Feature several contributors to the new issue. Tonight we are delighted to have you here for deepak singh. He has appeared on npr, the boston globe and eight atlantic. He is here today to present his new book how may i help you . an immigrants journey from mba to minimum wage. [applause] thank you for having me here. My name is deepak singh, and if you cant tell and seen the posters everything, im from india originally. I moved to the United States about 13 years ago, 2003. I have an mba from india and i was working for Bbc World Service in india. When i came here, i came from a good educational background. I had spoke well and came from good wellknown organization, would have no problem getting a job. But i was surprised that might mba, educational qualifications and my experience of pba World Service didnt matter much and also my accent. Especially working in radio, come here i had to speak like an american, say things like pakistan is that a pakistan. Or baghdad instead of baghdad. Anyway, i took a job in retail. This happened. Tell you a few things about me, how i came to the United States. I was working for Bbc World Service in indiana met a woman from pennsylvania who was there on a fulbright scholarship. Her name is holly and i met her, we became friends, more than friends and fellow love and got married and they came to this country. Thats how america became my new home. I can indeed my parents wanted me to get an mba. Im not an mba kind of person but mba get your good job, they make a lot of money, you get married, have kids in there with them forever and ever. I did get an mba but i didnt get the job that they wanted. I got the job in bbc that those in accident, good accent. Under accident. I also made a woman, not what they want up if you like her anyway. I came here and a lot of the stuff is in this book. It was like in india theres a lot of prejudice, if youre educated and if you take a job in a small job, your parents think, people look down on you for doing something menial and the judge on the basis of that. So i have it in the back of my mind when us doing the job, always constantly, constant, this thing in the back of my head that people are judging me, what am i doing here . Im a loser . No, i have a good degree but im selling electronics, rader detected an electronics store. Why did i give up everything in india . Im going to read a chapter and then open it up so you can ask some questions. This is the first day. I had been on facebook only a few minutes when i saw a middleaged indian couple walked in. My heart jumped. I took off my name tag. And slipped it into my shirt pocket. I try to not be the first one to talk to and pretended to look like a shopper myself. I was averse to be talking to indians. I saw my parents grayhaired man. I couldnt look in their eyes. I went to hide in the back room. Cindy my boss came to the back room and said deepak, with some indian shoppers want to buy a dvd for anyone to know if it will work in india. I told them one of our team members is from india. He can answer questions better than anyone else can. She said with a grin on her face. I had to come out. The man smiled at me and said are you from india . Sim, and smiled back. Which part . North. Okay, were from him. Web question. You have a question i asked . Yes. My son is in medical school everywhere visiting in but now were going back. What can help you with . I said trying to avoid the next question. Back in india, mothers often volunteered their son salary and then quickly asked mine. It was a way of judging their successes. We are trying to buy a dvd player but want to make sure that it will work in india. Let me see, i sit, walk to the dvd section. Are you studying at the university . No im not. What are you doing here . I am working i said. Whats your background . Yes, this dvd work in india coy said. Okay good. My background is in media. Im new in america and im trying to find a better job. Yes, i was thinking about that. You seem to be an educated chat. You can do better than this, the man replied. I dont know why bu but i was acting as if the couple would fly to india and tell my parents about what i was doing. Out of more than 1 billion indians in a deep and round the world, the of an indian traveler and my start turning out to be someone who would know my parents were next to zero. But it didnt matter. I couldnt get it out of my system to when the training finish either business being in the back room and less i was on boxing the newly arrived merchandise. All of a sudden i was in the open. My first reaction was to avoid working. Avoid being seen as working as a salesman by anyone who looked to be indian. Although i did know anyone, any of the intensive came to shop it seemed as if i could read their minds. Pathetic loser they seem to say. You came to america to do this . I took a deep breath after the indian couple left. In the next few minutes of white lady came into the store. She looked at me to be in her \80{l1}s{l0}\80{l1}s{l0} and walk slowly. My boss gestured for me to take initiative and help her. I waited for her to come to the counter was understanding. I didnt say anything. She came up to me and said hi, im looking for a battery for my watch. I did a quick search, although all knowledge of the batters i had acquired a few days ago. She took a wristwatch off and said on the counter. I found myself clueless. I knew that id learned about finding batteries for watches but i couldnt recall anything. I asked her to know what kind of battery does this take . I dont know but you guys should be up to look it up on your computer. Cant you . As i watched her, im skipping if you come as i watched her leave mr. I wonder if she had any children or grandchildren of felt sorry for that her old age should come and watch battery yourself that my grandmother who died at the age of 80 often asked me to get eyeglasses six, pick up her medicines or mail letters. She never had to go anywhere else. I couldnt imagine are going to buy a battery on her own. People would have judged my family harshly. Im sure my neighbors would have thought we were foolish and selfish and irresponsible. While i was lost in these thoughts about my first customer, cindy put in the screwdriver and she was using to tighten the teeth on the wall and walked towards me. She came to me, brought her face