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I studied in India 2012 for a short time. I met incredible smart and hardworking people. However, one thing that I found quite unnerving was that there is a ten

I studied in India 2012 for a short time. I met incredible smart and hardworking people. However, one thing that I found quite unnerving was that there is a tendency to always anwser yes if asked if one knows how to do something, even if thats not true. Sometimes a plain "I don't know" can be very helpful in achieving a goal. I can't count how many times I asked a rickshaw driver if he knew a certain place and he answered yes, and we just drove around for some time until I found out he has no idea. From what I heard that sometimes remains a problem, also in IT service. That said, we all have our cultural qirks, and in most cases knowing them solves half the problem.

vijaybritto 8y ago
"yes" this is true. Fear of failure is high and not knowing something is generally considered shameful.
avip 8y ago
This is ABC of travelling in India. Never ask "is this the train to Pune"? Ask where the train is going instead. The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India, and that can mean anything between "I don't speak English" and "NO".
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  it's part of the culture to be nice (to strangers) and NO is considered rude. brings a lot of funky and frustrating moments not only when travelling. another is that strange indian head-shake that is so hard to reproduce - never figured it out completely, but it felt like when I eventually ask yes/no question and they say yes with that shake, it's actually more like no/don't know/maybe
  - ben_utzer 8y ago
    Just make an 8 with your nose. :-)
  - overcast 8y ago
    The old bobble head :) I was there for a month, the whole country, and it's their form of agreement/understanding. Particularly when you're trying to teach them something.
  - sullenpaladin 8y ago
    The head bobble just means that they hear you. It does not mean yes or no or anything else really.
    - RandomCSGeek 8y ago
      There are 3 different movements. One is for acknowledgement, other two are for yes and no.
- carlmr 8y ago
  Asking open questions is a very good communication tactic in any country. In "yes" countries like India, Japan, China it's necessary. In other countries you often find out about whether your communication partner actually understood your question. Don't ask "Did you finish task X". Ask "what did you do on task X?". What you see as finished and what the other person sees as finished might be separate things. Maybe you see 100% unit tested, reviewed and documented as finished, and the other person means feature complete, but untested, undocumented, not reviewed. Open questions allow you to see what the other person understands. In some cases they might misunderstand your question entirely.
  - rubenbe 8y ago
    I absolutely agree, plus asking "How much of task X could you already do?" is perceived as less aggressive than "Did you finish task X already?".
- mkovji 8y ago
  I have heard so many people say "I am not sure" and i have heard so many people say "No" and i have also heard some people say No and this is how you have to get to your destination or get to your answer. So you are 100% wrong when you say "The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India". Which makes me doubt/ blindly ignore any of your opinion ever.
stillwatersr 8y ago
Fair enough. What does this have to do with the Original Topic? Are you just looking for a place to rant?
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Oh it has a lot to do with the topic in discussion
chrisper 8y ago
I believe it is similar in Vietnamese culture. When we work with them they often say yes only for us to find out later that they had no clue what to do.
- CapricornNoble 8y ago
  I can personally attest to this, having hired a small team of Vietnamese engineers to do some freelance hardware and firmware/OS-level work for me.
- rurban 8y ago
  Even in China, and that's the biggest market there. You have to adjust your questions. Always start the question with a W, and never with a Has or Is.
- coconut_crab 8y ago
  It's because asking for clarification is considered bad here, either you are an idiot or you are bothering others. So their best choice is to say 'yes' and try to figure things out later. That's why I always ask my colleagues how would they complete some tasks instead of "Can you do this?".
- boubiyeah 8y ago
  Seems common in Asia. I had the same experience in cambodia. One example: - I was very, very sick (Traveler's diarrhea) and we were about to embark for a 5 hours minivan trip with a guy without a driving license. - 5 minutes before departure, I ask the organizer "do you have a vomit bag?" - "Yes" - I wait around a bit, but he carries on with his work and just ignore me - "Sorry, did you have a bag, any bag? maybe a plastic bag, as I'm sick" - "Yes" - Now it's 30s before departure and I get pretty stressed as I have nothing should I need to throw up. So I ask him again, and he actually get pretty mad (with that asian "must not lose face" style though) and ignore me because I insisted and didn't just drop the issue (I didn't know what was going on at the time ...)
