IT Survivors – Staying Alive In A Software Job
Before I started working for myself, I spent some years in some of the top IT companies in India and still have many friends working in various software companies. I wrote a blog Recruiting like crazy, about the same time last year about how Indian companies are recruiting like there’s no tomorrow and the possible consequences. However I was avoiding writing this particular piece as it seems like an unpatriotic thing to do, to tell the world how bad the working conditions in software companies in India have become. And there’s always the risk of excerpts being used out of context to bash up IT in India.
I am now writing this because I just keep hearing horror tales from the industry and it doesn’t seem like anything is being done in the matter, so I thought I will do my bit and write.
First and foremost, before stereotypes about India kick in, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that Indian software companies are sweat shops where employees aren’t being paid and made to
work in cramped uncomfortable places. The pay in software companies is very good as compared to other industries in India and the work places are generally well furnished and plush offices. India being a strong democracy, freedom of expression is alive and well and Indians are free to express their opinions and voice their concerns. Yet, I say that the software industry is exploiting its employees.
IT work culture in India is totally messed up and has now started harming the work culture of the nation as a whole. Working 12+ hours a day and 6 or even 7 days a week is more the rule than the exception.
Consequences:
- A majority of IT people suffer from health problems.As most of the IT workforce is still very young, the problem isn’t very obvious today but it will hit with unbearable ferocity when these youngsters get to their 40s.
- Stress levels are unbelievable high. Stress management is a cover topic in magazines and newspapers and workshops on the subject are regularly overbooked.
- Most IT people have hardly any social / family life to talk of.
- As IT folk are rich by Indian standards, they try to buy their way out of their troubles and have incurred huge debts by buying expensive houses, gizmos and fancy cars.
Plush offices, fat salaries and latest gizmos can give you happiness only if you have a life in the first place.
The reason I feel this culture has emerged, is the servile attitude of the companies. Here’s a tip for any company in the west planning to outsource to India. If you feel that a project can be completed in 6 weeks by 4 people, always demand that it be completed in 2 weeks by 3 people.
Guess what, most Indian companies will agree. The project will then be hyped up as an “extremely critical” one and the 3 unfortunate souls allocated to it will get very close to meeting the almighty by the time they deliver the project in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, they will deliver in 2-3 weeks, get bashed up for any delays and the company will soon boast about how they deliver good quality in reasonable time and cost. Has anyone in India ever worked on a project that wasn’t “extremely critical”?
I was once at a session where a top boss of one of India’s biggest IT firms was asked a question about what was so special about their company and his answer was that we are the “Yes” people with the “We Can Do It ” attitude.
It is all very well for the top boss to say “We Can Do It “.. what about the project teams who wish to say “Please….We Can’t Do It ” to the unreasonable timelines…I was tempted to ask “What death benefits does your company offer to the teams that get killed in the process?”. I sure was ashamed to see that a fellow Indian was openly boasting about the fact that he and his company had no backbone. The art of saying No or negotiating reasonable time frames for the team is very conspicuous by its absence. Outsourcing customers more often than not simply walk all over Indian software companies. The outsourcer surely cannot be blamed as it is right for him to demand good quality in the least cost and time.
Exhaustion = Zero Innovation
- How many Indians in India are thought leaders in their software segment? – Very few
- How much software innovation happens in India? – Minimal
- Considering that thousands of Indians in India use Open Source software, how many actually contribute? – Very few
Surprisingly, put the same Indian in a company “in” the US and he suddenly becomes innovative and a thought leader in his field.
The reason is simple, the only thing an exhausted body and mind can do well, is sleep. zzzzzz
I can pretty much bet on it that we will never see innovation from any of 10000+ person code factories in India.
If you are someone sitting in the US, UK… and wondering why the employees can’t stand up, that’s the most interesting part of the story. Read on…
The Problem
The software professional Indian is today making more money in a month than what his parents might have made in an year. Very often a 21 year old newbie software developer makes more money than his/her 55 year old father working in an old world business. Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work.
Another important factor is this whole bubble that an IT person lives in.. An IT professional walks with a halo around his or her head. They are the Cool, Rich Gen Next .. the Intelligentsia of the New World… they travel all over the world, vacation at exotic locations abroad, talk “american”, are more familiar of the geography of the USA than that of India and yes of course, they are the hottest things in the Wedding Market!!!
