indian office time jargon

i have spent a good over 7 months now working in the indian corporate environment. coming from the united states, the lingo used here in indian corporate offices is quite different and amusing at times. i have compiled a short list of such jargon below. its a combination of stuff picked up at my work place, wife's work place (she shares them with me often) and some picked up at client's workplace. these are in no specific order.

1. look boss - a very common term used by the more outspoken and talkative lot. you'll hear something like this from mr. outspoken - " i went for that meeting. i told him, look boss, if ou want this project to be complete, you will have to ....". its rather funny that the terms 'look boss' are rarely used in direct communication. its mostly used in communicating to the third party who's rarely interested in knowing what you're gonna tell when you pull a 'look boss'.

2. put an email - i always used to think that an email can only be sent. only after having spent time working in corporate india have i realized that people here do more of 'putting emails' than 'writing emails' or 'sending emails'. in a hinglish environment, you'll hear people say things like 'mail daala' or 'email put kar'.

3. mark me on the email - in the US, you would hear people say 'please address the email to jim and copy me and jeff on that' or 'please cc me on that email'. here, in india, you would most likely hear 'please mark me on the email". talking about emails, there's a very easy way of saying if someone working in an indian corporate has written an email. you would see terms like: "request you to look at the SAME", "replying regarding the SAME", please REVERT with the SAME".

4. escalate - this is the favourite pass time of people - usually project managers who are dying to get some limelight as they are incapable of doing so by their work. they love to 'escalate' issues. at any time of the day if you ask them what they were doing, the snappy reply would be 'escalating this or that issue'. well tried!

5. thrash it out - more likely the work of managers, directors etc. they always want to sit across the table and thrash out some issues. often, they do end up across the table, but instead of the issues being thrashed, there's a whole bunch of new issues that come up. another common term could be 'flesh it out'.

6. con call - some people get really excited when they have to enter some random conference call. they usually put their phones on mute while the CON CALL is going on in the background. but when someone is passing by, they would make sure to show the passer by that they're truly, madly and deeply involved in the ongoings of the con call. a "con" call indeed! (appreciate the pun)

7. out of scope - yet another favourite of the project managers or project leads. they're busy digging old documents/emails/stacks to make sure what is in scope of the project and what is "out of scope". there are many a awkward moments in the meeting when the bad cop in a party would have to stand up and say this or that is 'out of scope' while the others look at each other clueless. of course, at the end of the meeting, they would applaud the bad cop for standing up and 'outscoping'.

8. fire fighting - this is a term more common in my wife's office. it seems every afternoon, some so called 'manager' lights up a fire that he was told to by the upper management. the manager passes on the responsibility of fire fighting to an associate manager through an email, who in turn, passes it on to the lowest levels in the organization - the real fire fighters. the fire fighting exercise might not have much more than shooting a few extinguishing emails with a whole lot of unnecessary 'higher management' folks 'marked' in the CC list. most of them have already taken off for a holiday weekend but still send a reply from their blackberry just to officially signal that the fire has been officially extinguished!

9. net meeting - the most thankless job in an biggish indian company is done by the helpdesk folks. the not so beautiful looking and the not so pleasant smelling 'helpdex' guys and girls are at your service all the time. of course, you have to deal with their temperament at times. but the most common you'll hear when you call 'helpdex' is 'please give met meeting'. love their accent!

10. half an hour - i seriously need to know what important work are you busy doing right now that you will have time to meet only after 'half an hour'? i mean seriously! and what is the ultra modern math that you use to calculate that the current thing you're doing will take you exactly 'half an hour' to get done? i mean, seriously! it ticks me off crazily. if you're seriously not interested in meeting, let that poor kid standing at the door know it. but please, in GOD's name, don't give an excuse and ask to call back/come back after 'half an hour'.

that's it for now. depending on my sustainability in the indian corporate scene, i will come up with another list sometime!