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IT Survivors - Staying Alive In A Software Job |
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Written by Harshad Oak
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Nov 03, 2005 at 12:21 PM |
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Page 7 of 19 |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-15 00:53:00
You've been bang on the target, no doubt, and I believe the only solution lies in the hands of the employees themselves. No matter how much the project estimation has gone haywire, it will always remain a question of choice, not chance, for the employee to agree to hideous work schedules.
Very often the employees work late under the belief that they do not have anything better to do, failing to realize all along that the only way to find out if there's something better to do is by actually moving away from their desks first!! :grin
And there's another thing I'm quite sure about too - at least 84.96% of the people who've read this article have agreed whole-heartedly to your comments, but gone ahead and continued otherwise anyways! :)
Here's a toast hoping that someday we will learn to respect ourselves more than this!!! |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-15 12:05:36
Harshad,
It’s really refreshing to see another Indian who truly understands what it means to have rights in the workplace. I work for Cognizant Technology Solutions, and I’m not even an India-based employee. I was hired by CTS within the US as a US-based employee. Yet, the company has no regard for employee rights, labor laws or any such governance. Even more informally, the account managers boast about people being their biggest asset, but really when it comes down to it, they expect us to work extra hours, come in early, stay late, take calls from home to coordinate with offshore for which we don’t get reimbursed and get no appreciation in return.
In the 6 months that I’ve been working for CTS, I have has many clashes with many managers on these issues. The first was when I was told that I was expected to start my workday everyday at insane hours in the morning, just because my client employees work those hours. “Conference call at 6am” is “normal” to these people. So basically, I have to change my entire lifestyle so that the client employees can spend their evenings at home with their children. Of course, my personal preference means nothing to CTS, even though I’m their own employee.
The latest conflict has been over holidays, or the lack thereof. Because the number of holidays allocated in a year is limited to an exact number in the US, it follows that if one of those falls on a weekend, a make-up holiday is given on a weekday. Every US company, every employee, even the McDonald’s guy who works for minimum wage gets a day off for Christmas. But not us “IT professionals.” By using some illogical reasoning, CTS has taken away my rightfully earned holidays from me (and all my coworkers).
The worst part though, is that my CTS coworkers think this is all okay. They honestly come from the mindset that that’s the dynamic of the IT service industry. That the client calls the shots and we do whatever it is that they want us to do, even if that means giving up our personal/social lives and employee rights. To address your argument of why employees don’t stand up, it’s because the Indian culture has traditionally been collectivistic. It’s one where there is a large separation of authority. It’s unthinkable to question authority in this culture because the intrinsic nature of authority there is that it’s beyond questioning or challenging. But if these “knowledge workers” want to boast of a lifestyle and a workplace culture that is on par with that in the US, then they also need to understand that no US employee will ever accept such treatment. These companies have a long way to go before they can come anywhere close to a US work ethic. They haven’t even begun. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-15 14:19:55
I think it is the mental frame of human beings in India-and may be in other parts of the world too- which has changed, it applies to any sector that you work in whether doing jobs or running a business. Spending maximum time of your life in your work is considered ideal and man doing that is successful! why not when on person does the work of 3 persons he will get additional advantage-whether or not that is what gives happiness!
Its ths attitude that has developed over a period of time in our society. Current bosses are previous employees who worked same long hours. I think our values have changed. We work for money and sometimes for professional achievement. When we are young we feel this is the time to work hard and earn as much as we can so that we can relax in later days of our lives, instead we relax from work but suffer from innumerable health problems and spend our earning for maintaining our lives.
We think that happiness lies in secure future and not in being happy in our present. If we are given the right values by our parents and eventually by the society, we can surely differentiate between how to spend time at work and in other things. But i guess its difficult to happen, how can we give such values to our children when we dont have them? How can we not think about earning more and more when all we are taught is the power of money to buy happiness? How can we find pleasure in simple things of life when we have made pleasure an unattainable task that we seek to attain for rest of our lives? It requires a lot more introspection at individual level and may be sometime such consciousness may bring change. I am hopeful that it will. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-15 21:58:20
Hi Harshad,
All you ppl are obviously from the IT field so can afford to have this view about your indutry. I am working in one of the top investment banks in the world, having set up its office in Mumbai.