This I feel is the core problem because if employees felt they were being exploited, things would change.
I speak about this to some of my friends and the answer is generally “Hey Harshad, what you say is correct and we sure are suffering, but why do you think we are being paid this much money? It’s not for 40 hours but for 80 hours a week. And anyway what choice do we have? It’s the same everywhere.”
So can we make things change? Is there a way to try and stop an entire generation of educated Indians from ending up with “no life”.
Solutions
1) Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week.
Recently, in an awards ceremony at a software company, the manager handing over the “employee of the month” award said something like “It’s unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working”.. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.
Companies need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the time difference between India and the west is the reason why people need to stay in office for 14 hours a day. Staying late should be a negative thing that should work against an employee in his appraisals. Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week .
2) Estimates:
If time estimates go wrong, the company should be willing to take a hit and not force the employee to work crazy hours to bail projects out of trouble. This will ensure that the estimates made for the next project are more real and not just what the customer has asked for.
3) Employee organizations / forums
NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and CSI (Computer Society Of India) are perhaps the only two well known software associations in India and both I feel have failed the software employee. I do not recall any action from these organizations to try and improve the working conditions of software employees. This has to change.
I am not in favor of forming trade unions for software people, as trade unions in India have traditionally been more effective at ruining businesses and making employees inefficient than getting employees their rights and helping business do well. So existing bodies like NASSCOM should create and popularize employee welfare cells at a state / regional level and these cells should work only for employee welfare and not be puppets in the hands of the companies.
If the industry does not itself create proper forums for employee welfare, it’s likely that the government / trade unions will interfere and mess up India’s sunshine industry.
4) Narayan Murthys please stand up
Top bosses of companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. need to send the message loud and clear to their company and to other companies listening at national IT events that employee welfare is really their top concern and having good working culture and conditions is a priority. Employee welfare here does not mean giving the employee the salary he/she dreams of.
Last word
I am sure some of my thoughts come from the fact that I too worked in such an environment for a few years and perhaps I haven’t got over the frustrations I experienced back then.
So think about my views with a pinch of salt but do think about them. And if you have an opinion on this issue, don’t forget to add a comment to this article.
The fumbling harmer is actually right this time – all that the desi big guys are interested in is the cheap real estate they can talk the Kar and AP govts out of.
There can be no innovation in any company that is ISO9000 or CMM certified. By definition. Think about it – the whole system is designed to kowtow to the yankee’s ‘requirements documents’ – if you innovate, you become a product guy and have to leave.
Meanwhile, the yanks curse you for ‘stealing’ their jobs – which their CxOs handed over to the desi sweatshops to churn out code.
i now freelance and am not at all eager to join a software company… if i do look for a job, it’ll be in a different line if i can help it
i now freelance and am not at all eager to join a software company… if i do look for a job, it’ll be in a different line if i can help it
Thank you for such a good article and thanks for providing opportunity for people to express their views.
A neutral opinion from my side:
Well, based on experience, wherever we work, irrespective of whether it is software or some other industry, our bosses determine things for us. If we get into a right project with right people at right time, things will always be with us and we never have to grib on things like – oh boy, we work for long hours a day – causing problems to our health
We (software people) ourselves should not give an impression to the world that we are treated bad. If we have concerns/issues about timing and work culture, we can have that resolved by having appropriate discussion with our bosses / HR teams.
If things go out of our hands, then, we probably have to wait for good things to happen whereas continuing our best-possible contribution.
Looking at a different angle, we are the one of the classes of people in the world who get enormous work at one point in time and NO WORK at some other point in time – any comments agains this?
I believe that based on our shallow knowledge, we are trying to think that only in India we have tight and long schedules(per day) in our industry. No, it is not true. Even in the other countries, there are many non-Indians who slog like anything – working for more than 12 hours a day. The only difference may be that in some places, they probably work from their home after office hours.
Most of us will definitely be well aware of people working in decent restaurants (not the star hotels). Even these people work for more than 12 hours a day. Though these people do not need to think much, they are forced to work due to competition. Also, these people do not even sit for long hours – will this not affect their health?
