the consultants end up working their domain or any domain that they
have even heard of.
Post Training Posing
After the
training, the consultants are put in “Marketing” which means that from then on
they would be receiving various requirements from the Consultancy’s marketers.
It is common for consultancies to have a dedicated marketing team that would do
the leg work of searching through job portals and network with vendors/clients
to get the requirements that can be filled up by the consultants in
“marketing.” Some consultancies even have dedicated marketing teams operating
from overseas. That marketing team would work night shifts to cater to the
consultants in the United States.
This is how it
happens. The individuals running the consultancy would compile all the email
id’s of the newly brain-washed consultants and forward them to the marketing
team. The marketers would start sending bulk emails to all the consultants with
requirements as they start getting them. They would then call the consultants
one by one and ask them to send a suitable resume. Anything to be added or
edited is discussed over phone. Also the “Tao of fooling US Clients” with
respect to what to say during interviews is imparted for free over those
conversations. Sometimes a known vendor would ask for a very specific resume
with mentions of specific terms. The marketer would immediately call the
consultant and ask him/her to send such a resume. Once the consultant sends the
resume, the marketer forwards it to the vendor and receives acknowledgement.
The marketer then calls the consultant and discloses the key information regarding
the areas of assessment during the telephone interview for the specific
position.
There is ample
room for fun in this phase. Sometimes what happens is that the vendors and
marketers, over time successfully place a whole bunch of consultants by pushing
their fake resumes and eventually grow to be great friends or professional
colleagues. The vendor would know that for a certain set of requirements, this
marketer friend of his/her would definitely provide quality resumes and
confident consultants who can beat Broadway Veterans in acting and dialogue
delivery. The same way the marketers would know what areas the respective
vendors specialize in. So it is a colluded cult of resume push fanatics. In the
happy moments, sometimes the marketers prepare a resume on their own using a
consultant’s contact information and submit it for consideration to a vendor.
The consultant is then informed over phone that such a resume has been
forwarded. This happened with me and it was a hilarious experience. I had no
idea about what the position was and what resume was sent. Now in times like
these the consultant would have like a few hours to prepare for telephone
interview on something someone thought would be a perfect match for the
consultant’s professional growth. ;)
The Call Handling Conspiracies
Now once the
resumes get submitted, the mobiles start ringing. Consultants would sit the
whole day at the consultancy, staring at the monitor and mobile phones, hoping
to receive calls for the submissions made. Resumes for various positions and
domains would get submitted. How would the consultant know which resume to
speak about whenever someone calls? This is where organized planning is taught
to the consultants. The consultants make Excel Resume Trackers that would be
updated as soon as a resume is submitted. The fields of importance for a resume
tracker are Position, Location, Client’s Name, Marketer, Years of experience
(as per requirement/resume) and finally a link to the particular resume that
was submitted against that requirement. When the consultant gets a call, he/she
needs to get the position’s details from the caller before getting into the
conversation, click open the corresponding resume and then proceed with the
conversation. This is required because after about 10 days in marketing, the
consultant would not remember what resume was submitted against what
requirement. Now, once the resume is open in front of the consultant, it
becomes easy for him/her to refer to it and deliver consistent replies with
respect to work experience as mentioned in the resume. One has to be physically
present to enjoy the humor of a consultant opening a wrong version of a resume
midway through the interview and delivering contradictory answers sending
signals of suspicions to the recruiter who’s calling. I have had many
opportunities to witness similar incidents where the caller would ask something
and the consultant would have never heard of it before. The rest of us would
google it, write it on paper and flash it to the consultant and he/she would
then pick up from there. We were experiencing our own Consultancy version of Les
Miserables and still managed to laugh it out hard and loud.
Sometimes the
vendors would know very well about this system and would begin the telephone
interview with “Can you google things out and survive in this job? I will tell
you what the American mid-client and end-client would ask. Just prepare the
answers and deliver with confidence. I will take care of the rest…” The
consultant then has to convince the vendor that he/she is smart enough to act
and would somehow manage to survive. If the vendor is convinced about the
consultant’s acting capabilities, he/she would forward it to the
mid/end-clients.
