[neosumit]

My 2nd post..

I had close to 2.5 years of work experience in an Indian IT firm located in Mumbai.Its the same firm from where Narain Murthy left and started Infy.

The regular question during appraisal process was "Apart from work what have you done for p***i"??:wink:
How can one answer that??
The point is if you cannot ask anyone to do more because that is not what he was supposed to be judged with.The logic applied by the management there perplexed me.

And after that I decided to make a shift to an product based MNC in Pune.

And guys, this is my own experience.There is hell of a difference between them.

I am doing work of the same quality and quantity but still feel a lot happier here.Maybe getting rid of the 3 hours of travelling in Mumbai is a major factor.
One of my friend happened to leave this firm and joined another Indian major IT firm in Mumbai(the biggest) and then he found out the difference that the Indian management and an MNC management can make.

What I am telling you may not be the case everywhere, but still there are lot many firms in which the people working are treated as software 'coolies' to say the least.

I am not doubting the ability of the Indian IT firms to compete with the best
but there is a lot of difference between how they treat people.
The simple funda here is : If you don't care for people even they won't bother leaving you.

However, even you have a good chance of having a bad PM in a good firm.
But thats part of the game.

My advice to all my friends here would be to look for a firm which suits your culture, your profile and your attitude.It would go a long way in making you feel happy in your day to day work.
Fo e.g. in my firm we can wear casual everyday and there is no restriction on timing provided that you complete your work everyday on time and do not miss any meetings etc.There is good quality food served in the cafeteria at a nominal charge and the quantity is unlimited.

Now even small things like these would make you feel good everyday and that is what that really counts.

One more thing which we must try is to live as close to the office so that there is ample amount of time for you to puruse things that interest you.Now in a city like Mumbai you cannot always live close to office because of the exorbitant property rates.

Last but not the least: If you still feel bad about yourselves look at those who barely manage a meal everyday even after toiling more than us.It would make us feel a lot better.

[sourabh_911]

Now that we all have concluded that life in an IT industry sucks ...if not for all atleast for the
technical guys....whats next that we can do apart from doing a MBA, Or speaking to your manager...
what other and better career alternatives we have after we have wasted 2 years in this industry.

[shekhar]

me, a 2 years experienced IT guy into a b-school now. I thank IT industry for all the frustations and groans. Believe me these are the best drivers/motivations for a b-school entry. Enter any good b-school & you'll see victimised IT professionals who made it coz their job, work environment sucked!!

'phodna hi hai iss baar toh, yahaan nahin rehe sakta mai' 'ek baar mba exams ka result aane de, boss ki bolti bannd karr donnga mai' 'saali life pak gayi hai, kuch toh karrn hai abb'

Go on IT industry...go on....these TCSes, Infosyses, Wipros, Satyams - you're thr grr8 ones who motivate us to put in 110% in an MBA exam!!

cheers!!

[Psychodementia]

Something I picked up from my blog:

http://askpsycho.blogspot.com/2006/06/whats-wrong-with-it.html

Whats wrong with IT ?


I know I could have cooked up a better headline than that, but considering that my writer's block is worse than

I got prompted to write this bit after hearing a whole lot of IT bashing that is happening around. Especially among the starry-eyed 20-somethings, fresh out of college and brimming with an almost adolescent optimism, wanting to conquer the "new" world, slay the mystical monsters that real-world poses. Unfortunately all they end up caught in the same skullduggery that has come to become a trademark of IT today.

However, having said that, let me try widening the perspective by presenting a scenario.

Just imagine you join a company and the only thing you are supposed to do is turn some levers and shafts (that too computerized) and generally monitor the status so nothing goes wrong. There are emergencies once in a blue moon for which you might need to do some firefighting. Else everything else is related to monitoring some numbers (which in turn controls some valves). The job is some remote village in Madhya Pradesh or Gujarat. A company bus that takes to you work at 8am and drops you back at 5pm. There is no computer, no internet .... heck not even a personal phone. Now, add to it, you are slated for a promotion once every 5 years come hail, storm or highwaters. And you know that there is no room for meritocracy and no one above you will move any faster. You come into a company planning to retire there (or atleast spend a few decades). There are no airconditioners in the office. But you had to wear formal clothes - possibly a uniform - blue shirt and gray trousers. Only a rickety old fan that goes ..making a plonk, plonk, plonk sound. And here is the icing on the cake. You get paid about 2000 bucks a month. That too with once a year. No formal appraisal, no one to report your issues to and worst of all, no chance of escaping from this scenario. Everyother company is like this.

Like it ? Niet ? Well, this was a typical job that a fresh engineer would get in any manufacturing company in the early 90s. Not too far off. Just about a 15 years ago. Sounds scary ?