  - est 8y ago
    Sounds like "yes" means "I heard ya" or "ACK"
cataphract 8y ago
I've worked with people from Cognizant and sometimes I would get a plain "yes", other times a more helpful "Yes, I understood. Can you explain it again?".
kamaal 8y ago
>>Sometimes a plain "I don't know" can be very helpful in achieving a goal. In a country like India where opportunities are scarce, saying no in many cases can mean permanently losing the opportunity to do something big. Saying 'yes' and failing is a lot more better than saying 'no' and not trying at all. If I'm not wrong this isn't just limited to India. I think it was Richard Branson who said something to the order of never saying no to an opportunity. Always learn and do it.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Yeah, and the problem with this is if you lie and get found out, you'll not get asked again in many Western companies.
  - setr 8y ago
    Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying. It'd only be useful to be honest if you do have a skillset, and the company has a reasonable chance of reaching out to you fot the skillset in the (near?) future
    - jerf 8y ago
      "Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying." That's only true locally. Globally, you've got a variety of reputations, for yourself, for your firm, and whether or not you like it or consider it fair, for your country. You're burning all of those things. This will eventually catch up to you, your firm, and your country if withdrawals exceed deposits. This is, of course, a global truth, not an India-specific truth.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    Based on how politicians and how many second chances CEOs and other rich people get in the US I think its the same in US too. Its just that if you are working minimum wage, or you are a spoke in the gig economy it's different for you. Based on my experience working in the US, my American friends weren't very different. Its just that when you have sufficient you tend to worry less about over optimizing for the rainy days. US is a different country in so many ways. US citizens are lucky to be born in such a great country, which supports its citizens through social security. And later with food stamps should the need arise. There is also awesome infrastructure like freeways and cheap air fare to move around based on opportunities. The cities are so full of opportunity. You also get free public education(Something like that is quite expensive in India.). Every city I saw where I stayed or visited(Who Bay Area, Philadelphia and NY) had parks, playgrounds. Every city had a swimming pool. Roads were sparkling clean and people were so welcoming. Plus food in the US is cheaper than chicken feed. If you can cook, rice, veggies and lentils are just like walk in the park. Meat too, you can afford to eat twice or thrice in a week. In my 3 years stay, I only have good things to say about the US. The full story is impossible to write. But I just can't imagine how anyone born in US can ever complain about lack of opportunities or ability to make a good life. When you live in heaven, you tend to worry a little less about putting food on the table. India is different. You have none of this. And its on your shoulders. Ensure your hands work till you die, or you will die. Saying no to opportunities is very very expensive in India.
mindhash 8y ago
If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later! Richard Branson
- prepend 8y ago
  This is great advice but is contingent on learning how to do it. The rickshaw drivers in OP’s example didn’t complete that part. I’ll add that this isn’t unique to India and there are lots of bullshitters in the world and in tech. I think the difference I’ve witnessed is that with more Indians than non-Indians I’ve worked with is that the acceptance is not deceptive or manipulative, it’s just neutral. Hard to describe, but I had one programmer who claimed to be great back during the Java days, not sure his cultural background, but he looked like a white guy from somewhere in America. He was lying to get the job and had fabulouser and fabulouser reasons for not being able to do it, until the lie crashed and we fired him. This is very different from “Can you do tensorflow?” “Yes” ...check in for a week of “Yes” during daily huddles and then at the end nothing and still a “Yes, I can do it” with a perplexity of why I’m confused. Or also common the “I’ll check it in and say it works even though all tests fail and it doesn’t meet spec.” The former is deception, the latter is sort of a disconnect with reality.
  - jcadam 8y ago
    > ...back during the Java days... The Java days are in the past for you? Must be nice...
    - boubiyeah 8y ago
      This was both funny and sad
kemiller2002 8y ago