The basic thing that anybody would have encountered in Economics is ‘Basic problems of all societies’. As software engineers, we guys are gathering together to form forums to protect us – Similarly other professionals discuss among themselves about the way they are treated and their work culture. I would like to appreciate one of the responses to your article – where that person has talked about the diginity of labour in India – well said sir.
One more opinion about the comment on ‘Employee of the Month’. I don’t know how much analysis took place before making a statement that ‘Appraisals should be against people working for long hours’. I believe two sides of the coin were not analyzed here perfectly. The boss who announced that award obviously cannot be an unreasonable person – that is why he was appointed as the boss for a team. So, if such a boss declares ‘Employee of the month for a person who worked for long hours’ – there definitely, unarguably and undeniably a reason why he did that – probably, the boss and the person who got the award only will know the true picture. Probably, that is how the work should have been carried out. Without true pictures given, it is definitely not possible to accept Negative appraisals against such a person who worked for long hours.
People who are in right-project at right time with right people can easily make a statement saying – the person working for long hours does something wrong. Though in some cases this may be true, unless we analyze the practicality, we cannot tell anything about that. Also, sometimes, slogging is always required to make things happen – however wise/smart/clever a person may be.
Only people who are both clever, patient and devoted can make innovative or appropriate things happen. Just by being smart, the success acheived is only partial. Because, people doing work should possess knowledge about the work plus devotion towards that; this dedication or devotion sometimes might take long time – but this need not be misunderstood to be the inefficiency of a person.
Many inventions and discoveries in the world happened not only with intelligence – but with dedication and devotion also. A success is like a coin having two sides – SMART side and the devotion side – both have to be admired. A boss will be biased if we appreciates only a person who is just SMART. These two can be compared with the question ‘Who is important – a house-wife mother or a rich-father – in a traditional Indian family?’.
The problem we are dealing with is like a loop – Team members will say No and the bosses will say Yes. It happens in any industry – the bottom workers will say No and the management will say Yes. Unless we are exceptionally and extra-ordinarily powerful, we have to continue our gribbing – irrespective of wherever we work.
One question to our SW folks : Will you be willing to work in a company forever which will pay you an amount equivalen to Government salary with the rewards you expect plus the timing 9 AM to 5 PM? Most of the people in our industry might definitely say No to this – But, if they say Yes – then, we can change India and we should be happy about that.
How many of us will be willing to work in a domestic project in India earning a low-pay? If we do that, in the long-run, we would have produced THE ROLE MODEL – INDIA in the WORLD.
If we think about how Japan came up – we will start changing our thinking.
All the problems we have talked about really are the result of ‘a person thinking only about himself’. If we are truly thinking about a ‘VICTORIOUS INDIA’ and ‘A ROLE-MODEL INDIA’ and ‘AN INTEGRATED INDIA’, our opinions will change.
But , there is a saying – ‘CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME’ – Yes, except for a very few people, ‘CHARITY BEGINS ONLY AT HOME’.
But, if the problems we have discussed about our industry assume enormous proportions, we definitely have to take steps.
THE FINAL SOLUTION : AS WITH ANY PROBLEM, TIME IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SOLVE ANY PROBLEM – meaning, we either will change our thinking in the due course of time or the industry will change and work in a way we expect.
Though we have to take good things from other culture – like the dignity of labour in the western countries, we have to be practical and think about our population and the fierece competition prevailing in India.
As Darwin’s theory says ‘FITTEST PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS SURVIVE’ – Please do not take the meaning ‘SMART’ for ‘FITTEST’. Darwin’s words can be put otherwise as ‘ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN REMAIN SATISFACTORY WITH WHATEVER THEY HAVE CAN THINK THEM TO BE FITTEST. SO, ONLY SUCH PEOPLE CAN SURVIVE’
Thank you for such a good article and thanks for providing opportunity for people to express their views.
A neutral opinion from my side:
Well, based on experience, wherever we work, irrespective of whether it is software or some other industry, our bosses determine things for us. If we get into a right project with right people at right time, things will always be with us and we never have to grib on things like – oh boy, we work for long hours a day – causing problems to our health
We (software people) ourselves should not give an impression to the world that we are treated bad. If we have concerns/issues about timing and work culture, we can have that resolved by having appropriate discussion with our bosses / HR teams.
