> It´s all smiles and laughs until this man starts phoning project
> managers to their houses in the middle on the night (well, not really,
> say: 11:30pm ;) to inquire on the progress of every project. Not a one
> time occurence, but 2 or 3 times per week. So one project manager
> quits in disgust. Then two others.
>
> I don´t know how stuff is done in India, but apparently for this
> particular manager it´s customary to phone project leaders in the
> middle of dinner, or as they´ve just hit the bed, then boss them
> around over the phone....
>
Is this a case of not being acquainted with modern unbridled capitalism? I expect the experience cited here has nothing to do with India or Indian culture, and more likely a result of outsourcing by American capital. Most developers I know in India work through the night for their American customers. American labor is only slightly more resistant to this practice, and sometimes not at all.
Almost every company I've worked with in the US has been like this. Even Dilbert knows this: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-10-20/
And lest we think this only applies to today's capitalism or the software industry, I can recall many instances in the 70s and 80s of industrial shop grievances about managers calling workers at night, workers falling asleep at work during 16-hour days, etc., etc. I suppose one could go all the way back to "The Condition of the Working Class in England". Hardly a new phenomenon I would say.
-- Peter Fay http://theclearview.wordpress.com