right to my and stared at me for only a few inches away. All i could say was her white face smiling but with, she said i reckon what to to do for the Customer Service training . I stood there blankly at the death. She said let me remind you and dont you ever forget that every customer has to be greeted within five seconds of setting foot within the store come all right . I said i will never forget that. She went back, ported towards point towards interest is a you should walk up for the customer and not wait for them to walk up to you. She said all right, she smiled again and went back to a shoestring. I had forgotten to greet the customer and i waited for her to come to me. Because i wasnt confident of the people answer the question. I printed out the receipt and handed it to the lady. She looked at me, smiled and was and said youll get there. As i saw them walking out of the store i took a deep breath and white the sweat up a fourth. I felt like i just entered the longest 20 minutes of my life. I looked at my watch and said it is almost time to go. Not yet, but we have to do a few things before we close. Why dont you grab the vacuum cleaner and i will count the money . I wondered if ron hadnt tried to help me because he was insecure and not a good enough salesman himself. I wasnt sure. I left work after a very long and emotionally exhausting day. My wife came to pick me up since the city buses stopped running after 9 00. After nine at night. After put on the seatbelt she put the car in gear and we drove off. A few seconds later she asked me, so how was your first day on the sales floor . I did know what to say that i wasnt sure if the 85yearold lady coming to get her watch batterers more shopping or cindy brady me for bad Customer Service, or if not being able to the two gentlemen was more embarrassing. Holly looked at me and i didnt respond. I said how was your day . I took a deep breath. She said thats all right. We can talk again later. Thats the first chapter. I hope to get a small glimpse of the book. If you have questions on happy to answer. Go ahead. Are you still selling and how is it going . Good question. Thank you for asking. Im not selling anymore. This happened ten years ago. 2004 and 2006. I was working with bbc before. I went back to doing radio and writing. Im a fulltime writer now. Thats what i do now. So when during the process of you were to recount did you write this book . Was it after or during . I wasnt thinking of writing the book when i was working because it was too overwhelming just to be able to learn and sell and not get fired, you know . I wasnt thinking about that. About three years later when i finish the work and i started thinking i dont think i would do that again, that kind of job or i would go back to selling batteries and separated existed like shower radio. I dont know why people listen to the radio in the shower. Its hard to convince somebody to buy shower radio when you did know what it was for. You step out of the shower and then listen to the radio. Anyway, i started writing the book and 2011, and five and five years later i finished the book. I had a different perspective. I went to india and thought about it a lot. I wanted to write for me and my friends maybe, they know what it was like to work in retail for two years in virginia and self americans and speak with an extra syllable in every word. What was it like . It was good because you know, i worked in bbc with english folks, accent was different, but i thought i spoke fine when i came to virginia, charlottesville. If you drive ten miles out of charlottesville you can be in rural virginia. People have a very different dialect or drawl so i had to get used to that, took a long time for me to understand them and me to understand them. It was rough in a lot of ways. The book is also, its not just about my experience. Its also about me learning about my colleagues. The most shocking thing was how i learned about poverty in the United States. The people who are working with me, there were trying to make ends meet by seven dollars an hour. I didnt have any kids, any mortgage, in his own company debt. I didnt have any Child Support to faith or any kind of burden. The people who are working with had kids. They had to pay Child Support and childcare, healthcare, mortgages, lots of debt and they were just trying to do that while working with me in retail. I often thought that i can just click this and go back to india or i can do what i was doing there and just go back, but thinking of the people like ron and cindy and jackie, they didnt have a place to go back to. This was their life. If theyre going to get out of that particular retail store it would probably end up in a different one, similar kind. I developed a lot of empathy for my colleagues, and it also help me reexamine my own self. I came from a highclass, high caste hindu, and just for two years i lost all the privileges that had in india. People, cook for you in india. Also im sitting on the floor vacuuming and cleaning and doing very menial jobs and realized like what about the people who do this job on a daily basis in my home back in india . I never thought of them, may be these guys are doing this because this is what they are good for. They didnt go to school, they didnt have a job, they didnt have a good education to get a a good job but then i realize its not about, a lot depends on where you come from, what kind of advantage you have in life. What kind of background. If you were the sun of its very unlikely for you to become the ceo of a company. Its a vicious cycle. The dog trying to chase its own till. You can keep asking more questions, i can keep going on. Did you work in retail in different parts of the United States or just in virginia . Just virginia, one store for two years. I quit that and i never went back to retail. After i got to know people really well, i also became a good salesman. The title may sound like a sad story but also a success to her because i became the top salesman in the entire district. I was the best person to come and buy a cell phone from. [inaudible] did you see went to Business School . In india, yes. Did that healthy at all in your sails, and your Business Activities or even in your writing . In writing yes. It didnt help me get a job but it helped me knowledge wise, like i did talk to