Now let us revisit where we were. A swanky office, fully airconditioned with smart people wearing jeans and sneakers all around. A pay of around 20,000 per month with annual appraisals happening more than once a year. Entirely performance based 360 degree appraisals. Opportunity to travel around the world getting per diems which will help you make a hefty package at the end of the year. More importantly, a work place which gives you an opportunity to be heard if you have a problem - an ombudsman perhaps. Not to mention, 24X7 highspeed internet connections and a personal phone to boot. Proper training program, certifications for which the fees are remitted if you pass it, value addition through a variety of different forums and seminars. And the final deal - an ability to directly deliver to the bottom-line of the company. I mean, I know that I need to fix "n" number of defects before the product can get to the Beta-stage, which means I have to adhere to the SLA, which in turn means I am directly contributing to the revenue of the company by putting in "x" hours per day. Sounds great ? Atleast a lot better than turning knobs not know how you are adding value to the company.

So, I hear the next question "Do I get complacent about whatever crap that is thrown at me without complaining ?" Nope !! I don't want to sound like a "hamare zamaane mein" grandad. The stereotypical Indian engineer is hyper-competitive and never known mediocrity all his life. The best college, the best clothes, the best mobile phone.........so why not the best job ? But what I want to emphasize is that Indian engineers and any other people in the knowledge industry have an opportunity that hitherto unheard. You are at such a junction in time, which anyother era would give an arm and a leg to have. Yet no one seems to be understanding the importance of it. Just another day at office when you return without having learnt a thing at office is going to motivate anyone. Not you, not me, not anyone. That is just human psyche. So do you expect the HR team to come over to your desk and beg and plead you to "grow". Heck, no one cares for that either. If you are out, there are plenty of others to choose from - its common knowledge that India produces the highest number of Engineering graduates each year.

So what does one do about it ? Though I hate putting cookie-cutter solutions, here are some that I have to offer:

(1) Certifications: A great way to establish credentials, learn new stuff and more importantly stay motivated on the job. Choose the technology or the career path that you want to follow and take certifications in it. By itself they won't give you a job. But when supplemented with some real world project experience, they can go a long way in knowing your current (or even potential) employer know that they have people who have skills which can be readily deployed. Maybe there is an onsite opportunity and there are a couple of people marked for that position. A certification would clearly evince your mastery (albeit theoretical) in your area of specialization.

(2) Training programs: Don't just take it, also involve yourself in creating them. I am sure if you have enough bandwidth, requisite experience and good communication skills your company would love to have you on the team which designs these courses. One of my classmate who went onto join Patni. A smart chap, he was bored sitting on bench when projects did not come through (around the slowdown in 2001) and went onto write numerous articles for IT magazines and finally a book on J2EE.

(3) Soft-skills: If there were every a number one factor why people fail to get ahead in career, Im sure "lack of soft-skills" would top the list. And I am taking about a plethora of different things under it - facilitation skills, communication through email/phone, networking, understanding human behavior, doing your own personality assessment to see where you stand. I am sure there are plenty of stuff available in your company intranet or there is always google. Plus, maybe improving your general awareness. Start quizzing. Or maybe pickup a topic and do extensive research on that. "Greeky mythology" for starters. There is no dearth of stuff on the internet. We all know that.

(4) Domain knowledge: Frankly how much about your industry vertical or domain do you really know. There is life beyond pointers in C and objects in Java. Do you want to know more about finance ? How about doing a PG diploma from ICFAI ? Or maybe even taking up one of the exams offered by NSE. All in all, there are various ways in which you can gain competence in any industry though education is not the only (and certainly not the best) way to do it. But heck, that is as good a starting point as any whitepaper. As mentioned in point (2), certifcations have a huge benefit than not having any. It not only looks good on your resume, it also shows people that you learnt things by going through a structured curriculum.

(5) Have a goal: More specifically read it as - Career planning and mentorship. Pick a mentor to bounce ideas off. Either in your own company or from someother place - your professor, neighbourhood uncle etc. Unless you know what to do there is no way you can get there. Once you figure out what you want to do, say 5 years from now - equip yourself with the right skills. If you want to be an architect trying learning design patterns. Try putting up a website where you can share this knowledge. Or maybe what is written in point (2). Infact a lot of what has been written in the previous points is tied closely to this one. This is the lynchpin. Unless you know the destination there is no fun in taking up a journey in the first place. Having a clear goal (which ofcourse can be changed depending on circumstances) gives you something measurable, something tangible and something definitely motivating than any pep-talk.

The usual caveats apply, this is not intended to be a guide "What to do when you are on bench ?". Rather, re-read the subject line and you will understand the original objective of this post. So enjoy work, be happy and have a good night's sleep. IT is good. Not only for the country's economy but also for you and your career. Come to office with this realization and see things around you changing for the better.

[murty001]

Ok. Have you ever really tried to ask the people why they are really frustrated? I bet they won't be able to give a convincing answer. The majority of the people who are frustrated are the ones who while away their time the whole day on messengers and then start their work late in the evening. And then obviously it is midnight by the time they leave and the next day they come back cursing their Project Managers, the project, the company etc and go around cribbing about their frustrated life. Even many of my colleagues are like that. But the fact is if they manage their time well then they won't be frustrated at all.