The real deal
about telephone interviews is when substitute speakers are engaged. Sometimes when
the consultant manages to convince the vendor and fool the mid-client with the
fake resume submitted, the end-client interview gets scheduled. The
consultant’s unlucky if it is a face-to-face interview because impersonation is
impossible. But in the case of end-client interviews scheduled to be carried
out over telephone, it’s a whole different ball game. As an act of courtesy,
the consultants who managed to get placements in projects would offer to help
the next batch by taking telephonic interviews on their behalf, posing as the
consultants for whom the interviews are scheduled. The timings are confirmed
over emails. The senior personnel of the consultancy would choose the experienced
consultant to attend the call as scheduled. Again the consultant needs to be
part of the Brotherhood of Ass-Kissers to be offered this coveted privilege of
letting some random guy talk as the consultant. Once the timings are frozen,
the “Call-Taker” is forwarded with a copy of the fake resume submitted and the
consultant is asked to speak to the “Call-Taker” to discuss about the position
and the interview. Exactly 15 minutes before the interview’s scheduled time,
the consultant enables call-divert in his/her mobile and marks the Call-Taker’s
mobile number. So when the end-client (mostly an American in charge of the
project) calls, he or she would not know that they would be talking to someone
else who is posing as the consultant as mentioned in the faked out resume that
has been submitted. If the Call-Taker does the magic, then everyone celebrates.
I have tried so many times to identify what they can possibly celebrate about
this and I never found anything.
Living off People’s Misery
Now that we have
observed the dark side of flexi-staffing in the United States of America,
especially in the IT industry, it is time we make an attempt to understand the
underlying implications of the same. These consultancies, for the most part,
are operating on the basis of greed and are misusing the fire and enthusiasm of
individuals who travel all the way to America with the hopes of living their
share of the American dream. Young men and women say yes to all the
compromising conditions laid out by the consultancies only because they are
ready to do everything to survive, get a job, earn some money and live happily.
Now just because the consultancies have the means to obtain temporary
employment, they get to handle people as their slaves. The consultants have no
other choice but to lie and defend their fake resumes so they can have a job
and eventually survive. Now defending an 8 years resume is one thing but
working according to the experience submitted is a whole different thing.
Consultants go through verbal abuse and mockery on a daily basis just because
they do not know the work they are doing. They have to learn as they work and
perform in the job. Most importantly, after getting placed in a project, the
consultant has to memorize his/her fake resume so they don’t give contradicting
replies to their colleagues while engaging in friendly conversations.
Consultancies would instruct the consultants not to make friends with fellow
workers soon after joining since the risk of getting identified as a faker is
high and that would jeopardize the employment. There had been occasions when
the bosses had asked the consultant about why their working is very slow and
with silly mistakes while they have been working the same domain for over 8
years. There have been cases when the client companies find out about the fake
resumes and fire the consultant. The consultancies in those cases would only
say that it is not an issue since they can get the consultant another better
project. The consultant compromises his/her integrity, prepares to lie and fake
professional experience, struggles on the job with no help whatsoever, works
like a dog and bears all the embarrassment he/she is showered with at the
workplace…..only to survive in the United States…and the consultancies, vendors
and mid-clients just eat away the bulk of the money that they earn at the cost
of the consultant.