If things go out of our hands, then, we probably have to wait for good things to happen whereas continuing our best-possible contribution.
Looking at a different angle, we are the one of the classes of people in the world who get enormous work at one point in time and NO WORK at some other point in time – any comments agains this?
I believe that based on our shallow knowledge, we are trying to think that only in India we have tight and long schedules(per day) in our industry. No, it is not true. Even in the other countries, there are many non-Indians who slog like anything – working for more than 12 hours a day. The only difference may be that in some places, they probably work from their home after office hours.
Most of us will definitely be well aware of people working in decent restaurants (not the star hotels). Even these people work for more than 12 hours a day. Though these people do not need to think much, they are forced to work due to competition. Also, these people do not even sit for long hours – will this not affect their health?
The basic thing that anybody would have encountered in Economics is ‘Basic problems of all societies’. As software engineers, we guys are gathering together to form forums to protect us – Similarly other professionals discuss among themselves about the way they are treated and their work culture. I would like to appreciate one of the responses to your article – where that person has talked about the diginity of labour in India – well said sir.
One more opinion about the comment on ‘Employee of the Month’. I don’t know how much analysis took place before making a statement that ‘Appraisals should be against people working for long hours’. I believe two sides of the coin were not analyzed here perfectly. The boss who announced that award obviously cannot be an unreasonable person – that is why he was appointed as the boss for a team. So, if such a boss declares ‘Employee of the month for a person who worked for long hours’ – there definitely, unarguably and undeniably a reason why he did that – probably, the boss and the person who got the award only will know the true picture. Probably, that is how the work should have been carried out. Without true pictures given, it is definitely not possible to accept Negative appraisals against such a person who worked for long hours.
People who are in right-project at right time with right people can easily make a statement saying – the person working for long hours does something wrong. Though in some cases this may be true, unless we analyze the practicality, we cannot tell anything about that. Also, sometimes, slogging is always required to make things happen – however wise/smart/clever a person may be.
Only people who are both clever, patient and devoted can make innovative or appropriate things happen. Just by being smart, the success acheived is only partial. Because, people doing work should possess knowledge about the work plus devotion towards that; this dedication or devotion sometimes might take long time – but this need not be misunderstood to be the inefficiency of a person.
Many inventions and discoveries in the world happened not only with intelligence – but with dedication and devotion also. A success is like a coin having two sides – SMART side and the devotion side – both have to be admired. A boss will be biased if we appreciates only a person who is just SMART. These two can be compared with the question ‘Who is important – a house-wife mother or a rich-father – in a traditional Indian family?’.
The problem we are dealing with is like a loop – Team members will say No and the bosses will say Yes. It happens in any industry – the bottom workers will say No and the management will say Yes. Unless we are exceptionally and extra-ordinarily powerful, we have to continue our gribbing – irrespective of wherever we work.
One question to our SW folks : Will you be willing to work in a company forever which will pay you an amount equivalen to Government salary with the rewards you expect plus the timing 9 AM to 5 PM? Most of the people in our industry might definitely say No to this – But, if they say Yes – then, we can change India and we should be happy about that.
How many of us will be willing to work in a domestic project in India earning a low-pay? If we do that, in the long-run, we would have produced THE ROLE MODEL – INDIA in the WORLD.
If we think about how Japan came up – we will start changing our thinking.
All the problems we have talked about really are the result of ‘a person thinking only about himself’. If we are truly thinking about a ‘VICTORIOUS INDIA’ and ‘A ROLE-MODEL INDIA’ and ‘AN INTEGRATED INDIA’, our opinions will change.
But , there is a saying – ‘CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME’ – Yes, except for a very few people, ‘CHARITY BEGINS ONLY AT HOME’.
But, if the problems we have discussed about our industry assume enormous proportions, we definitely have to take steps.
THE FINAL SOLUTION : AS WITH ANY PROBLEM, TIME IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SOLVE ANY PROBLEM – meaning, we either will change our thinking in the due course of time or the industry will change and work in a way we expect.
Though we have to take good things from other culture – like the dignity of labour in the western countries, we have to be practical and think about our population and the fierece competition prevailing in India.
