Job Life | Work Culture India | Satisfied Customers | Transformations in Life

Episode no. 1 -   Life outside University gates

Beautiful women, fancy office on the pinnacle of a tower block, swanky chauffeur driven cars, splashy parties, personal jet, morning walk in picturesque woods, water sports in mesmerizing beaches, exotic Thai massage for exercise, all I want is – Everything. Well I am sleeping with my dreams that are always full of a flamboyant life. But since I am neither Mr Vijay Mallya nor Sir Richard Branson I have to wake up in reality, where things are very ordinary, poles apart from my Dreamland. I guess that’s the reason why I sleep and dream so much.

Well now let’s meet Ms Reality. We are four guys sharing a flat and most of our other things except our under-garments (wink)!.  Every morning the demand for our one and only bathroom is as high as for seats in the Delhi Metro where 92.34% times you have to wait for long to get one.  If you wake up first in the morning you will be lucky to grab the bathroom and can take as long as you wish (of course with the other three banging the door like a professional drummer playing a piece on his drum set) and if not, boy you have to wait in a queue which appears as long as on a pilgrimage to any religious place. The last one – unlucky one, has to skip his breakfast  since the deadline to park your butts on your office desk is a prerequisite  as every soulless boss alias HARI SADU has the bad habit of coming on time or before.

VirGiN in JoB

It is my first job, I started up with a Z-Grade Chandigarh based Software Company, since Forbes 500 companies are not interested to hire an MBA with a Virgin (fresher’s) tag from some lesser known Institute of Management. The company is named Tech-chilli and they are giving me a salary package that I don’t want to disclose. It’s a small company started by an engineer (from some blue blooded institute) and his wife. Like most small IT companies its business model is also simple pick projects from project outsourcing websites like Odesk, Freelancer, Elance etc; earn in Dollars, Pounds & Euros and pay in Rupees by exploiting cheap Indian professional labour.  Additionally, it also has some business to business software products with numerous bugs, several compatibility problems and soaring high prices. I was in product division and my job profile was to sell our software products and make affiliates i.e. Partner Websites who will sell our products. Before joining this particular field I had a belief that selling insurance is the most difficult job on the planet but surprisingly now I see these software products walking away with the title. My job appears very attractive from outside as my visiting card projects me as “the” Business Development Manager but inside it is traditional, monotonous, arid and Soul-destroying. My CEO is in his 30’s but still looks shabby since his workbasket is always full. From his first look anybody could tell that he was a self-confessed workaholic who can’t remember when last he had a holiday. Like all Bosses he was a typical HARI SADU. He boasts about his achievements and the BRIGHT future of the company that wasn’t likely possible. He is a complete cheap, two faced guy. He’ll be a Gandhi when he wishes to assign you extra work or wants you work overtime – completely non violent! The moment you ask for a hike, a holiday or an incentive he becomes as sweet as Hitler.  Sadly for us employees, he knows when to press the correct emotional button.

The Great Indian Work Culture

During my MBA I had always heard my HR professor using words word like “work culture”, “ethics” and “organizational behaviour” millions of time. I had this impression of a very ethical work culture with a policy of employee satisfaction. Here, I am face-to-face with the Great Indian work - culture. The company had created a system which would kill all your social life and would make you a bonded labour by its shrewd policies and kick ass system. My office timings are 8:30 am sharp in the morning and there was no time to leave, it could be 7, 8 or even 9 pm. Every day before leaving you had to fill a timesheet giving full details of what work you had done and exact time taken for that. In addition, every week you had to make a weekly task report and send it to Mr CEO. No cell phones, no personal mail, no facebook; in short, access denied for everything that connects you to the outer world. The only good thing about the company’s work culture is that you can go to washroom as many times as you wish and that’s too without writing an official mail for permission from the HR department or Mr.CEO. Beside this, to make sure that you don’t fall asleep working in your office space (equivalent to bunkers of army at war), company had installed a Made in China Coffee and Tea Vending machine (with 95% water as the main ingredient).

Due to such an idiotic system the productivity of our Company was immensely low and need not to mention our work culture was awesomely Pathetic.  For increasing our productivity Mr CEO had hired a stupid Consultant who takes away 50,000 bucks for a one day session. “For the love of God... he pays 50 grand to make simple things sound more confusing and more complicated?” This was the question I used to ask myself twice a day!

Our Happy and Satisfied Customers

My marketing book at MBA said numerous things like, Customer is the king and happy customers = happy businesses, however haplessly the scenario is completely different here. I really feel sorry for my customers because our Business 2 Business software solutions only create problems. Nevertheless my boss was in love with the product and he liked pointing out fingers at the sales team. According to him, “every software come with bugs... even Microsoft Windows had bugs, so why can’t ours?” 

Transformations

From love letters to sales letters life changed in a zippy. Now Sunday, that used to be the most boring day of week, became the most awaited day of the week and pay day the most awaited date of month. Satisfying Customers and my boss became my number one priority; words like self satisfaction do not have any more space in my version of dictionary. Now Naukri.com and Linkedin are the most visited websites, Facebook is now no. 3. I was not alone same was happening with all my friends. The ones with good references (i.e., jugaad in our local parlance) did lay their hands on money making machines, the majority were just full filling their basic needs and a few were preparing for a sarkari naukri. So basically, most of us had to sacrifice our funky dressing and cool haircuts and had to cope up with Formal dressing. I can’t still figure out from where this stupid idea gained ground? I can still feel like 40 going on 23. 

Although I am very emotional with Mathematics but mathematically speaking in comparison to University and college life, equation of life had completely changed and seems something like this:

JoB LIFE = University Life – ( Friends + parties + adventure + hostel + facebook + dates + legpulling sessions) + long working hours + Unachievable targets.

Well there is no use in complaining when you got a job to do. So I stick with Baba ji’s advice which says... It’s too early to start expecting too much from life... Life is never fair, it’s not a bed of roses, it’s a battle, go fight, make mistakes, learn lessons, screw it and let’s do it. Cool advice! Sorry I forgot to introduce BaBaji. For that I need to rewind my life back 2 years down on the highway of memory lane, to India’s biggest and breathtakingly gorgeous hill city - Shimla.

Episode 2    Once Upon a Time in Shimla...

episode - 1    Life Outside University Gates
episode - 2    Once Upon a Time in Shimla
episode- 3   Save General Class
episode-4  Fun and Frustrations of a Hostel Life 
 Episode 5 -  Fun-sutra of an Amusing Hostel Life
episode 6 - Room no. S8, Buddha Hostel HSV


episode 7 - Room no. S9, Buddha Hostel HSV

episode 8-First set of love birds flew on an old Maruti 800…

 
episode (6-15)       Coming soon....