If your next call to Dell tech support gets answered by someone with a name that sounds like it’s from an Ayn Rand novel, it probably is.
From the article “Hope and Toil at India’s Call Centers” at TMCnet:
As fireworks boomed across nearby New Delhi and families lit candles and incense and prayed late into the evening, thousands of call-center agents reported to work at a gleaming office tower here. Donning headsets and fake American names, they placed and fielded phone calls to and from the United States, collecting bills, selling products and raising credit limits.
Later in the same article:
In his first call-center job, Khaneja had gone by the name “Steven Mallory,” plucked from his favorite book, “The Fountainhead,” by Ayn Rand. His supervisor thought “Howard Roark” — the name of the novel’s protagonist — would be too obvious. Now a manager, Khaneja uses his real name. Last year, he combined his call-center earnings and a 10-year loan to buy his mother and younger sister a house in New Delhi.
Thanks for Marsha Enright for sending us the link.