As Darwin’s theory says ‘FITTEST PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS SURVIVE’ – Please do not take the meaning ‘SMART’ for ‘FITTEST’. Darwin’s words can be put otherwise as ‘ONLY PEOPLE WHO CAN REMAIN SATISFACTORY WITH WHATEVER THEY HAVE CAN THINK THEM TO BE FITTEST. SO, ONLY SUCH PEOPLE CAN SURVIVE’
It is an important topic but the solution to the problem is any thing but simple.
I work for one of the big Indian I.T. companies. When I used to toil for 14 hours a day 6.5 days a week in India, I used to think that when I run things, things will be very different. That the estimates will be realistic and every body will work normal hours. When I got a chance to bid for projects and prepare proposals for clients in the U.S., I could see the root of the problem. It starts right from the moment when the customer asks for a proposal. There is intense competition amongst vendors (most of who are based in India) With little difference among them; the lowest cost becomes the clincher. My efforts to push back on ridiculous estimates resulted in only one thing – loss of opportunity for my company. The competing rival was more than happy take the opportunity since he did not mind making his people toil to produce results. With a number of Indian vendors cutting each other throat alongside the emergence of software factories in China, Eastern Europe, South America I do not see a realistic solution to this problem at this juncture. There will always be some one on the globe willing to work hard for a “lot of money†(from relative perspective). Things like pushing back and learning to say a “plain no†are not likely to produce long lasting results.
A software “factory†is labor intensive. The situation in software industry today is very similar to the situation in Europe after the industrial revolution. Just as industrial revolution gave rise to manufacturing factories that were labor intensive, the information revolution has given rise to labor intensive software factories. The advancement in technology reduced the reliance on human labor in manufacturing industries. The ongoing automation in software industry will also produce the same result in software industry
.. eventually. We are not there yet
.but this is definitely a passing phase.
It is an important topic but the solution to the problem is any thing but simple.
I work for one of the big Indian I.T. companies. When I used to toil for 14 hours a day 6.5 days a week in India, I used to think that when I run things, things will be very different. That the estimates will be realistic and every body will work normal hours. When I got a chance to bid for projects and prepare proposals for clients in the U.S., I could see the root of the problem. It starts right from the moment when the customer asks for a proposal. There is intense competition amongst vendors (most of who are based in India) With little difference among them; the lowest cost becomes the clincher. My efforts to push back on ridiculous estimates resulted in only one thing – loss of opportunity for my company. The competing rival was more than happy take the opportunity since he did not mind making his people toil to produce results. With a number of Indian vendors cutting each other throat alongside the emergence of software factories in China, Eastern Europe, South America I do not see a realistic solution to this problem at this juncture. There will always be some one on the globe willing to work hard for a “lot of money†(from relative perspective). Things like pushing back and learning to say a “plain no†are not likely to produce long lasting results.
A software “factory†is labor intensive. The situation in software industry today is very similar to the situation in Europe after the industrial revolution. Just as industrial revolution gave rise to manufacturing factories that were labor intensive, the information revolution has given rise to labor intensive software factories. The advancement in technology reduced the reliance on human labor in manufacturing industries. The ongoing automation in software industry will also produce the same result in software industry
.. eventually. We are not there yet
.but this is definitely a passing phase.
Hi!
Very well written article. I think the problem lies in the enormous popln we have. If one guy stands up and says, I want to go home at 5.00, there is only one thing that will happen. They will have another 500 people queued up for that positon the next day, with a simple e-mail.
I think we have a lot of hope. If just a few companies like you mentioned stand up and force employees not to work late, slowly employees will start placing higher value to work in those companies. Employers will slowly start to feel the pinch and start changing. This will definitely happen, but at what time is the question? I feel people like HD Deve Gowda who spend their time talking senseless things should take up these issues. It all dpeends on how well our political heroes can stand up.
Regards,
Subbu,
J2EE Programmer.
Hi!
Very well written article. I think the problem lies in the enormous popln we have. If one guy stands up and says, I want to go home at 5.00, there is only one thing that will happen. They will have another 500 people queued up for that positon the next day, with a simple e-mail.
