Given a chance, would you prefer a Gora boss or a desi boss (or a chinese ) in a canadian environment?
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"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be"
Good question! I would prefer a gora boss and my director is a Canadian of British ancestry. He is very polite and respects every individual irrespective of their race or religion. He doesn’t expect me to stay back or work on the weekends, gives me total freedom and is very flexible about my timings and holidays. I am given challenging and interesting projects like the other employees in our group and there is no discrimination.
So I am lucky that I have such a nice, friendly boss who always keeps smiling and laughing all the time.
Many a times I feel that because I am the only non gora in my company that I get pampered so much. 
Nikhil
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Originally posted by Nikhil
Good question! I would prefer a gora boss and my director is a Canadian of British ancestry. He is very polite and respects every individual irrespective of their race or religion. He doesn’t expect me to stay back or work on the weekends, gives me total freedom and is very flexible about my timings and holidays. I am given challenging and interesting projects like the other employees in our group and there is no discrimination.
So I am lucky that I have such a nice, friendly boss who always keeps smiling and laughing all the time.
Many a times I feel that because I am the only non gora in my company that I get pampered so much.
Nikhil
Well, the qualities that you have defined are more of the person than a diff between an Indian or Gora boss.
I had a Gora boss - nice to me in many ways, including all that you have written for your boss, but on professional front I would have preferred someone else, an South Asian perhaps. Why - because I could find tons of mismanaged operations which cost the company directly and indirectly (including pilferage), but his attitude was that of a typical western guy........till it doesn't hurt my pocket directly, why should I bother. I was always ready to work late or come in on weekends, but he would not allow nor come do it himself - I thought we could achieve more by looking into these shortcomings which would be good for the organisation - and ultimately for us, but he was more concerned about his family life after office hours (officially - nothing wrong with it - but profesionally - if you have to rise in life, you have to work more and sacrifice on family life a bit).
but yes, a Gora boss with South Asian subordinates would be a nice combination - you can get the work done from subordiantes who are dedicated to well being of the organisation, but also have fun with the gora boss who believes in pinching out each penny that they can from the company!
Chandresh
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Chandresh
Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!
Chandresh,
Your posts reminds of my earlier bosses in Dubai. In one company the general manager was from US and except the weekly meetings which I had with him, all he did was to surf the internet and leave at lunch time and not come back to work after that. And in the other company that I worked for the operations manager who was from France would visit the plant for hardly 30 minutes and sit in his office and play FreeCell card games all the time. Since it was owned by the government of France he did not have to report to anyone in Dubai and he used to leave at around 11.30 in the morning.
But I guess the worst managers are from countries like Egypt and Lebanon because they swear at their subordinates. I haven’t worked under such individuals and if ever I had to work under such an individual I would give him my piece of mind. The best thing about my boss here in Canada is that during the winter months I can leave at 4 in the evening when there is much less traffic on the road (even though I have to drive for less than 10 minutes ) and during the summer months I can leave at 3 in the afternoon on Fridays. I don't think any South Asian boss would allow me to do this.
Nikhil
Location: God's own country
Posted on: 21-08-06 13:23:00
Interesting Topic.
As far as my experience goes, the nature of your boss depends on your profession. Objective field bosses (eg. accounting, mechanical. IT etc..) tend to be easy going and easier to cheat than Subjective field bosses (Architecture, Drafting, arts, animation, graphic design etc..).
I have worked both in Objective and Subjective fields and have found that i can just pass my time in objective fields and still earn a lot of money.
My take on bosses is this :
Chinese : hard task masters
Malaysians : medium hard task masters
Indians : Sadists, very hard task masters, psycho's. Keen to exploit you for theuir upliftment, Chamcha's
Gora's : Easy going but have an eye on task completion etc... Will be very dissapointed if you donot meet a deadline after promising it.
Palestinian s : very hard task masters
Kind hearted people following a religion very deeply : light task masters. Have some sympathy etc....
Egyptians/ lebanese/ arabs : Medium task masters
I work with an italian who works 7 days a week and 12-14 hrs a day. Since he knows that immigrants find it very hard to land into a job, exploits them medium level. He does not care about the dull employee's but clever employee's are made to work hard. Cares about each Dollar he spends.
I worked in Saudi Arabia under a Palestinian. He (before i came) used to pay for overtime on weekends for learning autocad. Indians then started exploiting it by billing on weekends but playing games instead. So the practice was stopped when i came. But even then, there were times that for 1 whole month i did nothing expect play games with my computer at office time and i got my salary. The reason was b'cos there was some little work in the company then and that work was done by my indian manager.
Also it depends on the company. A small company will have more rigerous work schedule whereas in a big company you can have more freedom at work.
Replying to the OP, I would prefer to work under a Gora rather than a South Asian in Canada.
Just my views. Nothing set in stone
TK A
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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.
Chandresh, while you are correct in saying that attitudes differ from person to person, in general South Asian managers like to squeeze other South Asians as much as possible.
It was the same thing in grad school in the States - Indian professors would make Indian research students work twice as hard for the same amount of money compared to an American. One of my friends even mowed his professor's lawn on weekends!
Also regarding work culture - I really don't want to work on weekends. Work life balance is one of the pluses here, unlike India where long hours, and a few weekends a month are seen as the norm. I like the fact that there is still time in evening to go out after work here.
In general, I will avoid Asian managers like the plague.
Quote:
Originally posted by alexm
Chandresh, while you are correct in saying that attitudes differ from person to person, in general South Asian managers like to squeeze other South Asians as much as possible.
It was the same thing in grad school in the States - Indian professors would make Indian research students work twice as hard for the same amount of money compared to an American. One of my friends even mowed his professor's lawn on weekends!
Also regarding work culture - I really don't want to work on weekends. Work life balance is one of the pluses here, unlike India where long hours, and a few weekends a month are seen as the norm. I like the fact that there is still time in evening to go out after work here.
In general, I will avoid Asian managers like the plague.
While you are right that asian bosses squeeze asian workers a lot........it is also true that when it comes to bad days in the organisation, they also are very interested in somehow keeping you in the organisation and would try to avoid retrenching you. Even in cases where the subordinate is not working as expected, asian bosses give more time for him/her to come up to the mark than western bosses. In short, I have found that Asian bosses do have more interest in your overall well being than a western boss for whom the relationship ends after office hours.
And even for relationships after office hours, it is rare that a Gora invites Asians to have fun with him - whether at a pub or at their own place, while Asian bosses and subordinates would go out of their way to invite their colleagues to have a social life as a family too.
My experience though.
Chandresh
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Chandresh
Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!
