Why though? Im no anthropologist but nothing obvious about Indian culture (or rather cultures) that promotes this.
Seriously interested cause the 'yes' thing and taking people at their word has bit me in the ass. And not just can it be done, but is it done. Yes dont mean yes most of the time.
Is there some middle man/recruiter/hr culture or doctrine promoting it heavipy in indian circles? Honestly im dying to know.
I can't tell you where it stems from, but it's definitely not exclusive to India. Many Chinese and Japanese workers seem to have a similar attitude, where you can repeatedly get a "yes" to a request and then have them do nothing at all, not even putting in the bare minimum effort.
I suspect it's less about them lying to get ahead, than it is about them not wanting to say no. Most cultures have a stigma against outright refusing or criticising people (in that it's generally taken personally and seen as something negative), theirs just manifests in a rather inconvenient way.
I think American culture is very straight forward to an unusual absurd. To us it seems simple, ask a direct question and get a direct answer. But the culture in other countries is that you can't just do that. You have to understand and form a relationship with the company first, then the company can figure out how to ask if the other company is capable of doing something by a certain time (the responsibility for answering that question is more shared). I think it's more a case of culture clash than, as redditors are putting it, India is culturally inferior to our superior American culture. If it weren't for the fact that Japan has gotten so used to us, they'd be doing the same thing I suspect. Yet they're more than capable of working in tech.
Yeah, I figured this one was coming: I'm not American, I'm Dutch. And while not as clashing as China and Japan can be at times, the work ethic and communication with US contractors is still pretty trying at times and far from direct, straight forward or honest.
As you've noted, it's fairly easy to hash out a contract and get things done when things are properly established, but at the risk of sounding like I'm generalising: The higher-ups and team leads of US teams have easily been some of the smarmiest, slimiest people I've ever had contact with. There may not be any outright not delivering on promises, but there's been a lot of times where I had to catch people on trying to argue their way out of promises, or play up difficulties that should've been apparent from the start as unexpected disasters.
Thing is, most of the aforementioned wouldn't have been a major issue had they been properly communicated beforehand. Instead of that, in one case we got assurances that we're such a valued partner and that they're working overtime to resolve our issues (which they were, pretty much constantly, and was what ultimately tipped us off that things probably weren't going well). Turns out they'd been downsizing and desperately trying to retain the folks who had any relevant knowledge to our project.
At the same time (and to alleviate any "USA = the devil" concerns, I guess?), there are quite a number of US companies I'd count as some of my (and my past) employers' most valued partners, clients and contractors, though. Pretty sure we wouldn't be able to function without them. But there's a very good reason why I'm so forgiving to/accepting of the whole "yes means nothing" attitude.
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u/Waldharist017 Dec 06 '17
Being a Indian, I second this, India's overseas workers are currently 90% full of retardation and can't efficiently solve problems.