L375: Ethics & The 21st Century Business Leader Vidush Dwivedi
Reflection Paper 1
Having lived in the US for the past 3 years as an international student, I have come to
realize the various culture differences between here and India. Living in a country like India has
its own perks, however, every household faces its own ethical dilemmas. Domestic help such as
maids and servants are readily available in India. It is unfortunate, but, due to the low labor costs
in India, this has been embedded into the culture. Laborers prefer to work as a domestic help for
a household rather than working in a factory – due to higher pay and less technical work. It is
often that I hear from my peers in school that I get to lavish lifestyle in India, but what they do
not understand is that domestic help is present in almost every household. Moreover, at times it
is not as exciting as it sounds.
Domestic help in India is not considered expensive, in about $100 per month, you can
have a full-time domestic help working in your house. They not only cook food for you, but also
clean the house, do your laundry, iron the clothes, and any other possible chore you can think of.
It is no surprise that when I came to the US, I was surprised with the sort of independence
because I had never done such chores before in my life. Whenever I go back home for break, my
maids do not even let me wash my own dishes, no matter what time of the day it is, 7 am or 11
pm, they will cook anything that I desire. Hence, I realized this wage does not suffice the work
that they do. No wonder if you pay them such little for the amount of work they do, they will not
be satisfied. As we learned in iCore management, dissatisfied employees start to be destructive,
either internally or externally.
As far as I can remember, we have had maids in our house doing all our chores. At a
