If you please

The last time I ever visited this greatly sensitive area of a man's life was in 1991 when in Standard VI, Mrs. Jenneth Lyngdoh made us all keep a little book of Dos and Don'ts for gentlemen. And this I am doing purely from one of my readers saying that the last blog entry on Cheap Labour was poor because I chose to glorify and therefore exaggerate on the poor service in Bangalore restaurants a.k.a. 'the affliction of a table spoon on a soup bowl'.

I revisited my good old bible of manners and etiquette. It said something about being humane. Now I forget all the details of Mrs. Lyngdoh's class but I do remember that there really was a lot said on table manners. It was not so much on which fork to use and why we might mistake a steak knife with a fish knife. It was about being comfortable without being a discomfort to others. Yes. That was it. I do remember clearly. Some golden rules that I learnt as a child and I shall so much as suffer you to read:

i. If everyone is eating with the hand, it is bad manners to use cutlery. It might make one seem like a dandy. There is nothing wrong in eating with the hand. That is what hands are for.

ii. Always chew with the mouth closed. Always. There cannot be any other way of chewing. We do not want the person across to see inside the mouth. And take care not to make lapping sounds while eating.

iii. Never bite the spoon. The teeth will click and some people find it rather unnerving.

iv. Elbow on the table. It takes up space so that the person next to you may find it uncomfortable. And then his manners will never allow him to ask you to remove your elbow from the table. (My addition) I personally feel elbows are rather romantic in a candle light dinner where your body posture is suggestive of undivided attention. But then there is no one on your side; only in front.

v. It is bad manners to decide for others. So you should not decide the course(s) at a restaurant without asking everyone. (Tuned to Indian Dining) It is bad manners to take the salad plate, the onions and cucumber served in many places, and squeeze lemon juice or sprinkle salt and pepper on it. There might be people at the table who like onions without lemon juice or salt and pepper.

vi. (I love this one) If the last helping remains, one must always ask if anyone wants it before helping oneself. Likewise, it is good manners to say no when anyone is asking the same. The question is a rhetoric.

vii. (This is my own addition)If you want something, please ask for it. Much rather you do than stifle and believe me when I tell you, the host will notice. I do. I say this from experience.

Now my friends. Having given my twopence on the subject of table manners, I do agree that it is really quite all right to have soup with a table spoon but it is better if one has a soup spoon. And I would like to emphasize for clarity that I expect a soup spoon when I pay 12.5% service tax at a restaurant. That is all I am asking for.

Between the knife and the fork is a battlefield where one must emerge refined. But even as I think of what Mrs. Lyngdoh had taught us little men, I cannot butu help remembering our lesson on book manners and the right way to turn pages. But I shall save that for another retort, someday. Enjoy your dinner!

Cheap Labour

We are a growing and up coming middle class. We have just been introduced to the possibility of being first time home owners and owning a car of foreign make has become a reality. Many people attribute this progress to the growth of the Indian economy and the fact that more jobs are being outsourced to India. One of the biggest factors, as everyone will tell you, is cheap labour. So, on a Thursday afternoon, after a meagre corporate lunch (meagre in the nutritive, not calorific sense) I asked myself how cheap a labourer am I? And what is cheap?

Let me start with a paradigm.

Bangalore's restaurants are famous for poor service. They can get everything right, starting from the concept to the interior decoration. What these restaurants can never get right are the cutlery, the recipes (and names) and service. On more than one occasion, as I have to lunch out quite often, much after the fashion of software engineers in Bangalore where a Friday luncheon not only boosts team spirit but also provides a (questionalbly) thankful retreat from the absolute monotony of South Indian catering, I have had the privilege of being the victim of poor service. The restaurants are expensive. The people who wait on the customers are not. They are what constitutes cheap labour. And they define poor service. Why else would anyone serve soup with a table spoon or nod sheepishly at every instruction you give without understanding a single word (as you come to know eventually)?

In very much the same way, it makes business sense for large multinational companies to outsource jobs to a poorer country where people work for a fraction of the salary otherwise payable in a developed country. And it works out for both the MNC and the poor country. Or does it?

Consider the newly enriched Indian middle class. They eat out once a week, drive foreign made small cars, play teaming havoc in malls and public places, create the most unimaginably rowdy traffic, work more than 50 hours a week of which they spend a large part of it on the internet following cricket scores, checking email and trading in the stock market. Another great part in coffee breaks, lunches and brilliant discussions on optimizing income tax payout and the various loopholes that may be exploited (even if that means getting fake receipts from the local chemist). And then finally, a bit of work thrown in here and there, a few conference calls a week to buy more time from the customers but ensuring everytime of the utmost sincerity of the team. The actual work starts as the deadline approches when everything else takes a back seat. A couple of deadlines after, it is time to move on to another job because of the associated stress due to 'unrealistic' deadlines.

There is another angle. Take hold of an employee and by virtue of his supposed experience in the industry, make him a manager and open a world of possibilites. For one thing, understand very well that an incompetent manager never says no. He just accepts every bit of work, agrees wholeheartedly with the customers and then delegates non realizable deadlines to subordinates; other employees who are suddenly shaken out of their internet browsing, coffee breaking comfort zones. What follows is a miracle in modern times where after fits and starts, a few angry resignations and frantic recruitments, the project at last takes off; understaffed and over scheduled.

The beauty is that everyone is aware of it. And everyone is really quite all right with it because after all, things that come cheap are good if reliable but understandbly expected if not.

Then what really is cheap labour? Is it purely the numbers that make every MNC come wooing to our doorstep or is it the work ethics and the continuous basking in revelry over newly found riches, quite expected from a poor but young people? Or is it the acceptance of servitude by being poor which is in some way a licence to get fake bills, switch jobs for a raise - in short create a cheap attitude that can go with the name of cheap labour?

On a Thursday afternoon, after a South Indian meal that just does me no good, I am wasting my time writing about the fact that wasting time is part of being cheap labour. I am cheap labour. At least for the moment, like everyone else who is reading this on work time.