There are cases
where everyone including the end-client knows that the resume submitted is fake
and still things roll this way in the United States. The way I understand it,
those bosses have a feeling that if some consultant is smart enough to defend a
fake resume, then he/she is fit enough to work with them. We cannot exclude the
possibilities of scenarios where the actual clients have no idea about the fake
resume and the inexperienced yet enthusiastic consultant. Companies don’t have
to pay benefits (health insurance/pension) when they hire temporary/contract
employees since the consultancies would be the employers of those consultants. Companies
like such employees because they can hire just when they need and downsize
easily when the demand falls. This corporate mentality of manipulating manpower
cost for profits has given birth to a great industry in the United States that
has been vandalized over time and its current state is beneficial to the hiring
companies and consultancies but not to the workers/employees. The industry is
so widely spread that each consultancy would have multiple companies registered
as partner firms or stand-alone companies in order to compensate for the H1B
limit laid out by the United States government. Consultancies exploiting the
regulations laid out by the United States government and the increasing state
of unemployment does affect the workers adversely in certain cases. The workers
are exploited and used up for financial benefit. Also this state puts
international communities in the United States in bad light. This has to be
controlled through effective implementation of necessary preventive controls
through appropriate regulations. Here’s a link to another article that adds to
this discussion:
Why should
people be forced to defend lies only to survive? All the education gained
through hard work is rendered useless when smart individuals defend fake
resumes and take up jobs that they have never done before. This state of
flexi-staffing in the IT industry in United States may be quite similar to
those in other countries across the globe but that doesn’t make it right. I
feel that smart and hard-working individuals being forced to defend fake
resumes is a kind of intellectual human trafficking. A whole industry surviving
on the misery of innocent individuals is highly disheartening. The struggling
economy just adds to this. All murderers killed because at the time of the
murder, that was their only choice of survival. All pimps who run brothels sell
women for their livelihood because that is how they survive in a brothel. Need
for survival does not necessarily emancipate any act of crime. Businesses need
flexible workers and consultancies provide it but the workers do not want it……they
have no other choice but to accept it in place of a permanent employment. I am
not opposed to temporary employment. I am opposed to individuals being
forced/brain-washed to defend fake resumes. When Americans in the United States have the privilege of taking pride in honor/respect/integrity and so on, the status of considerable number of internationals in the United States is quite the opposite due to various regulatory and commercial reasons and that is exactly what I wish to point at.
I know a lot of
people who were/are in the flexi-staffing system I have described above. I
don’t mean any disrespect to them or their professional abilities in any way. I
wrote this post because I wanted to document this state of Flexi-Staffing (IT
industry) in the United States and make the facts as I had observed available
to you.
Update as of May, 2014:
This has been one of the most-read posts on my blog so far. In fact, until a month back, this was at the top. I would like to thank them all for their time, comments and emails. I am glad my blog has helped you in ways that I wished someone had helped me with. That is the objective of this post.
Key Trends Noticed
I noticed is that there are so many of us out there, not knowing how to cope with this consultancy-scam, fearing ridicule and a 'Not-So-Happening' legal action. Let me put it in simple terms. You don't have to fear. Nobody is going to get you caught in legal action. The contract you signed is as fake as the resume they make for you.
Another distinct trend that I noticed is that, there is either 'No' or 'Not-So-Much' information flow across the demographics that are in the 'Consultancy-Shit.' Everyone with a fake resume fears the other person will do them some harm or just keep everything they know to themselves assuming that is going to give them some sort of competitive advantage. Stop believing that shit!!! Get it out of your system!!! It is true, the consultancies tend to keep you believing the 'Fake-Zero-Sum-Game' so you will rat on your colleagues for 'Extra Benefits.' Don't let those scammers play the Divide-and-Rule game. Talk to people. Let them know what you know and ask questions. There are going to be people who tend to rat on their fellow workers. Don't bother their behavior for they fear the system in ways you can never imagine. There are so many of you out there fielding fake resumes and all you wish to do is an anonymous comment on my blog or a secret email to me. I appreciate the trust you have on me. I will be grateful for that until the end of time and I will do my best to help you with my suggestions. But you've got to connect with your kind!!! So talk to your fellow Fake-Resume-Consultants. Just send them the link to this page and this can get them talking. They may sound like superman but they are as scared as you are.