When I first became a manager, I had this really amazing mentor that explained to me a lot of the quirks of multiculturalism. I consider myself at least somewhat versed in other cultures, but I quickly learned there was a lot I didn't know about the mannerisms of people from India, China, Russia, etc. What I find sad, is that there are a lot of people in positions of power that either have no idea (or don't care) that people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected. I'd explain to them that it's a cultural thing, and they need to learn how to approach their questions/explanations differently. Most of the time I get this blank look like, "Why? Can't they just change?" and then go back to trying the same approach and calling their staff down, because they can't seem to understand why they are ineffective.
- cpmouter 8y ago
  >people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected I get your point, but the fact that Indians say "yes" to everything (i.e. the fact they lie constantly) is not something that managers should get used to, it's something Indians have to correct.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - desi_ninja 8y ago
    Don’t you think imagining 1 billion people following exact same behavior is what you can easily imagine in case of India but cannot do that for USA ?
  - ethbro 8y ago
    Saying "yes" to everything, as has been explained above, has more to do with different cultural definitions of "yes" than lying. You ask me if it's going to rain, and I say yes, because I know with certainty it will rain tomorrow. Is it fair for you to call me a liar because you carried around an umbrella today?
matt_s 8y ago
One thing I observed when interviewing candidates for offshore positions was that people wanting more senior technical roles wasn't as strong as here in US. Granted this is anecdotal from interviewing maybe a couple dozen people out of whatever giant number of IT people in India. Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles?
- sevagh 8y ago
  >Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles? To an extent I felt similar working for average tech shops in Montreal, Canada. I moved to California to live and work in a culture where the IC track is real and highly valued (which is fantastic).
- devdas 8y ago
  Money and power. Technical tracks don't really have much of a growth path in India, and especially in service firms, where the work itself doesn't really add much to your technical skillsets. Often the challenging/interesting bits in those scenarios are done by the US/European/Australian office, and only the implementation details are left to the Indian workers. That isn't conducive to being valued as an engineer. Management tracks also have higher salaries. If you want to continue in engineering and still make good money, you get a H1B or equivalent and move.
  - kamaal 8y ago
    Things have changed significantly and management purges are very common. And once you lose your job, finding a new one is hard, because to be frank you have no real skills apart from Microsoft Excel. In many cases there have been people who lost jobs and didn't get a new job in over an year and had to move tech roles eventually. Some people had to change career tracks(get into marketing etc) permanently. So there is now a dedicated incentive to stay in the technical track. Also in the current age, moving to a non-tech job is the long term equivalent of choosing a non-STEM career.
- 8y ago
senthil_rajasek 8y ago
You are using an experience with a driver to someone with an office job. That is not a fair comparison. The president of the US lies constantly. What does that say about US?
- weltstub 8y ago
  > What does that say about US? That most American like the taste of authoritarianism especially if it reinforces white supremacy. Source: I'm an American.
  - senthil_rajasek 8y ago
    More like a russian troll
- niklasd 8y ago
  It was just an anecdotic example of a more general habit that also affects office jobs. I heard that directly from people who have an IT team in India, and the answers here at HN also seem to imply that this is a wider shared experience.
  - senthil_rajasek 8y ago
    Most people including me are not experts in culture. I am not defending bad behavior. I am yet to find one single defining culture in the US and I have lived here 20 yrs. May be the rickshaw driver was being helpful. Hey you seem to not know where you are going... I don't know either so let's figure this out together... There is room for that interpretation too. I have been scammed by hospitals and HVAC guys in the US. Overall, I see a pattern of degrading, second classing of non-whites by whites. This needs to stop.
    - niklasd 8y ago
      Well, I agree with you about the point that what we perceive as "culture of a country" is often a made up construct which doesn't account for the variety of backgrounds and behavior of the citizens. It really is very hard to definitly say x is part of "the" culture of the country y. However, what is here being discussed is not a second classing of non-whites by whites. First, how do you know that I or the persons from whom I heard about the problems with their Indian IT teams are white? You just assume that. Second, it seems that there really are issues working with some IT teams in India. Why is it wrong to attribute this to a certain work ethic? Or more prescisely: Why do I second class non-white people when I describe the work ethic I'm experiencing? Man, I lived in Germany, US and India (for a short time at least), and let me tell you, there are different work ethics in these countries. And there have nothing to do with the color of your skin. But true, mostly generalisations are unjust. But people here are describing what they experienced. And it doesn't feel for me like it is linked to skin color.
