Biography:
Born in Sintra (Portugal) in 1988, José Sarmento Matos is a Portuguese documentary photographer based in between Lisbon and London. In December 2014 he completed a MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at...
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Rajender, 42 years old, at home watching cricket with his daughter while his wife cooks. Rajender started his career in a call center in 1999 and is now about to become a supervisor. “When I started in this business no one was aware of what this job was. For me internet and technology it was all a new thing. Once we start working in this business we have trainings on how to speak to the costumer, how to make the American accent. We have to develop a very fake accent to convince the client that they are speaking to someone in the USA.” Navi Mumbai, India. 13th March 2016.
Outside view of a building where many call center companies are based in Navi Mumbai. At this time of the day, in the evening, the work day shift is about to give place to the work night shift. The latter is when thousands of call center Indian agents start calling the USA and the UK. Navi Mumbai, India. 3rd March 2016.
Depender (Robin), 22 years old. He started working in a call center in May 2015. Robin is the name he chose to call the USA, doing technical support to Microsoft clients. Apart of working from Monday to Saturday, 8 hours a night, Depender is studying to a Masters’ degree at day time. After work he sleeps 3 hours and at 10 am he goes to college. Pune, India. 4th May 2016.
“How can I help you?” is a photo documentary on call centers and the daily life of their employees. The first two chapters were focused on the two biggest markets in this industry, India and the Philippines.
Together they employ two million people who are calling and taking calls to and from such faraway places as the USA, the UK and Australia. With “How can I help you?” I want to reveal the lives of this faceless people with whom we may talk on a daily basis.
This is a on-going project and in the next couple of years I intend to cover 3 other important countries in this industry worldwide. My final aim is to publish a book in order to leave a document as a legacy about these workers which one day will be replace by technology.
