Material Callings in an Outsourced Outpost

The author addresses how business process outsourcing (BPO) enabled a generation of urban educated youth to participate in consumption by offering new income opportunities, and instigating new consumerist aspirations. Along with observing operational procedures, appointment processes, spatial dimensions, nature of work, and relations at work in BPOs, this chapter also observes its social impacts. A generation of college-goers flirted with this newfound earning opportunity since the late 1990s to have fun, make friends, or earn quickly. It explores how the consumerist desire gripped a generation that was earlier ineligible to participate in consumption. Narrating his cultural experiences of working in a BPO, the author documents a transition from abstinence to indulgence—a transition that offered freedom to eventuate material aspirations.