We the Indians....

My team and I, recently had the opportunity to interact with clients who happen to be French. It was to be an informal (with stress on informal)  meeting, over teleconference. The objective of the meeting was to "get to know each other". So people, both on-site and offshore, were supposed to talk about themselves, their hobbies, talents etc etc. 

Powerpoint slides were prepared by the offhsore team, amidst the tight schedule of work and stuff. Anyway, no one here cared to even write anything beyond 4-5 lines. If at all anyone wrote a lot, it was just about their academic excellence and the amount of work experience that person had - studied here, studied there, worked 5 years here, 4 years there and so on. I thought this presentation was supposed to be this way, and filled in two lines about what I studied and how much(or little) my work experience was. Ahh well... there were other more interesting thing on my mind than this stupid video conference.

When the meeting started, the french guys started with their interests. And tell you what, it was very little what they spoke of their work. After all it was supposed to be an informal meeting. So they spoke of beer, wine, football, rock climbing, PlayStation, tennis, cycling and all the other really exciting think that they do. Their presentations were colorful and filled up with pictures - theirs, or taken by them. When our on-site guys (henceforth tagged under the category of BORING) started speaking, it was all about their studies and work. And if at all they mentioned any hobbies, it was just cricket ( mostly watching it and IPL was often mentioned ) , movies, Television and driving ( in Bangalore...?? Its a chore and not a hobby). And of the 10-15 people over here, almost all had these on their list (Except probably the ladies, who didn't include cricket). How lame are we?? . 

I think our French clients must have gotten a very good idea about us. They probably think - "These guys don't have fun at all. They keep working. So it makes business perfect sense to outsource all the work to them so that we can have all the fun." Well... that is why this whole outsourcing concept works out so well.

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