On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Thaths <tha...@gmail.com> wrote: [...]
> Having worked in a few places around the world, I found that the > productivity per hour of an employee in India is about (#include > <made-up-math.h>) half that of an employee in the US. I have never > been able to figure out exactly why this is the case as I have not > noticed gender, race, nationality, type of job, religion or age have > any influence on this. I suspect it has something to do with the state > of economic and civic infrastructure in India, but I have only > anecdotal evidence for this. I've noticed this too. As others have pointed out the stressful environmental factors are certainly contributing, but the real reason IMO is something else. Ask yourself this, how many Indians have you met who really really like what they are doing? Or are at least happy with who they are? 9 out of every 10 Indians I have met are looking to move up the ladder, move on, change jobs, you name it. The auto driver isn't happy being an auto driver, he would rather drive a taxi, the taxi driver would rather be sitting behind a desk etc. This is the low minimum wage effect. In Switzerland you can make 3500 chf/mo stacking boxes at Ikea. That gets you a decent lifestyle, way more than what one gets stacking boxes in the USA. This means that the box stacker in CH isn't wishing to move on and hand the job to an eastern european, whereas look at the Hispanic invasion in the US, they mow the lawns and clean the windows not because no one else wants to do it, but because no one else wants to do it at_that_wage. This effect is exaggerated in India. There are more people stuck in IT in India than anywhere else in the world who would really prefer stacking boxes or milking cows to being in IT. They are making your life miserable. It may or may not be possible for a happy person to infect an unhappy person with their happiness, but it is definitely possible for an unhappy person to make a happy person unhappy. Or as the old story goes, a cup full of honey in a bucket of shit still makes it a bucket of shit, and a cup full of shit in a bucket of honey makes it a ... bucket of shit! c.f. the history of Linux User groups in India. I lost interest in attending LUGs in India when it stopped being a hobbyist community, and instead started attracting hordes of job seekers with a Idiot's guide to Linux in one hand and their resume in the other. c.f. the average college in India - it is filled with disinterested youth looking to warm the bench for the necessary minimum number of years before they can get a degree by mugging up answers to the question papers of the last 5 years. Indians are a competitive race and stacking them all together tight in a poorly developed urban landscape with no room for escape is a recipe for unhappiness. Cheeni
