Hmm….I haven’t said anything in a week so I should give an update. I am actually going to write a great story about the Black Taj Mahal when I get around to it….but I’m going to do a bunch of great stuff when I get around to it. I won’t hold my breath.
So life as an expat is a lot like life at summer camp. At camp you meet a bunch of new people and do everything together because you don’t know anyone else….it is the same here. We stay in a cabin too…its a just a 5 star cabin with a spa and pool….although I guess you had a pool at camp too.
At camp you get poison ivy; in India we get malaria. At camp you find a dead rat in the woods; in India you find dead rats in the streets. Same same….but different, except for money. As an expat you get paid while at camp you pay. I guess that is altogether different….not same same a bit….but someone always pays still. We know that.
A lot of people have left this week to go back to the real world. It is sad to see people go cause you know what they’re going back to. Our company just announced all these benefit changes (where of course we get the shaft) and people are angry back in the US.
I see it from such a different perspective over here. They see benefit cuts as a profit hungry Corporation looking to transfer costs to us while they put it in their pockets. People are mad…..but they get over it eventually and its back to business as usual.
There is a hiring freeze in the US while they’re bringing on people in boatloads over here in India. A coworker told me (which could be all bullshit), that we will have 3000 employees in India by the end of the year…triple the number we have now.
And the Indians are smart too, at least in their own way. The average Indian in one of these oursourced IT jobs makes about one fifth what we make. We aren’t 5 times as productive as they are.
I’m working with new hires mostly. They suck….but in 6 months they’ll be just as far along as someone at home….they’ll just cost a fifth as much.
So the benefit cuts that seem so selfish and out of the blue at home make perfect sense to me. Not only do they want to hire people faster here…..they want people in the US to quit faster as well.
It isn’t enough to hire people in India and let attrition and a hiring freeze in the US reduce American headcount……they want to speed it along….so they cut the benefits.
I say “Oh Well”. I knew it was coming anyway. People back home in Atlanta know it too….they just thought it was way off….”a few years” they always say. A few years is today. Dust off your resumes….or learn to speak Hindi.
So life as an expat is good overall. We are living the high life. It is what’s happening back in Atlanta that is killing me. It is sad.
Of course I am just guessing. I could be wrong. It happens every once in a while.
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