cafard 8y ago
Years ago, a woman, a medic in one of the airborne divisions, told me that people in the military don't want to say that they don't know how to do something. I think this was in reference to two near-debacles, one scuba diving, one rock climbing, in one of which she had been the one that said "Sure, I know how to." [edit: change "one said" to "one that said"]
- kamaal 8y ago
  Id have a pretty bad opinion about a person who would turn down an opportunity, especially those one's that require skills than can be learned easily.
tnolet 8y ago
I've had a bunch of IT projects (almost) go off the rails because of this cultural "misunderstanding".
deleted 8y ago
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mkovji 8y ago
I have never seen any rickshaw driver say yes to some place that he doesn't know. Either he will say he is not sure and he will stop at a place and inquire for u with people nearby and then take you to the place or most of them have google maps and can look it up if you cant by urself. Since they are pretty hyperlocal even without maps they can simply by talking to couple folks here and there figure out the right destination or by looking around a little as they may have seen the same place a while back. You seem to have internet access, so clearly without asking him to choose the route you could have seen the maps and given the route yourself which many smart people do these days to save time and if you are not able to identify a route and are at the mercy of the rickshaw guy then may be you should have some patience and be thankful to the driver for figuring out the route and taking you to the destination. Or may be they can be smart and ask for fees if they have to find the route and if u set the route then separate fees for that. I guess one needs to learn the art of comparison since comparing random stuff will yield pointless opinions of no value.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  I have personally seen a rickshaw driver in India say yes to some place that he doesn't know - resulting in him going to a wrong place, stopping there and inquiring for me with people nearby and then having someone look it up on google maps, and afterwards going in the opposite direction to clarify the proper place once more there. And I'm certainly not thankful for the driver to have taken all this effort of solving the difficult problem of going somewhere that he doesn't know the road; I'm angry about the large unnecessary delay caused by them saying "yes" and then being unable to properly fulfil the promise they made, i.e. go to the goal as if they had known where it is, which they said (thus, promised) they do, and didn't. I wasn't asking "are you willing to take extra effort to deliver me to place X in some way" (which is a reasonable question that I might have asked in some circumstances, but I didn't in that particular case), I was asking "do you know the route to place X". I would be thankful if they had just said "no", as I would have had the chance to find someone who does know the proper answer themselves. This is a significant cultural difference - in my country, answering yes when if you're not sure (and demonstrating the lie by being unable to fulfil the promise on their own) would result in that person's words not being respected anymore because that person isn't honest, and that person being shunned, not being trusted with anything serious ever again until they prove that they have changed significantly; a single incident being considered sufficient to mark the person as untrustworthy. Breaking a promise or telling a falsehood - even an implied one to a stranger - is considered a very serious issue. The problem with this when working with people in Asia is that within a few months a majority of Asian coworkers generally have had at least one incident similar to this (saying, i.e. promising something that wasn't so) marking them as untrustworthy. Of course, as with any difference, it's an open question which one of the cultures should adapt to the other, or meet in the middle, but that's a quite fundamental difference.
beart 8y ago
I didn't realize this behavior was so common but I have noticed it in a few Indian tech people I have worked with state-side. Extremely frustrating when the answer to "Do you understand what you need to do now?" is "yes" then a few hours later you find them standing around looking confused. I had assumed it was a language barrier thing.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
If someone asks me, "Do you know how to do X?" I tell them yes only if I know. If someone asks me, "Can you do X?" I tend to say yes, even if I don't, because, really, I can learn almost anything related to what someone might be asking me to do.

