

India: Facebook recruiting from the IITs; attractive offer - xtacy
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/7040500.cms

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alexgartrell
Is it really surprising that Facebook would give the same offer to students
coming from India that it gives to students coming from everywhere else?

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patio11
I have a little professional experience dealing with outsourcing operations in
a few countries.

You probably grew up in a Western democracy where racial discrimination was
illegal and socially radioactive for most of your life. There are people who
do not share that experience. Assume you had grown up in a hypothetical
totally-not-India nation where government was known to be pervasively corrupt
and where discrimination happened as a matter of course, and you knew in
dealing with foreign countries that you were not in a position of strength
vis-a-vis your negotiating partner. Would you necessarily expect them to treat
you fairly?

Story time, with particulars elided: Japanese companies often pay employees in
a fashion determined by an algorithm. It came to the attention of a supervisor
of an Indian employee that information relevant to the employee's salary had
not been communicated to the company and, as a consequence, he was not being
paid his expected wages and had not been in some time. The employee was
unaware of this and the error was in the company's favor. The company was
totally blameless for the error happening.

The supervisor immediately went to the employee, apologized, and informed him
that he would be paid appropriately going forward. He then asked the employee
to wait for a few minutes while they figured out what to do about the six
months of wages. The employee said it was OK, he understood that the company
would not pay him.

Not five minutes later, the supervisor came back with the division chief and
the head of HR. All three repeatedly apologized to the employee. They then
presented him with an envelope: six months of the difference, in cash,
accurate to the yen. It had been drawn from the petty cash drawer, and I have
it on good authority that if the petty cash had been insufficient the division
chief would have made good on it from his personal accounts within the hour.

The Indian employee was flabbergasted. _I_ was mildly surprised. But this
totally makes sense in a particular mindset here. The Indian was totally ready
to believe he would be cheated out of wages -- it wouldn't have been the first
time. I was ready to believe the company or HR would drag its feet. From the
perspective of a particular brand of Japnaese megacorp, though, both those
expectations are not just wrong but so outlandishly outside the realm of
possibility that they wouldn't even occur to anyone.

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paraschopra
I agree with you specifically on the mindset issue but it is not just true for
India but rather for all cultures. Here in India, business people can delay
and prolong release of payments for long and people have come to expect that.
So if you get payment (along with apologies for the delay) that would surprise
any Indian for sure!

Similarly, as much as I despise and loathe it, majority of Indians will not
hesitate to throw stuff/wrappers out of their moving cars on roads and
highways. It is pretty OK for them. But I am sure it will shock and surprise
Japanese and many other cultures.

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kunjaan
The base salary and the signing bonus is not so special to deserve a whole
article.

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mashingkeys
this is just going to further the rage on dice.com about the field going to
hell in the states.

