December 4th, 2008 by galadriel
… whoever came up with coffee. It’s the ONLY thing that takes me through the day.
——
<Rant>
I usually consider myself a reasonably fair person who does not indulge in any kind of typecasting. However, I have noticed myself and from what my friends tell me, it is commonplace to observe Indian people behaving unprofessionally at work. And before you slice my neck, I do not mean to say that all Indians are unprofessional or even that there are no unprofessional Americans/Europeans/*insert your choice of ethnic background here* but the few examples of bad work ethic that I have heard of and seen have been pretty nasty.
I shall begin with an example of my friend who works for a big financial company. She has a friend/colleague who works for a different team, and all her (colleague’s) team members are Indians. And they have developed this nasty reputation of behaving very inappropriately at work. Abusing the office phones provided to them, the ability to access gtalk at work, downloading music at work and so on. Consequently, they have been assigned some very minor tasks and in the event of a potential layoff, they will probably be targeted first. Said colleague/friend even shows up for work in the winter in sleeveless tops and then complains that the office is too cold, but we digress.
My workplace is no different. The team that I work in does not have any Indians, which works out both well and not-so-well for me. But my office is also densely populated (quite like our homeland) with Indian people from a certain south Indian heritage which I refuse to name and which most workplaces are swarming with. These people sit right across from where I sit and are truly the most boisterous merrymakers I have seen in a while. And I went to grad school in New Jersey. I know we are a truly brilliant lot and doing the work assigned to us takes us no time at all so we have all this time on our hands to while away, but does it have to be this OBVIOUS? Look at me; I use my free time with such prudence. I blog.
One of the team members of said gregarious team was also extremely annoying. And this whole incident makes me quite proud, TYVM. I sit in a very high frequency zone with people passing by every few minutes and half of my working time is spent in exchanging pleasantries. Accordingly, said gregarious team member (referred to as GTM from now on, the G having even more significance because he is of aforementioned south Indian heritage) would also pass by my cubicle every so often. Now, owing my naturally pleasing personality, he took an immediate liking to me, and chose to express this affinity for me by tapping my head every time he passed me by. [And anyone who knows me, knows that even though I am normally an absolute doll (don't you DARE disagree), the term "wild cat" has been used in reference to me on occasion (read more than often), and not without reason.] So when I am irked, you had better know it and be scared. Be very very scared. So the next time GTM passed me by, I gave him one of my cold stares and made a “tsk-tsk” noise. And then I told him that I’m going to move from this cubicle because people passing me by have started annoying me. Now GTM is a smart man, he knows when to take hints. He hasn’t made eye contact with me ever since. I am happy. And I actually have put in an application to be moved.
Also, what is with not speaking in English??!! I know your team is full of people who speak the same language and so you can communicate in any language you choose, but at least at work, when you are talking about work related stuff, can we please use the language the documentation is written in? I mean, you’re inserting all the technical terms in English anyway, so how about joining those terms using verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and so on in English as well?
That being said, I do have a couple of untoward incidents of workplace unprofessionalism (I know that’s not a word, Firefox is making a red line underneath it) concerning American people to relate as well, so I am not only limiting this to Indian folks. I just wish people began treating their jobs with respect (except you Lost On The Street, you’re allowed to diss at your job as much as you want, I like you. 
).
</Rant>
