As Indian companies hire more global managers…
June 19, 2010 2 Comments
Now that Indian companies are becoming global with a vengeance, it’s becoming common for non-Indian managers to be hired into desi companies. This great inter-mingling of cultures is a reversal of the previous stereotype of desis joining western companies.
With this in mind, I was reminded of this hilarious sketch by the British-Asian team of “Goodness Gracious Me”. In this, a westerner joins a desi companies, and immediately runs into trouble for his “complicated English name”. The new guy- Jonathan- is told that his chances of progress in the company are limited unless he does something about his name.
Check it out!
About Gaurav Rastogi
amtgrg
Gaurav Rastogi
Two MBAs, One Blog 
Well, names need to be adjusted in foreign countries.
There is a long story behind how my name changed from Rajeshkumar to Rajesh to Raj when I shifted from India to the US. Even so, some colleagues called me ‘Rah’ instead of ‘Raj’.
Funnily enough…having now shifted back to India, ‘Raj’ has permanently replaced ‘Rajeshkumar’. 🙂
Gaurav: Has any US call agent spelt your last name as ‘Rasdogi’ before? I bet Yes 🙂
Raj, That’s true. I remember the time you came back from the US and you gave us a card that said “Raj Bhatt”, and we were all surprised why you’re giving someone else’s business card to us! 😉
In my case, I just spell it out… “T as in Tom”. Always works.