Book Review of One Night @ the call center – author Chetan Bhaghat
Posted 05-07-2008 at 09:10 PM by Ranganathan V
Book Review of One Night @ the call center – author Chetan Bhaghat
The story starts with the author meeting a lady during his travel and the lady narrates the story to the author…the promise that the author make to the lady is that to publish this as his story. The story revolves around six people who are working in call centre business in their division handling Western Appliances Strategic Group (WASG) in Gurgoan, New Delhi. Each character has their own dream to pursue but has compromised their wishes to work & earn at the call centre.
Esha Singh (also called as Eliza Singer by his clients) is dreaming to be a model but has compromised her dream to realistic of earning a living by working at this call centre. She is liked by Vroom Malhotra (also called as Victor Mell) who is a tech geek and is good in designing the automated system for the organization apart from taking calls. However, Esha wants to pursue her dream and is not willing to give any room for Vroom’s life with her. Vroom, apart from being a tech guy has plans of starting of his own business with his colleague & lead Shyam Mehra (called as Sam Mercy by his clients). Shyam is the team leader to the five of the team members. He is looking forward towards a promotion in this appraisal cycle; however his manager feels still he has some areas to get developed before he officially takes on his Lead role.
The other interesting character in the book Priyanka. She is ex girl friend of Shyam. Priyanka has broken from Shyam and planning to get married to another guy working at Microsoft. Even though she is fascinated about the marriage proposal but an early marriage is her parent’s decision which she is not able to accept. Among all these character, you will find Radhika Jha (Regina Jones) who is married is working at this call centre just to ensure she saves for her family & to look forward for a comfortable life with her mother-in-law. Radhika spends time to please his mother-in-law with her cooking and kitchen work before she rushes to work at the call centre as a night shift job. Among these five charters the author has placed a person call as Military uncle who has taken up this job after his retirement. He is strong on his principle and value system. Military uncle typically works on email part while others work on the Voice.
The book shows insights on how a call centre operates, how calls are taken at a call centre & clients are attended & some parts of training capsules. Leadership qualities exhibited by a Manager Subhash Bakshi is very interesting since he does things which is not supposed to be done by a Manager to his team. The book explains a bit of the organization culture & hierarchy too (by positioning the characters as Agents & Shyam as a Lead) that prevails in the call centers in India and the kind of off shore work that it provides. It has provided inputs on challenges an off shore call centre faces in India. While the author has written this book when bubble bust was over an India was seeing a growth in call centre, the author revolves his story around the theory that this company was not well on the balance sheet and is expected is be closed any time. All the characters are worried about their jobs since they were dependent on this job for their living and career. The book at some places shows the frustration that US has on off shoring business models to India companies.
One night all the six of them go out and they get a call from GOD…the author has bench marked this chapter has the most interesting part of the book…
Even though its a couple of years old that it has been published still very interesting book to read over the weekend….Check it out!
Regards
By Ranganathan V
The story starts with the author meeting a lady during his travel and the lady narrates the story to the author…the promise that the author make to the lady is that to publish this as his story. The story revolves around six people who are working in call centre business in their division handling Western Appliances Strategic Group (WASG) in Gurgoan, New Delhi. Each character has their own dream to pursue but has compromised their wishes to work & earn at the call centre.
Esha Singh (also called as Eliza Singer by his clients) is dreaming to be a model but has compromised her dream to realistic of earning a living by working at this call centre. She is liked by Vroom Malhotra (also called as Victor Mell) who is a tech geek and is good in designing the automated system for the organization apart from taking calls. However, Esha wants to pursue her dream and is not willing to give any room for Vroom’s life with her. Vroom, apart from being a tech guy has plans of starting of his own business with his colleague & lead Shyam Mehra (called as Sam Mercy by his clients). Shyam is the team leader to the five of the team members. He is looking forward towards a promotion in this appraisal cycle; however his manager feels still he has some areas to get developed before he officially takes on his Lead role.
The other interesting character in the book Priyanka. She is ex girl friend of Shyam. Priyanka has broken from Shyam and planning to get married to another guy working at Microsoft. Even though she is fascinated about the marriage proposal but an early marriage is her parent’s decision which she is not able to accept. Among all these character, you will find Radhika Jha (Regina Jones) who is married is working at this call centre just to ensure she saves for her family & to look forward for a comfortable life with her mother-in-law. Radhika spends time to please his mother-in-law with her cooking and kitchen work before she rushes to work at the call centre as a night shift job. Among these five charters the author has placed a person call as Military uncle who has taken up this job after his retirement. He is strong on his principle and value system. Military uncle typically works on email part while others work on the Voice.
The book shows insights on how a call centre operates, how calls are taken at a call centre & clients are attended & some parts of training capsules. Leadership qualities exhibited by a Manager Subhash Bakshi is very interesting since he does things which is not supposed to be done by a Manager to his team. The book explains a bit of the organization culture & hierarchy too (by positioning the characters as Agents & Shyam as a Lead) that prevails in the call centers in India and the kind of off shore work that it provides. It has provided inputs on challenges an off shore call centre faces in India. While the author has written this book when bubble bust was over an India was seeing a growth in call centre, the author revolves his story around the theory that this company was not well on the balance sheet and is expected is be closed any time. All the characters are worried about their jobs since they were dependent on this job for their living and career. The book at some places shows the frustration that US has on off shoring business models to India companies.
One night all the six of them go out and they get a call from GOD…the author has bench marked this chapter has the most interesting part of the book…
Even though its a couple of years old that it has been published still very interesting book to read over the weekend….Check it out!
Regards
Total Comments 1
Comments
 | Hi, I read One night at the call centre long back and i truly love it.Its a light book which can be completed with in one of two days .Next book of chetan bhagat which is not related to one night at the call centre at all but is outstanding.Leaving behind expectations of one night call center if you read this one you will really love it... This book too have chetan's humour element but is full of various other things as well such as emotions,drama and reality... Must read  |
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