Thanks to an email from reader Srikanth who forwarded me this link. The writing is not merely moronic, it’s confusedly moronic.

Recently, I was passing through a leading airport in the country. And I saw a private airlines corporation, characterised by its sleekness, glamour, and its distinctively visible ‘feminine service.’ Yes, I saw young girls — and they seem to belong to the affluent class — moving around the entire airport, communicating with their ‘guests’ (the airlines corporation I am referring to wants us to believe that its passengers are its guests)…

He hates that we’re having private airlines competing with each other in offering better services to customers. But that’s just the beginning; his eye is actually on the Evil Call Centre Culture that is contributing to societal “depthlessness.”

You want to bash call centres, do it well. Don’t patronize, then apologize and then again, justify at every turn.

At times, I feel sad that youngsters who could have taken a more challenging project in life find call centre jobs exciting. Possibly it reveals how global capitalism mythologises its ‘service’ sector, and involves the younger generation in a job that demands nothing except cultivated politeness: exchange of pleasantries, strategic words, market messages, and a lot of style.I really get puzzled when I see this spectacular, glamorous and image-based work culture entering diverse and multiple sites: from television and FM radio channels to fast food joints.
My intention, let me state clearly, is not to plead for some sort of Brahminism that reinforces elitism, and degrades this sort of work as ‘impure’ and ‘polluted’.
I am aware of the fact that an egalitarian society is one that has learned to adore the dignity of labour. What I, however, wish to emphasize is that the kind of work one does is not just about what one earns; it is immensely significant for the life one leads, and the contributions one makes to one’s society.

And if you want to invoke a great mind, let it not be Karl Marx.

We all know that this sense of incompleteness in the domain of work aroused the thinking of many great minds, and Karl Marx, for instance, regarded it as an expression of alienation. Beneath this alienation lies the story of exploitation: the sheer need for survival.

And for heavens’ sake, get your context right before quoting stuff like

Even the need for fresh air, as Marx wrote, ‘ceases to be a need for the worker.’ At this juncture, man cannot afford any other need except ‘the need to eat, and indeed only the need to eat potatoes and scabby potatoes.’ It would not be wrong to say that in a society like ours it is this sort of alienation that awaits the destiny of many workers.

Uhhhhhh??? Worse follows with the author’s Marx-fixation firmly in place:

But the emerging work culture I am talking about tells a different story. Had Karl Marx been alive today, he would have characterised it as market- induced seduction, not exploitation-related alienation.

The writer gives us a hint of redemption: ask the “youngsters” to chuck their call centre jobs for

Yes, young girls and boys who choose these jobs are not like poor alienated workers who are in sheer need for survival. They are English-speaking, metropolitan and possibly affluent. It is not difficult for them to have multiple choices. Yet, these new jobs, despite their characteristic depthlessness, seduce them. And herein lies our anxiety. Because the future of a society depends on the way its youngsters — particularly, the educated ones —think, feel, imagine, and choose their life projects.

What crap! Does this mean our “youngsters” aren’t choosing their “life projects” well? Do we set up a Ministry for Monitoring the Indian Youth to Choose (their) Life Projects? And make Praful Bidwai head the Ministry? Perhaps the author writes from ignorance. I have several friends in call centres and it is well-worth recounting an episode. This guy who graduated 3 years ago began his career in a call centre. The job currently fetches him some 25K a month. He used most of his salary to finance his MBA, which he’s completed and now has an offer on hand with Procter & Gamble. His life as this moron wants us to believe was far from “depthless.” The call centre “culture/job/career” this guy derides so sloppily actually is an enabler for people like my friend. Is he really serious that our “youth” are that braindead, to believe that they’ll remain customer service reps for life? There’s yet another angle: the money greatly helps people who come from small towns. Back home, they find little or no career opportunities and have large homes to support. A 10-15K job is in reality God’s Gift to these people who for several reasons aren’t qualified as per today’s standards: an average command over English is really the only skill they need. Most call centres do provide training either from the scratch or help them improve their existing skills.

But why am I not surprised to read this in a mainstream newspaper? Only because it is from the Deccan Herald stable.