people. I learned a lot of subjects like organizational behavior and stuff like that, but it helped me converse with a lot of customers and talk to them. Not just time to sell them, pushed up on the butt learn about my customers as human beings and have a conversation. A lot of times my boss didnt like that i talked to my customers too much because she thought i was wasting time. But the same people came back to buy stuff. It did help me in some ways, but it didnt help me get a better job. Did it help you in your writing . It did. Mba teaches you to kind of writing, business communication. For this i was doing radio before, i was writing for radio so i knew, i had this journalistic eye. I was always observing even while i was working, and so it did help me in some ways, but not didnt help much with writing. Just wondering how you felt the customers are treated you . Both good and bad. In the beginning because my accent, people couldnt communicate so there was a barrier. They did want to deal with me because they knew it would take longer for me to understand what they were saying. So i thought they didnt like me because of that, but that was not, they didnt hate me because of that but they wanted to come in, get their stuff and leave. They dont have to explain over and over. Some people like i said bad things a lot of good people who were very gracious and nice and supportive, and the wanted to give me the time to understand. I cant sing for a long time, this is my second day, this is my third day, this is my fourth day, this is my first week. Okay, you have been here for a month. You should know how to sell fine stuff. I wonder if you would use like upward social mobility like yall working here . Do i select that . I wonder like it could use like upward social mobility to see what all is current here . Im not quite sure your question, but you know, this book is about my downward mobility, like i started from india, had a good job. If id stayed in india i probably wouldve kept going up. But here all of a sudden it took a dive and i went from a cushy job to stand on your feet for eight hours. But that was in rural virginia, right . Two years. So i did the same thing. I didnt move up. I mean, my manager asked me to go for a manager trey so i could become manager but she was the manager and she also worked very hard. She also did pretty much the same thing that i was excited want to become a manager because it would admit i moved to a different city on a different store, and i was with my wife who is going to school at university of virginia for a phd i wanted to stay close to her. I just chose to be in the store and in that position for a long time until when i quit, i just quit and have not been in retail after that. Did that answer your question . Yes. Do you mind . Go ahead, please go ahead. Im wondering if you experienced, like how it relates to your sense of dignity . However you define it. Well, my dignity took a big dent in the beginning. When i came i just, just doing, like you, started wearing a uniform light shirt, khaki pants, name tag and standing in front of the store every day and customers, when they come in they are nice to you but you had to be very nice to them. Yet to smile everyday, no matter what your life is unhappy or what is going on in your life come here to put on a big smile. Its a hard job at the uni. You had to be very nice to every Single Person and they dont have to be nice to at the same time. Im not saying every customer is good but you can find people who are not nice. Your dignity, its like, some basis something and you get upset but you cannot be upset because you have to carry on. Its a balancing act. You just learn like brushoff bad things and keep going. You also learn in my case i learned what it is like to be human, what it is like to be in someone elses shoes. I lef love that java never, nevr went back but some people are still working those jobs. A lot of indians who come here, start many subways and motels and stuff like that at all them are educated people. They do this because the education is not valued. I met a lot of people were doctors back in india that they couldnt com have been what to o with the residency, 70 residency. They did what to do that so they took a job like whole foods or some other store because they want to send the kids to school. Its a lot of suffering. People give up a lot to come in but, of course, america offers them a lot to move ahead, but they also sacrificed a lot. Thank you. Youre welcome. What are your impressions of the states versus india, professionally and personally . Professionally i learned that things get done in america. It you go to post office, you can post your letter or by her stance in a certain number like minsk i inside im going to spend timmons you can do. In india you can spend two hours, still like it done. A lot of bureaucracy, and this can become its changing but its still a lot like that. Ultimately i think two different words. Its hard to compare, i cannot say like i feel this way and that we, but two different worlds. Your people learning about america. In 80 you can spend your lifetime. Im from the north and the southern part has like 20 of the languages that i dont know a word of. Ive met many indians here so i have to speak to english because i dont speak their language. Where do i start . Its a huge country and im still in america. I love both countries. Im from india and this is my new home. Im an in a good position to wre about both subjects because my wife is from america, too. She is a role virginia. When i go back to see my inlaws they live on 100acre farm. At 5 00 they eat supper, not dinner. So its good for ryder, a great, a lot of material there. Yes . Do it if your coworker said to write about in the book, have they read the book, and what are the reactions . I left the store and i lost touch with them, this was before facebook in 2004 and six so when i started writing the book i just have to let fontenot in touch with all them. It was a high turnover job. People came and the left three months, for much but i did the later all the people i write about them in my head but i couldnt keep track of them. Hopefully somebody will find something and they will read. Im not in touch with anybody. Are you still adjusting to the differences of the two cultures . Do you find it difficult