You think only you guys work crazy hours, then you should catch up on guys in I-bankingor even in the private banks in India. It would surprise you. The latest in outsourcing are the KPOs. We in India provide research support to our peers/seniors abroad. All my colleagues are from IIT's / IIMs. They pay really well, have great packages (health/medical beenfits, bonus schemes, etc.), but expect you to work as well. Not that one should complain, but generally, I put in about 10-14 hrs everyday.
Still, I must say that we have a strict 5-day work week, so its ok. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-15 22:56:01
Harshad,
You are right on the money with this article and have pretty much summed up what I felt about working in a (big) project based company for some time.
Though I agree to all your points I will not put all the blame on the company for the delayed projects and the late nights. I would also put some blame on the employees also. To my experience many of the employees working on the project are technically incompetent, as a result they can not apply or use the technology to the fullest and in the most effective way. The saddest part though is many of them don't conciously take any effort to improve it also.
Many view staying late is working working hard, irrespective of what they have been doing the whole day. My own experience is that many a times I was assigned work at 6PM when I was about to leave. Some are there just to impress the managers. They tend to think sending the daily status email at 10PM would underline their hardwork than anything else.
Another factor in this equation is sloppy management at the actual project execution level. For example employees are trained for 15 days in java and put on a java project. The project obviously gets delayed and for obvious reasons. I am very happy now that I made the concious decision to move out of a project based company into a product based company in reasonably quick time (could spend 6 months threre before my patience finally ran out). I am certainly living a better quality life since then (even though I never get any onsite oppertunities and $$ to go with it. :-D)
My 2 cents worth.
No harm intended.
-Nikhil |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-16 03:07:56
I agree with your view's. We need to think about our future the things will not be so simple at the age of 50.
We are strecching ourselves a lot.
I am very thankful to TL and our client they ask us to work only 9 hrs. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-16 03:14:38
Product based is still better option than project based company.Though product based company manager also needs to improve a bit.Was readind one comment about CTS US,above.I have few friends in CTS and few have already quit CTS and few likely to in future.This company is so horrible one must say.CMM5 status ,still projects are messed up,time/work allotment is worst by management.In a CMM5 company why one is to stay late and work on weekends ?Where are the processes?What have management learnt while going for CMM 5 status ?Employees are real salves there.Employees are also responsible to ceratin extent for this condition.Lust of US/UK trips make things worst.And when they realize,its too late.I saw its CEO in Economic Times award function few days back.This is surprising.This person should take care of employee satisfaction etc.Recent "Cognizance" fuction was felicitating people who have missed their social/personal life and worked late hours and on weekends.This was the most disgusting part.You are promoting such culture rather than condemning.Harshad had rightly pointed that issue here.Harshad, one suggestion, how about you taking initiative to be CEO of such company and change things. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-16 04:25:10
Hi Harshad,
I found your article apt. I have myself experienced all this stress and pressure and it scares me to think what this job will make of me even 10 years down the lane. We have similar work culture in my team. And the reward I got for standing up to it was an extremely poor appraisal and literrally mental torture where I would be unnecessarily denied leaves even in critical family issues inspite of the fact that I stay 24 hours away from my family, so on and so forth.
I dont understand how to face up to such situations. It causes a lot of stress and unhappiness apart from office time too.
Does anyone have an answer?
People have suggested escalation, but when the top brass act like this what can you do other than quitting your job?
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Comment by Noname on 2005-11-16 05:36:26
I read views of most of the ppl here. I would like to aver 1 thing here... the pressure we have in IT is not permanent phenomenon. It is just the deadlines and last minute hicc ups which are faced..or to some extent very badly screwed up estimations make life hellish for employees... but in all we have quite a lot of free time with us and the number of responses on this Blog is an indicative of that. These ppl (including me) had time to read thru the article and blogs and then post his/her views. Isnt this enuf to prove that the pressure situations are not always there.
and every body has to slog.. even if u open up a small grocery store somewhere, u need to work atleast 9-9 to get it moving and profitable. hard work is needed everywhere, then why not in IT. |
Comment by Noname on 2005-11-16 09:04:21
This is really eye-opening ...
I'm an engineering student (non-IT) tempted by the software boom. I plan to get placed in campus in one of the top software firms. What is the ideal company for reasonable work hours and suitable remuneration- maybe 12 hrs x 5days or something ... I remember at an Infosys PPT the guy was bragging that "in our company we work from 8 to 6; NO, not 8am to 6pm but 8am to 6am". People seem to romanticize working late, but I'm sure it would hurt later in life ... Kindly advice. |
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