Charles Haynes wrote: > My simplistic armchair psychoanalyzing has a different conclusion. I > think the biggest difference is the amount of individual initiative. > As a gross overgeneralization my observation is that on average, > Americans, most Western Europeans, Australians, and Israelis show a > lot of individual initiative. If they see something that needs doing,
The DIY attitude in the western world is largely related to cost. Labour is cheaper in India, bringing back Cheeni's point in a way, and therefore people expect things to be done by others. Take the domestic help for example. In India, it is a foregone conclusion that if you lead a reasonably comfortable life (as in you don't have a hand to mouth existence), you will hire help for the daily chores. Why? It costs a couple of thousand rupees at the most to get the dirty (?) job done. In the US, or any developed country for that matter, you would pay through your nose. Minimum wage does make a huge difference. It does not exist in India. It may exist in the law books etc, but in reality nobody gives practices it. Hell, they don't even know about it. Yours truly is included in that list, I would happily pay Rs 1000 to my gardener to mow my lawn and take care of the garden than spend an hour or so everyday. As I look at it, my 1 hour is more expensive than his. If it becomes illegal for me to pay less than Rs 10000 for a gardener, it might make me think twice. > rather than waiting to be told, they'll either bring it up, or fix it > themselves. If they think you (as the boss) are doing something > (technically) incorrectly, or there's a better way - they'll suggest > it. (Sometimes at the top of their voices! :) We in India, are only recently shaking off the shackles of being subservient to our bosses. Forget Google. Go to a manufacturing firm in Coimbatore, or even Hosur, 40 kms away from Bangalore. You'll be amazed at the autocratic management style. I was recently with a client in Coimbatore where nobody was allowed to bring mobile phones to work. And while we, as guests, were allowed to have food delivered to us in the cafeteria, the employees did not enjoy that luxury. Working and living in Bangalore, or any metro, tends to give you a tunnel vision of life and work. My guess is that it gets worse going east. While at Singapore, it always amazed me how completely incompetent people could become managers and drive fear into their teams' heart. They were scared to even talk to their managers. And it was worse in Seoul. Smokers used to hide the cigarette they were smoking because his manager was around. And this was at a LG company. I almost got into trouble because the CEO of the company was seriously offended by me not offering him a smoke and then later on lighting my own before his. Venkat
