Call Centers in India:
Am I Talking to … Myself?

Subject: Call Centers in India

To: Family or Friends

Date: Thursday August 21, 2003

I called American Express. I suspected that my call had been routed to one of the call centers in India because the customer service agent sounded Indian. To confirm, I told her that I was traveling in India and that I wanted to check my account status to make sure it was OK while I was gone. I asked if she was in India too. She said she was—although she was a little reluctant to do so.

Then I asked if she worked for my same company. She said she worked for American Express. I told her the name of my company and commented that I am in India at a call center. She got a little giggly and asked if I’m in Gurgaon (that is the name of the suburb where we are located) and I told her I was. She continued to be a little giggly.

She never admitted that she works for the same company, but I think that she does, based on her reaction to me. (We provide call center services for American Express—they are located on the fourth floor of the building that I am in.) Isn’t that funny that I called an 800 number (using voice over IP—VOIP) from India to reach the US and then the call was routed back to India to an agent in the same building to handle my issue?

Other funny things: Sethi-ji, the cook makes me lunch everyday to take to work. He usually puts the sandwich and banana in a clear plastic baggie. Most days I put it in an opaque plastic bag with a bottle of water to take to work. The other day, I walked out of the house with it just in the clear baggie. He said that he didn’t like the way I was carrying my lunch. I thought maybe he was mad because I was squeezing it too hard or something. But no, he made the waiter, Dipen go get an opaque bag for me to put it in.

I thought it was pretty interesting. So I asked Eric (an American working at our company who has been here about 6 years) about it. He said that it was because of the evil eye. Apparently, if someone sees your food, they could give it the evil eye and it could make you sick. By keeping it out of sight people can’t give it the evil eye. I never thought about that.

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