The rare-yet-significant trend that I noticed is that, consultancies that filed candidates with fake resumes have started convincing their candidates that they don't hire every 'Tom, Dick and Harry' and therefore what they do will never make it out. Some even have gone to the extent of convincing candidates that they are the first Indian or 'Desi' they have hired and the rest of them are Caucasian or 'Gora.' My apologies for using racist terms here. Please be informed that consultancies are paper companies who lease office space from building on different names and have multiple registrations in many cities as there is a H1-B limit for every registered business (per year and overall basis). So when one registration titled 'InfoTechnoNonsense' (for example) reaches the threshold limit of H1B's, they register another company and start filing in that name. They know the tricks of the trade and they will keep their company out of the radar. But you fielding the fake resume will be out in plain view my dear friends. Not getting caught does not confirm invisibility. So don't trust a consultancy that boasts of fool-proof faking methods and how they are best-friends of clients and how YOU are the only Indian/Asian there. The office you go to may be an exception. These consultancies run like chain of chicken farms. You may be the first chicken there but definitely not the first the consultancy ever had. Watch out. This trend to me indicates that the consultancies have evolved over time and they are now trying to work against the popular opinions among candidates. They have transformed from money-making firms to safe-firms so that they can get the scared candidate accept to their cheating methods. They don't have anything to lose there. really, they don't/ The one with the fake resume does.
Lastly, many THANKS to those of you who decided to quit the Fake-Resume-Consultancy-Scam and get back to work with their original resumes like normal people with integrity. I am more than happy to realize that at one point of time in your struggle, my scribblings here on my blog, has helped you with information and insights. I have no words to describe your happy emails after quitting Fake-Resume-Consultancies in US.
Here is one that sends across a strong message to me, you and everyone that integrity matters:
".....Finally quit the desi consultancy today. Feeling great."
Do share your experiences in the comments below and let others know what you have been through or are going through.
Update[6th July, 2015]
If you go through the comments section, you will notice that we have received comments from individuals who have or are using fake-resume and working as consultant/contractor in the US. While they are clearly interested in proving the idea that fake-resume jobs only help and don't cause any trouble whatsoever, they refuse to share their fake resume, fake experience, their current job they got with their fake resume on this forum. Some of them even brand me or my attitude for writing this blog post. One comment claims I am trying to present falsified information and what I describe may not be true.
While I don't accept those claims, I respect those viewpoints. I think we need to get an honest viewpoint from someone who is/was working on a fake resume where they can share the fake experience they used and how they got back to the original experience resume and nothing ever happened. Unless we get someone who can present their fake resume and the details of the employment they gained using it, we cannot rule out the fact that there will be damage and that will cost the fake-resume joker very dearly.
My claim is, they are afraid to reveal their identity, fake experience, fake resume and the contractor position they gained using the fake details. The reason may be anything but it definitely includes the Fear of Embarrassment and potential Professional Loss such as Losing Credibility. I am willing to post the fake resume and employment details here on this post. I will however verify the fake resume with the company [end-client/mid-client] to make sure this individual worked there with fake credentials and also will get their views on this subject. That's the only way out of this confusion. Again, I am receiving emails to this day about what will happen when people quit fake resume consultancies. There are so many out there who want out but are afraid.
So, on behalf of those who are stuck with Fake-Resume-Jobs, those who are afraid to move out of shady consulting companies in the United States and those who are just unclear on how their fake resume at one point in time can hurt their career later:
[going Optimus Prime here]
We are here. We are waiting...... [ Played in the background: Linkin Park's What I've Done]
Update as of 7th March, 2017:
Please look at the image below. This is the case of a fake resume-proxy-interview candidate and his alibi who got busted by the HR specialist who handled the recruitment process. If someone is telling you everyone knows the fact and they are fine with it, think 3500 times. What they say so confidently is hardly closer to reality. If everyone knows fake resumes and proxy interviews and they are fine with it, why does this image get published on LinkedIn?[click here to have a look at the LinkedIn post first hand]
Please watch out people. The consultancies might as well be selling your kidneys with you going as freebies.
Update as of Dec, 2018:
Remember, nobody in the comment/post/image shared on LinkedIn mentioned the Desi Consultancy's name. Nobody mentioned the Mid-Client's name. Nobody mentioned the end-client's name. Nobody mentioned the vendor's name. All that came out was the fake resume candidates' images indicating who took the interview and who showed up for work. Look up the LinkedIn post to confirm this first hand. For the sake of brainwashed individuals in the fake resume racket, your consultancy will not be in the frame when you get caught like this. Your mid-client or vendor won't bail you out when you get exposed like this. Imagine the future impact on your career. If this cannot convince you about the fact of the situation, nothing will.
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