Outsourced

            We watched several clips from a movie called outsourced, the clips were mainly about different in cultures, and how it could leads to bad relationships between one and the other. It is about this American manager called Todd who used to work in US but he got sent to India to manage the company’s branch there.

            First clip shows the first impression when Todd makes his first meeting in the Indian branch, and clearly he doesn’t know anything about the workers there and he didn’t even bother to know their names before he started, because he was unhappy with being there in India. He starts with criticizing their English accent and forcing them to speak like and American, even made them say they are from Chicago, an American state. The Indian workers didn’t seem to deal with that easily and there was one worker who keeps arguing and disagreeing with him, Asha. In the 2^nd clip Todd listened to his workers questions and decided to answer any questions they have, they seemed to like the “American” stuff they are selling he was surprised they liked these American stuff, because he wouldn’t expect a different country with different culture to be liking his culture stuff. The next clip shows Todd trusting Asha, the worker who argues with him, he promoted her to assistant manager, one who isn’t American or related to America, to help him reach the goal they want to reach before a certain time.

            The fourth clip shows that Todd made a meeting, he decided to listen to his workers, but this time unlike the first time he remembered their names, it showed an improvement in his managing skills, however not his cultural knowledge, as he explained to a worker a burger brand or a cow brand, which burns the cow to put the company initials or brand name, the workers were shocked because some of them consider cow’s sacred, and Todd had no idea why they were shocked, so Asha, the assistant manager, suggested to Todd to learn a bit about India and their culture. The following clip showed the workers were pretty good at their job, so Todd was happy about that and it was obvious that there been an improvement by getting to know his workers, so he apologized to them and he confessed  he should learn more about India and their culture, so as a way to show he’s sorry he asked how can the workers be more comfortable at their work space, because it was more like an American office, so agreed that they can make any change in the office as long as it doesn’t affect their work, the workers were happy to hear that. The last clip shows an angry customer who was mad about the company being from India and not fully American while many American people need a job and could use this job. Then Asha took the call and dealt with the customer in her way and not pretending it’s all American, as Todd demanded on his first meeting, she showed him that it’s being in India is much cheaper that being in America, then the customer agreed to buy from the company. So what I learnt from these clips is you need to be open minded and know who you work with to know how to deal with them.

Discrimination blue eyes and brown eyes

 In 1968, a time when racism and discrimination was spread around the United States and right after the death of a great man Martin Luther King; a 2^nd grade teacher from Iowa, named Jane Elliot made an experiment on her students to teach them about discrimination, and she taped it on video camera.

Elliot made the blue eyed and brown eyed experiment for three days. In day one she divided her class students into two groups, those with the blue eyes and those with the brown eyes. She started with favoring the blue eyed and herself, being blue eyed, over the brown eyed children in class. She gave the blue eyed extra time at recess and having to leave first for lunch, before the brown eyed. She even made the brown eyed children wear blue collars around their neck to recognize them from a distance. She also kept referring to them as brown eyed for any slack at work and treated them differently. At the end of the first day you can clearly see that the blue eyed felt superior over the brown eyed children.

The next day Elliot gave the brown eyed a privilege over the blue eyed. And the effects from the first day appeared almost the same but in reverse! The blue eyed felt inferior this time, their score dropped and they were slower in solving problems. Jane Elliot wanted to show both students how it feels to be discriminated against.

The experiment showed that children were willing to discriminate against their own classmates and even their friends. 15 years after the experiment Elliot made a reunion with the same students to show them the video and to talk about the experiment and their experience of it; the students said that it helped them to be less prejudiced as teens and young adults because they know the feeling.

1st Reflection

Cultural diversity is the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region. And it is the sum of different ways in which individuals are viewed in terms of way of life, religion, racial inclination, skin color, sexual orientation and personality. The term is also sometimes used to refer to multiculturalism within an organization. For example, laughing is, in most countries, a sign of happiness and joy; in Japan it is often a sign of confusion, embarrassment or insecure-ness.

In this course I think I will learn how to deal with different cultures and to accept different beliefs from different people around the world. So when I travel or visit another country I would know to respect whatever they do and observe the way they living their life, what do they like what do they dislike or get offended by, and the way they eat and what they eat.

Well, so far, I have not learnt as much from this course as I thought I would. Just maybe how to make a blog. Nevertheless, I have learnt a lot from our experienced teacher, who I will talk about next, and what I have learnt from him.

Hedley Butterfield, as a person is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He is so patient when it comes in teaching and so friendly. Mr. Butterfield is like the British version of Ibn Battuta the explorer he has been EVERYWHERE and knows a lot of other cultures and the way they live. He taught us the real meaning of cultural diversity all from his experience of life; the stories he has been through, really I can’t think of a better teacher, nay, person to teach about cultural diversity, he is the perfect guy for it. There’s a lot more to talk about the explorer Hedley, if there was a book about him it would’ve been a three chapters book.