vijaybritto 8y ago

"yes" this is true. Fear of failure is high and not knowing something is generally considered shameful.

avip 8y ago

This is ABC of travelling in India. Never ask "is this the train to Pune"? Ask where the train is going instead. The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India, and that can mean anything between "I don't speak English" and "NO".

saiya-jin 8y ago
it's part of the culture to be nice (to strangers) and NO is considered rude. brings a lot of funky and frustrating moments not only when travelling. another is that strange indian head-shake that is so hard to reproduce - never figured it out completely, but it felt like when I eventually ask yes/no question and they say yes with that shake, it's actually more like no/don't know/maybe
- ben_utzer 8y ago
  Just make an 8 with your nose. :-)
- overcast 8y ago
  The old bobble head :) I was there for a month, the whole country, and it's their form of agreement/understanding. Particularly when you're trying to teach them something.
- sullenpaladin 8y ago
  The head bobble just means that they hear you. It does not mean yes or no or anything else really.
  - RandomCSGeek 8y ago
    There are 3 different movements. One is for acknowledgement, other two are for yes and no.
carlmr 8y ago
Asking open questions is a very good communication tactic in any country. In "yes" countries like India, Japan, China it's necessary. In other countries you often find out about whether your communication partner actually understood your question. Don't ask "Did you finish task X". Ask "what did you do on task X?". What you see as finished and what the other person sees as finished might be separate things. Maybe you see 100% unit tested, reviewed and documented as finished, and the other person means feature complete, but untested, undocumented, not reviewed. Open questions allow you to see what the other person understands. In some cases they might misunderstand your question entirely.
- rubenbe 8y ago
  I absolutely agree, plus asking "How much of task X could you already do?" is perceived as less aggressive than "Did you finish task X already?".
mkovji 8y ago
I have heard so many people say "I am not sure" and i have heard so many people say "No" and i have also heard some people say No and this is how you have to get to your destination or get to your answer. So you are 100% wrong when you say "The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India". Which makes me doubt/ blindly ignore any of your opinion ever.

stillwatersr 8y ago

Fair enough. What does this have to do with the Original Topic? Are you just looking for a place to rant?

raverbashing 8y ago
Oh it has a lot to do with the topic in discussion

chrisper 8y ago

I believe it is similar in Vietnamese culture. When we work with them they often say yes only for us to find out later that they had no clue what to do.

CapricornNoble 8y ago
I can personally attest to this, having hired a small team of Vietnamese engineers to do some freelance hardware and firmware/OS-level work for me.
rurban 8y ago
Even in China, and that's the biggest market there. You have to adjust your questions. Always start the question with a W, and never with a Has or Is.
coconut_crab 8y ago
It's because asking for clarification is considered bad here, either you are an idiot or you are bothering others. So their best choice is to say 'yes' and try to figure things out later. That's why I always ask my colleagues how would they complete some tasks instead of "Can you do this?".
boubiyeah 8y ago
Seems common in Asia. I had the same experience in cambodia. One example: - I was very, very sick (Traveler's diarrhea) and we were about to embark for a 5 hours minivan trip with a guy without a driving license. - 5 minutes before departure, I ask the organizer "do you have a vomit bag?" - "Yes" - I wait around a bit, but he carries on with his work and just ignore me - "Sorry, did you have a bag, any bag? maybe a plastic bag, as I'm sick" - "Yes" - Now it's 30s before departure and I get pretty stressed as I have nothing should I need to throw up. So I ask him again, and he actually get pretty mad (with that asian "must not lose face" style though) and ignore me because I insisted and didn't just drop the issue (I didn't know what was going on at the time ...)
- est 8y ago
  Sounds like "yes" means "I heard ya" or "ACK"

cataphract 8y ago

I've worked with people from Cognizant and sometimes I would get a plain "yes", other times a more helpful "Yes, I understood. Can you explain it again?".

