Everyone Loot S/w Engineers!

Employees of IT and ITES industry have become primary targets of almost everyone involved in selling a service or goods. Because of notion that these people earn more, everyone takes for granted that they can pay more.

First to loot me was my college, which insisted that I must pay Rs.1000 before collecting my final year hall ticket because I got placed through my college. Then it was the turn of police officer, who wanted additional reward for speedy processing of my passport.

Then I shifted my base to Hyderabad, where my company is headquartered and where Satyam employees are treated as “millionaires to be” by everyone. Though we could remove our ID card to protect our identity, ironed shirts and polished shoes were more than enough for auto-wallas and others to guess our profession. Hyderabad autos were metered but they were not bound to follow that during early morning and late evenings, when we’d be on streets due to odd timings of our training. The only person who couldn’t over charge us was the conductor of State Road Transportation buses, who had to issue a ticket and the prices were fixed.

Chennai was still horrible. In Hyderabad, autos were metered and we could speak with them in Hindi, if we can’t speak Telugu. Chennai autos have no comparison in the way they loot their passengers. They decide price seeing your face and other factors like are you getting late for office or is it raining, than considering distance to be covered. A 6 km journey shouldn’t cost more than 50 Rs, but Chennai autos cost more than two and a half times that.

Next to rob me was the overpriced food court in Tidel Park (a building hosting a number of IT companies including the one I work for).

Last but not the least our companies loot us in a different way. Predominantly its our health and partially our personal and social life.

10 to 12 hours in front of computer a day, day after day will have a severe impact on health if not compensated with nutritious food and adequate exercise. Though the onus is on us to keep ourselves fit, we often ignore our health either due to laziness or in an attempt to climb higher up in corporate ladder. The high pay package can never bring back the lost health. Though I don’t want to blame companies fully on this what I wish to point out is that companies are not giving even 10% of emphasis on personal well being of its worker compared to the importance given to deliverables, deadlines and customer satisfaction.