I think we have a lot of hope. If just a few companies like you mentioned stand up and force employees not to work late, slowly employees will start placing higher value to work in those companies. Employers will slowly start to feel the pinch and start changing. This will definitely happen, but at what time is the question? I feel people like HD Deve Gowda who spend their time talking senseless things should take up these issues. It all dpeends on how well our political heroes can stand up.
Regards,
Subbu,
J2EE Programmer.
Yes, This is a matter of concern.
However this is typical of a labour class work environment.
Have you ever ponderd , how we have become like our maid servents, drivers and caual laboures working in our homes.
How we treat our servents ?
How we treat our Drivers ?
Talking about US and UK. Have a look at how they treat the working( labour) class people. We as an individual have so low respect for human dignity, we deserve nothing better then this.
Greed and disrespect for other human being has pushed us to this situation.
good luck
Yes, This is a matter of concern.
However this is typical of a labour class work environment.
Have you ever ponderd , how we have become like our maid servents, drivers and caual laboures working in our homes.
How we treat our servents ?
How we treat our Drivers ?
Talking about US and UK. Have a look at how they treat the working( labour) class people. We as an individual have so low respect for human dignity, we deserve nothing better then this.
Greed and disrespect for other human being has pushed us to this situation.
good luck
I think this article realy focus on real indian IT companies.I want to add more point that most of big indian compnies take more freshers to get work done in cheaper rate so that their profit will high and new joinee work for 12+ hours for just for learning exp.
Also these typical Indian Manager have attitude like Govt officer they mostly treat people under them as slave person.
I think this article realy focus on real indian IT companies.I want to add more point that most of big indian compnies take more freshers to get work done in cheaper rate so that their profit will high and new joinee work for 12+ hours for just for learning exp.
Also these typical Indian Manager have attitude like Govt officer they mostly treat people under them as slave person.
Not sure if we can blacklist such managers with their names/location appearing on web and also publish names of good managers with their names/location too.
Advantage : No one would prefer to work with blacklisted people and would like to join team of good managers.
Sometimes companies take long to sort out employee issues with such cases,it would be better not join such people at first place.
Not sure if we can blacklist such managers with their names/location appearing on web and also publish names of good managers with their names/location too.
Advantage : No one would prefer to work with blacklisted people and would like to join team of good managers.
Sometimes companies take long to sort out employee issues with such cases,it would be better not join such people at first place.
An extremely thought provoking article .. I remember working in my previous company . I used to feel tensed when i had to tell my boss that i would be leaving at 6.00 . He used to tell me that how is it possible for you to leave so early when the rest of the team mates are working . It would affect the team spirit and the culture . He used to start comparing me (girl) with the boys and stuff . Though I was married , my boss simply denied.
The point is that there are a majority people from IT industry who are bachelors and they are of the opinion that what work they have going home ? So might as well stay and impress the Big B .
So unless all of them take a stand against this , these are not going to improve . A handful of people cannot do anything about it , it has to be a group activity.
An extremely thought provoking article .. I remember working in my previous company . I used to feel tensed when i had to tell my boss that i would be leaving at 6.00 . He used to tell me that how is it possible for you to leave so early when the rest of the team mates are working . It would affect the team spirit and the culture . He used to start comparing me (girl) with the boys and stuff . Though I was married , my boss simply denied.
The point is that there are a majority people from IT industry who are bachelors and they are of the opinion that what work they have going home ? So might as well stay and impress the Big B .
So unless all of them take a stand against this , these are not going to improve . A handful of people cannot do anything about it , it has to be a group activity.
I just want to add few more thing.Some managers have very specific attitude problems, though they don’t ask you to sit late but they somehow don’t wan’t you to grow.But such managers face a hard time in their life too.There were cases of employees being escalating issues to top management directly, stating that they don’t want such managers.And top management heard that and made the changes accordingly.Well that is not important.There should be some way these managers learn and change their attitude,otherwise god know where would they land up ultimately.Moreover such people are just wastage of time and energy at that level.
I agree fully with late night working conditions and other points mentioned by Harshad.These points seems to be directly coming from frustrated Dev/QA/Support/TechPubs etc.
Hope this article of Harshad is read by such people and they change themselves rather ‘made to change’.