kamaal 8y ago

>>Sometimes a plain "I don't know" can be very helpful in achieving a goal. In a country like India where opportunities are scarce, saying no in many cases can mean permanently losing the opportunity to do something big. Saying 'yes' and failing is a lot more better than saying 'no' and not trying at all. If I'm not wrong this isn't just limited to India. I think it was Richard Branson who said something to the order of never saying no to an opportunity. Always learn and do it.

chris_wot 8y ago
Yeah, and the problem with this is if you lie and get found out, you'll not get asked again in many Western companies.
- setr 8y ago
  Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying. It'd only be useful to be honest if you do have a skillset, and the company has a reasonable chance of reaching out to you fot the skillset in the (near?) future
  - jerf 8y ago
    "Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying." That's only true locally. Globally, you've got a variety of reputations, for yourself, for your firm, and whether or not you like it or consider it fair, for your country. You're burning all of those things. This will eventually catch up to you, your firm, and your country if withdrawals exceed deposits. This is, of course, a global truth, not an India-specific truth.
- kamaal 8y ago
  Based on how politicians and how many second chances CEOs and other rich people get in the US I think its the same in US too. Its just that if you are working minimum wage, or you are a spoke in the gig economy it's different for you. Based on my experience working in the US, my American friends weren't very different. Its just that when you have sufficient you tend to worry less about over optimizing for the rainy days. US is a different country in so many ways. US citizens are lucky to be born in such a great country, which supports its citizens through social security. And later with food stamps should the need arise. There is also awesome infrastructure like freeways and cheap air fare to move around based on opportunities. The cities are so full of opportunity. You also get free public education(Something like that is quite expensive in India.). Every city I saw where I stayed or visited(Who Bay Area, Philadelphia and NY) had parks, playgrounds. Every city had a swimming pool. Roads were sparkling clean and people were so welcoming. Plus food in the US is cheaper than chicken feed. If you can cook, rice, veggies and lentils are just like walk in the park. Meat too, you can afford to eat twice or thrice in a week. In my 3 years stay, I only have good things to say about the US. The full story is impossible to write. But I just can't imagine how anyone born in US can ever complain about lack of opportunities or ability to make a good life. When you live in heaven, you tend to worry a little less about putting food on the table. India is different. You have none of this. And its on your shoulders. Ensure your hands work till you die, or you will die. Saying no to opportunities is very very expensive in India.

mindhash 8y ago

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later! Richard Branson

prepend 8y ago
This is great advice but is contingent on learning how to do it. The rickshaw drivers in OP’s example didn’t complete that part. I’ll add that this isn’t unique to India and there are lots of bullshitters in the world and in tech. I think the difference I’ve witnessed is that with more Indians than non-Indians I’ve worked with is that the acceptance is not deceptive or manipulative, it’s just neutral. Hard to describe, but I had one programmer who claimed to be great back during the Java days, not sure his cultural background, but he looked like a white guy from somewhere in America. He was lying to get the job and had fabulouser and fabulouser reasons for not being able to do it, until the lie crashed and we fired him. This is very different from “Can you do tensorflow?” “Yes” ...check in for a week of “Yes” during daily huddles and then at the end nothing and still a “Yes, I can do it” with a perplexity of why I’m confused. Or also common the “I’ll check it in and say it works even though all tests fail and it doesn’t meet spec.” The former is deception, the latter is sort of a disconnect with reality.
- jcadam 8y ago
  > ...back during the Java days... The Java days are in the past for you? Must be nice...
  - boubiyeah 8y ago
    This was both funny and sad

kemiller2002 8y ago

When I first became a manager, I had this really amazing mentor that explained to me a lot of the quirks of multiculturalism. I consider myself at least somewhat versed in other cultures, but I quickly learned there was a lot I didn't know about the mannerisms of people from India, China, Russia, etc. What I find sad, is that there are a lot of people in positions of power that either have no idea (or don't care) that people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected. I'd explain to them that it's a cultural thing, and they need to learn how to approach their questions/explanations differently. Most of the time I get this blank look like, "Why? Can't they just change?" and then go back to trying the same approach and calling their staff down, because they can't seem to understand why they are ineffective.

