February 28, 2006

Whistle Blower

There is something really wrong with the IT industry. I'm not only talking about the global or the economic perspective, but every angle of it. I am talking about the bosses, the managers, the HRs, the developers, the testers, even the office boy and the watchman.

What is wrong with it you may ask? It all looks so good, there is so much work being outsourced to India that every developer in the US is scared about losing his job to some Indian, "living in the wild".

The benches (For those who don't know, if you are not assigned any work at all, you are said to be on the bench), Yeah the benches in software companies are overflowing. Yet they keep recruiting more and more people every year. You would like to imagine that in each of those companies, there are hundreds of engineers, slogging day and night, trying to catch up with their deadlines.

Now you would like to ask, who am I to be telling you all this. There are a lot of reasons actually, firstly, I am surrounded by software engineers all the time. Everybody I have known in the last two years is a software engineer. So I am fairly in touch to comment on them. Secondly, I joined a software firm with high hopes, since I had been an exceptional Electronics engineer (lowest all clear in three of the four years). For the first two days, I really wanted to learn. (Though on the third day I was enlightened and haven't done anything constructive since). Since I believe I have been wronged, my instinct to learn was mercilessly killed, I decide to come out with this. Thirdly, I have been spending time across the world (Yes, on company expenses) and I have come across incompetent people from around the world, and can actually understand the differences in the methodology of work-evading tactics. Finally, and most importantly, I had once spent ten minutes thinking about how you can really work if you wanted to.

To collect more convincing data, that I am not the only one making a killing here, I decided to call up all my classmates (who as I said are all software engineers), during office hours, and ask them what are they doing. So after I make the early morning call to my onsite Project Manager and tell him everything is in control, I start calling the subjects. This is what I find out.

Tush has gone out to play TT.
Gop has gone back home to take his afternoon nap.
Dub is busy talking to his girlfriend and doesn't pick up his cell.
Dhil is playing minesweeper, and he has created a new company record in Expert mode.
Ank is standing on the roof and waving because Mots told him that Google Earth is now live.
Prav is having free coffee which sucks, and he plans to shift jobs because he really doesn't dig the coffee.
Rika is reading Of Human Bondage, because she has read every other e-book she could lay her hands upon.
Mots is asking his HR out for dinner. He plans to quit the company soon, since it's been over three months since he joined.
Shobs went to Bangalore to get some training but since the person who was to train her has quit and taken the code with him she is developing the code again and so is quite busy.

In case you didn't notice, NOBODY IS WORKING (except poor Shobs ofcourse).

Initially, when I started thinking about it, I though CEO's tend to keep the best potential on their payroll on a salary higher that the company next door, just so that they can brag about it at the next CEO's get together, because I fail to see where is the potential really used.

With due time however, I imagined that there was no hidden agenda, they keep them on payroll just because they can. They have money and they need to show it off.

But as time progressed, and my wits became sharper, it dawned on me, that the only way to explain the huge inflow of money without work, into the industry, was the underworld. Yes, you heard me right. The UNDERWORLD. I beleive, Black money from everywhere is being dumped into these companies, where they have employ engineers and give them salaries, and they pay taxes. It is one of the biggest conspiracies ever dreamt of. Everybody is involved, the media is right in the middle of it. They were the ones who made up the big hype about IT. The builders are in the nexus too, they keep on building more and more IT parks everywhere across the country, and sell them at outrageous prices. The banks are ready to finance it. It is slowly becoming the most lucrative business to convert black money into hard earned white money.

It's just bad that I am stuck here in the middle of it all. On one side is my conscience and on the other, my vanity. So I put it up here on my blog, because nobody would read it and I can say to myself that I tried my best, and since nobody would find out about it, I would get to keep my job too.

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