The second case is of the people who are really frustrated. They think they are wasting their whole time sitting in front of a dumb pc and they are writing zillions of lines of code for a client whom they have not even seen. But then what did they think the IT industry is? They should have thought of all this even before they made this a career choice. The company never forced him to jump into it. I am really amazed that the people who say that they are into the software sector because it offers more growth are frustrated in no time at all! That means half the people don't know what they are getting into. They are responsible for their own frustration.

And these frustrated people are the one's who go for an MBA desperately. But what is the guarantee that they won't be equally frustrated after MBA as well? And then we will have a new thread on PG "MBA from IIM and still frustrated". It all depends in the way you look at your work. If you crib about every damn thing, then no job under the sun will satisfy you. I am a software engineer and I can definitely say that I am not frustrated at all.

PS- I would like to add that the majority who are frustrated are so coz their friends are frustrated. They would not like to be an outcast among peers.

[aashusood]

Even though I am not a “software engineer”, let me put in my 2 cents worth of talk.

As amit said earlier, what matters is how much time and at what time you are being seen in the office. I have a 8 to 6 shift. If you come at 8 and leave at 6, ppl start staring at you as if you are committing some crime. However, if you come at 12:30 and leave at 10:30 PM, nobody says anything. I have seen ppl come at 11 and leave at 11 or 12 in the night. “Now that is called a dedicated person”, some say. What ppl fail to recognize is that the guy was off for a tea break for hour at a stretch n number of times, has been chatting etc. Consecutively, it is you who suffers as the expectation develops that you should also stretch to meet that mark. However, it is not always that you can control the stretching part. If the stretching is on an on and off basis (project requirements et al), then they are fine, but else they are not. I know of instances, where the PM, knowing fully well that the project is likely to be a long one, refused to reschedule the deadlines. As a result, the team had to stretch for 4 to 5 hours daily and come on the weekends for the next three weeks. Is this what we are really working for?

And for those who say that you can always go and switch your job, how exactly do you think that it is going to a lot different in the next company? Till date, barring a few rare cases, I have never heard a company actively discouraging stretching. And as far as I am concerned, I feel that 9 hours of work a day are more than enough. Even researches have shown that you can work for more than that. For ppl who proudly proclaim that they work for 15 – 16 hours every day are either working highly inefficiently or doing timepass (or are being zabardasti forced by their PM to do so by breathing down their neck).

And yah I agree that the most prominent reason that the ppl want to do an MBA is that they want to move up the hierarchy so that they do not have to follow such a hectic schedule.

[shekhar]

Originally Posted by aashusood;626953
[FONT=Comic Sans MS

And yah I agree that the most prominent reason that the ppl want to do an MBA is that they want to move up the hierarchy so that they do not have to follow such a hectic schedule.[/font]

aah, c'mon man an MBA not for not following hectic schedules. MBA in any area ensures you don't have much free time while in job.


Ok, there are always(i use always coz i have so many samples and experiences - of mine and others) 'pockets of excellence' in the S/W companies i.e. there would be team which works for 12-14 hrs. daily for ......!!! .....!!! forever !!! and then there would be teams which somehow spend 8-9 hrs. in the office. I, personally, have spent time in both thes ekinds and believe me it depends hugely on the person (if he's in that pocket of excellence) whether he gets frustated by that or gets a kick out of it.

And if i say here that these bloody S/W companies treat MBA guys also pretty shabbily then am I sparking off a debate here? Hopefully No!! Coz there are so many MBAs recruited by these companies who are under-utilised and coaxed into doing the coding n other technical work. And yes, my sample size for this statement includes MBAs from top b-schools.

So we're boiling down to the point that these New Economy companies try hard to imitate the western culture but fail miserably and what they lack most is the talent/resource mgmt.


cheers!!
SHEKHAR

[kdboy]

i am a fresher and if i dont get into a good b school i'll also be joining a soft firm .The first few posts scared the shit out of me and now i am feeling " why the hell dint i fill up a couple of more forms ?" . Though points mentioned by psychodementia and murty001 are quite valid but still the overall picture is quite clear now. Without some great future plan in ones mind it may be difficult to remain poised and happy. One needs to hang onto sth that will give him courage when things go turbulent.
I'll need to think seriously over this and devise a plan for the worst case scenario . I thank all u puys for giving me these vital inputs which may prevent a lot of heart burn later

[Mahip]

Originally Posted by kdboy

i am a fresher and if i dont get into a good b school i'll also be joining a soft firm .The first few posts scared the shit out of me and now i am feeling " why the hell dint i fill up a couple of more forms ?" . Though points mentioned by psychodementia and murty001 are quite valid but still the overall picture is quite clear now. Without some great future plan in ones mind it may be difficult to remain poised and happy. One needs to hang onto sth that will give him courage when things go turbulent.
I'll need to think seriously over this and devise a plan for the worst case scenario . I thank all u puys for giving me these vital inputs which may prevent a lot of heart burn later

Hey kdboy,
If you end up joining an IT firm at year end, do come with a positive frame of mind. We are here not to discourage junta from joining this field. You can grow here and try for MBA exams again after gaining some work-ex. Though I wish you get some calls this year as well... Best Wishes
Mahip

[siddbera]

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