I just want to add few more thing.Some managers have very specific attitude problems, though they don’t ask you to sit late but they somehow don’t wan’t you to grow.But such managers face a hard time in their life too.There were cases of employees being escalating issues to top management directly, stating that they don’t want such managers.And top management heard that and made the changes accordingly.Well that is not important.There should be some way these managers learn and change their attitude,otherwise god know where would they land up ultimately.Moreover such people are just wastage of time and energy at that level.
I agree fully with late night working conditions and other points mentioned by Harshad.These points seems to be directly coming from frustrated Dev/QA/Support/TechPubs etc.
Hope this article of Harshad is read by such people and they change themselves rather ‘made to change’.
Keep on dreaming!
I hate this line ‘We as Indians are hardworking’
Working hard is stupid, especially if you aren’t the one deciding when you have to work hard.
When any successful person says that they work hard, note that they worked hard on things they were excited about and not because their boss or a stupid system forced them to work hard.
Hardwork is not a virtue. We are not born to toil all our lives like slaves.
I dread that in the year 2100 a child in India will ask him mother ‘Mommy was great grandpa a slave?’
Keep on dreaming!
I hate this line ‘We as Indians are hardworking’
Working hard is stupid, especially if you aren’t the one deciding when you have to work hard.
When any successful person says that they work hard, note that they worked hard on things they were excited about and not because their boss or a stupid system forced them to work hard.
Hardwork is not a virtue. We are not born to toil all our lives like slaves.
I dread that in the year 2100 a child in India will ask him mother ‘Mommy was great grandpa a slave?’
Harshad,
Firstly, Let me congratulate you on an issue which has been on every Developer, Project Managers Mind, some have written about it earlier and many will write later. Though, I feel this is our own doing. I am a PM and have climbed up the hard way, by going thru the usual ladder – SW Trainee, SW Engg, Sr, SW Eng etc… But I do make it a point to let all my Team to leave on time, else I tell them their Productivity will Suffer. The point I want to make is a very few of us ‘walk-the-talk’ since in a world like ours, there are 10 other people who are willing to do the same work for 2/3 the pay and our this insecurity is taken full advantage of by our Indian companies….
As long as we are considered as ‘Cheap Labour’ we will be exploited, what we need to do start delivering Solutions and potray ourselves as an alternate IT Hub instead of Cheap IT Hub.
Ever wondered, why we haggle with the Sabziwala, but quitely payup an absurd amout for the same sabzi at a 5* Hotel, US and the likes have the same mindset, since we are ‘Cheap’ they like to haggle on the rates. Companies here should put their foot down asnd not bend backwards or Forward to ‘Please’ a ‘Customer’.
One Solution is to Bill the Client Hourly instead, in that way Client will be wary of expecting us to worklate hours
Cheers
Orjun
Harshad,
Firstly, Let me congratulate you on an issue which has been on every Developer, Project Managers Mind, some have written about it earlier and many will write later. Though, I feel this is our own doing. I am a PM and have climbed up the hard way, by going thru the usual ladder – SW Trainee, SW Engg, Sr, SW Eng etc… But I do make it a point to let all my Team to leave on time, else I tell them their Productivity will Suffer. The point I want to make is a very few of us ‘walk-the-talk’ since in a world like ours, there are 10 other people who are willing to do the same work for 2/3 the pay and our this insecurity is taken full advantage of by our Indian companies….
As long as we are considered as ‘Cheap Labour’ we will be exploited, what we need to do start delivering Solutions and potray ourselves as an alternate IT Hub instead of Cheap IT Hub.
Ever wondered, why we haggle with the Sabziwala, but quitely payup an absurd amout for the same sabzi at a 5* Hotel, US and the likes have the same mindset, since we are ‘Cheap’ they like to haggle on the rates. Companies here should put their foot down asnd not bend backwards or Forward to ‘Please’ a ‘Customer’.
One Solution is to Bill the Client Hourly instead, in that way Client will be wary of expecting us to worklate hours
Cheers
Orjun
I hope this article and the comments has been written by a genuinely hard working person who has gone through such a trauma. As I know few people who write on this subject (especially blogs) but have never really worked hard or gone through this trauma, they just want to boasting that they are thinking on this topic and …
Also interesting observation of such blog writers is they are not qualified as software professionals, come into IT field, earn their bread and butter in it, when they hardly have any knowledge about software development.