cpmouter 8y ago
>people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected I get your point, but the fact that Indians say "yes" to everything (i.e. the fact they lie constantly) is not something that managers should get used to, it's something Indians have to correct.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- desi_ninja 8y ago
  Don’t you think imagining 1 billion people following exact same behavior is what you can easily imagine in case of India but cannot do that for USA ?
- ethbro 8y ago
  Saying "yes" to everything, as has been explained above, has more to do with different cultural definitions of "yes" than lying. You ask me if it's going to rain, and I say yes, because I know with certainty it will rain tomorrow. Is it fair for you to call me a liar because you carried around an umbrella today?

matt_s 8y ago

One thing I observed when interviewing candidates for offshore positions was that people wanting more senior technical roles wasn't as strong as here in US. Granted this is anecdotal from interviewing maybe a couple dozen people out of whatever giant number of IT people in India. Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles?

sevagh 8y ago
>Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles? To an extent I felt similar working for average tech shops in Montreal, Canada. I moved to California to live and work in a culture where the IC track is real and highly valued (which is fantastic).
devdas 8y ago
Money and power. Technical tracks don't really have much of a growth path in India, and especially in service firms, where the work itself doesn't really add much to your technical skillsets. Often the challenging/interesting bits in those scenarios are done by the US/European/Australian office, and only the implementation details are left to the Indian workers. That isn't conducive to being valued as an engineer. Management tracks also have higher salaries. If you want to continue in engineering and still make good money, you get a H1B or equivalent and move.
- kamaal 8y ago
  Things have changed significantly and management purges are very common. And once you lose your job, finding a new one is hard, because to be frank you have no real skills apart from Microsoft Excel. In many cases there have been people who lost jobs and didn't get a new job in over an year and had to move tech roles eventually. Some people had to change career tracks(get into marketing etc) permanently. So there is now a dedicated incentive to stay in the technical track. Also in the current age, moving to a non-tech job is the long term equivalent of choosing a non-STEM career.
8y ago

senthil_rajasek 8y ago

You are using an experience with a driver to someone with an office job. That is not a fair comparison. The president of the US lies constantly. What does that say about US?

weltstub 8y ago
> What does that say about US? That most American like the taste of authoritarianism especially if it reinforces white supremacy. Source: I'm an American.
- senthil_rajasek 8y ago
  More like a russian troll
niklasd 8y ago
It was just an anecdotic example of a more general habit that also affects office jobs. I heard that directly from people who have an IT team in India, and the answers here at HN also seem to imply that this is a wider shared experience.
- senthil_rajasek 8y ago
  Most people including me are not experts in culture. I am not defending bad behavior. I am yet to find one single defining culture in the US and I have lived here 20 yrs. May be the rickshaw driver was being helpful. Hey you seem to not know where you are going... I don't know either so let's figure this out together... There is room for that interpretation too. I have been scammed by hospitals and HVAC guys in the US. Overall, I see a pattern of degrading, second classing of non-whites by whites. This needs to stop.
  - niklasd 8y ago
    Well, I agree with you about the point that what we perceive as "culture of a country" is often a made up construct which doesn't account for the variety of backgrounds and behavior of the citizens. It really is very hard to definitly say x is part of "the" culture of the country y. However, what is here being discussed is not a second classing of non-whites by whites. First, how do you know that I or the persons from whom I heard about the problems with their Indian IT teams are white? You just assume that. Second, it seems that there really are issues working with some IT teams in India. Why is it wrong to attribute this to a certain work ethic? Or more prescisely: Why do I second class non-white people when I describe the work ethic I'm experiencing? Man, I lived in Germany, US and India (for a short time at least), and let me tell you, there are different work ethics in these countries. And there have nothing to do with the color of your skin. But true, mostly generalisations are unjust. But people here are describing what they experienced. And it doesn't feel for me like it is linked to skin color.

