Inside IT

I'll take you a little back in 2007,

(The senario is from a remote college where the campus placements are not common and students have to manage the jobs by themselves )

It was the time when we were about to complete our BE and were filled with enthusiasm. We had the fire in our belly. All we used to fancy was to join the leading MNCs of India. Infosys, TCS, L&T Infotech, Satyam, Tech Mahindra, HCL, IBM were the top names we knew. Although we were from ECE, IT was the first choice. It was the time when we used to mug up those pioneer books by R S Agrawal and Shakuntala Devi. The C programs and their outputs used to be lingo.

The pet communication example:

Varun (to Virender): Yaar, pls give me the notes of Mobile.

Virender : (no Answer)

Varun(again): Yaar Virender, pls give me the notes of Mobile.

Virender : (still ananswered)

Varun: Virender, for(i=0;i=100;i++)
{
pls give me the notes of Mobile.
}

Then we were all done with our BE exams and waiting for a campus call despirately.

Finally the D day arrives: It was a call for the joining exam in a leading IT company. We have to travel to the remotest location of Rajasthan where the campus placements were organised.

We thought that there will be around 500 applicants as most of the other college friends were placed by now. But as we arrived in the karmabhoomi there were about 4000 students flooded to get themselves registered, it was a scene which can clearly portray the concequencies of the mashroom growth of Engineering colleges.
I wonder why can't some government education officer visit a place like this.

The selection procedure was divided into three rounds:
1)Written Exam sub divided into
a) Quants
b) Apti
c) English

2)GD

3)Interview sub divided into
a)HR
b)Technical

It seems as if they want to filter the real genious and the selected aspirants will work for the mission to mars.
(I am saying this b'cos the job they'll all do is no where close to the selection criterion)

The wriiten exam was done and 3000 were shown the way to door. The GD became a session of parliament where English was the secondary language used and that too was too jumbled that understanding it was another screning criterion.

Now only the 650 were allowed for interview. The technical part consists of all the things except IT. HR was as if the HR manager is himself interested in something else and he's taking out his frustration.

Finally the results were announced and my name was not called in the selected 250, ironically my name was there in the list of selected candidates which was pasted on the notice board half an hour later.

I was so thrilled and consider myself a blessed soul.

The joining date has been fixed and we all were called to Mumbai. It was as if we have done our part for the welfare of the family and now we are the top 1% of the crowd. The orkut account was edited and the company logos were pasted, communities were created. The tagline says the name of the company, and everyone was into fancy making and shopping.

The planning was to save about 50% of the salary and in 2 years we will be Santro wale. It was day dreaming all around. We were called for the 3 days session in the state college and unusual stuff was poured over us, it was a classroom session of 12 hours and alien C\C++\RDBMS\DBMS etc. was forced to study. There were students from ECE,Mechanical,BT,EC&I,Electrical and it was pain for all. We thought that we'll be doing some great work and will be responsible for a large complex task. The company anthem was played and all feel proud to have joined the organization.

Finally truck loads of books were given and test schedule were imposed upon us and all of us are asked to come to Mumbai.

Now we are in Mumbai as if we are in The New York of India. There were people from around the corners of India and the labour accomodation is provided to the engineers. Some truth began to reveal. The classes were formed with people of distinct background and everyone has to pass atleast 16 exams in 60 days with 60% aggregate. The new word learned was ATKT.

It was a little of learning and a lot of cursing. It seems as if the tutor is insane about the students' potential and is only interested in meeting the syllabus deadlines. This gives a clear picture of what happens inside the industry. Many students were failed in meeting the exam cutoff and they were out of the business. After 90 days of regirous training the posting list is out and all of us have been allocated different BUs and offices. All were now full of energy and charm to work in the live projects and go onsites.

Now, the time changes-a twist in the story, a new concept is introduced which is called, on bench. Some new words are also coined for the same, buffer resource, shadow resource, internal projects, ilabs, test people etc. Now comes the truth, all who were trained on DOTNET,JAVA,C++,RDBMS,MAINFRAME,ABAP etc are never given the project of there Discipline.

The excuses given are:
a) Projects are in pipeline(Iraq pipeline...that is too long to complete),
b) You should be multitasking.
c) Search for freewares.
d) Whats new in the technology.
e) Read more

The onsite opportunity is a camouflage. The project managers seek interest in exploiting you. The are not at all keen on the wellfare of the resources.

Rescission is a very fine excuse which fits in as the answer for any complain. You ask for something the answer is rescission. Till then the employees are asked to sit on bench, do nothing substantial. All they want is their employees should only be theirs forever. What the employees do is gulp liters of free coffee and a chain of forwarded mails. Now as the time passess,its been a year and many of us got confirmed. The annual increment us not done.The reason is-rescission.

The internal system is so sound proof that if you dare knock your manager's door,he'll guide you to SM, the SM to DM, DM to BU Head, BU Head to HR, HR knocks you. Now after 15 months of successful benching, we tend to give up...

We all find ourselves as a victim of the movie Damini
"Mili Bhi to bus bench,bench pe bench,bench pe bench,
Aur ab to main bhi ho gaya hu ek bench"

At last its not only me or we, it is the case of the entire batch of 900 students selected with me. Not only in my company, but every other company I find my friends in. The senario is same.

After all this what I learnt is, do hi cheezo mein paisa hai-:
"Ya to Design mein ya Resign mein"


Disclaimer - The views are personal. The thoughts expressed are in lighter vein and if anybody takes it seriously, he is doing it at his own peril. The author will not be responsible for any of the mispractices or Disproportionate Assets slapped against any employee if he credulously believes what is recommended in the article as gospel truth.