cafard 8y ago

Years ago, a woman, a medic in one of the airborne divisions, told me that people in the military don't want to say that they don't know how to do something. I think this was in reference to two near-debacles, one scuba diving, one rock climbing, in one of which she had been the one that said "Sure, I know how to." [edit: change "one said" to "one that said"]

kamaal 8y ago
Id have a pretty bad opinion about a person who would turn down an opportunity, especially those one's that require skills than can be learned easily.

tnolet 8y ago

I've had a bunch of IT projects (almost) go off the rails because of this cultural "misunderstanding".

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mkovji 8y ago

I have never seen any rickshaw driver say yes to some place that he doesn't know. Either he will say he is not sure and he will stop at a place and inquire for u with people nearby and then take you to the place or most of them have google maps and can look it up if you cant by urself. Since they are pretty hyperlocal even without maps they can simply by talking to couple folks here and there figure out the right destination or by looking around a little as they may have seen the same place a while back. You seem to have internet access, so clearly without asking him to choose the route you could have seen the maps and given the route yourself which many smart people do these days to save time and if you are not able to identify a route and are at the mercy of the rickshaw guy then may be you should have some patience and be thankful to the driver for figuring out the route and taking you to the destination. Or may be they can be smart and ask for fees if they have to find the route and if u set the route then separate fees for that. I guess one needs to learn the art of comparison since comparing random stuff will yield pointless opinions of no value.

PeterisP 8y ago
I have personally seen a rickshaw driver in India say yes to some place that he doesn't know - resulting in him going to a wrong place, stopping there and inquiring for me with people nearby and then having someone look it up on google maps, and afterwards going in the opposite direction to clarify the proper place once more there. And I'm certainly not thankful for the driver to have taken all this effort of solving the difficult problem of going somewhere that he doesn't know the road; I'm angry about the large unnecessary delay caused by them saying "yes" and then being unable to properly fulfil the promise they made, i.e. go to the goal as if they had known where it is, which they said (thus, promised) they do, and didn't. I wasn't asking "are you willing to take extra effort to deliver me to place X in some way" (which is a reasonable question that I might have asked in some circumstances, but I didn't in that particular case), I was asking "do you know the route to place X". I would be thankful if they had just said "no", as I would have had the chance to find someone who does know the proper answer themselves. This is a significant cultural difference - in my country, answering yes when if you're not sure (and demonstrating the lie by being unable to fulfil the promise on their own) would result in that person's words not being respected anymore because that person isn't honest, and that person being shunned, not being trusted with anything serious ever again until they prove that they have changed significantly; a single incident being considered sufficient to mark the person as untrustworthy. Breaking a promise or telling a falsehood - even an implied one to a stranger - is considered a very serious issue. The problem with this when working with people in Asia is that within a few months a majority of Asian coworkers generally have had at least one incident similar to this (saying, i.e. promising something that wasn't so) marking them as untrustworthy. Of course, as with any difference, it's an open question which one of the cultures should adapt to the other, or meet in the middle, but that's a quite fundamental difference.

beart 8y ago

I didn't realize this behavior was so common but I have noticed it in a few Indian tech people I have worked with state-side. Extremely frustrating when the answer to "Do you understand what you need to do now?" is "yes" then a few hours later you find them standing around looking confused. I had assumed it was a language barrier thing.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

If someone asks me, "Do you know how to do X?" I tell them yes only if I know. If someone asks me, "Can you do X?" I tend to say yes, even if I don't, because, really, I can learn almost anything related to what someone might be asking me to do.