More on QLC...
A few lines from an interesting article on Quarter Life Crisis-
They call it the "quarter-life crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two but then get hot and scared because you barely know where you are now.
You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.
Doesn't this truly resonate with what we think?
This is what i always think - why don't people get to do the work they "aim" to or atleast they "wish" or "like" to. It is said that we have to chase such work but the work we like to do will not come to us and ask us to "do" it! I have always wanted to interact a lot with people, sell concepts, spaces and products. I like travelling too. But i never get to do them in my present job! Enough has been said about "Like the work you have got." How can one simply like a job where knowledge gained by the end of the day or at least learnings that we use from past experiences is "nil". In a so called "software company" in India, all that remains in the end of the day are tonnes of documents, ppts and excel sheets. HR Managers talk tirelessly about attrition rates and job hopping professionals but i wonder if they have done a little introspection on why this was happening! They should know the realities of techies' working atmosphere.
The IT industry in India runs over the following two parallel tracks:
1) The notion that Indians are excellent software programmers and
2) Indians will work day and night including weekends if paid a little more.
The second idea is taken for granted given the mindset of an "average" Indian. But, i seriously doubt the first notion, after having spent more than an year in an Indian s/w services company. It may collapse any time and put the train in danger. Little can i understand, how american companies who offshore work to Indian s/w services companies, are ready to pay those millions for a low quality work (YES, the quality of work is low here, let me explain down the lane...) that they get in return. Quality of work lies in the product that we deliver, but not in the documents that go along with the product. Our managers here tend to give utmost importance to a document or a presentation but when it comes to a code deliverable, they have little time to go through it, given their "competence" in doing so. Indian software companies need Technical Managers rather than managers who come up through the "experience" chain or who has done a certificate course in Project Management. I often come across managers who use the words "Road Map, Proactive, Ground Work, Priorities etc" too often (without any need to use them) that i tend to hate these words nowadays.
Atanu Dey, an economist has written an article on why India can never be an IT super power. It's available here.
The only reason i am happy about the Industry is that many young passouts and professionals are getting jobs which otherwise they wouldn't if the industry is not experiencing this "tremendous" growth.
Another reason why the americans are outsourcing could be this: what if we venture into High Technology R&D and come up with World Class products in Chip Design, Telecom etc. Then, the US would loose its numero uno position among the technology nations. (would this ever happen? :) ).
moreover, a few facts as to why India can never be an IT superpower. Indian s/w exports in 2003-04 were aound $12 billion whereas the total exports of Microsoft alone (one of the big s/w companies in the US), was much more than that of the whole India. Take china, where the domestic s/w consumption was worth around $ 30 billions (My GOD!). China is doing great in manufacturing too that the Government wants to slow the growth of the country. Much has already been said about the technological prowess of Japan, automobile competence of Germany etc. Finland has also been emerging fast as a Techie nation, why not when it's home to Nokia, which connects more people on Earth than it's nearest competitor. When so many countries are fast revving up their technological competency, can we, a poor nation of kinky billion people ever come up the tech ladder? It's a serious question which needs a multi dimensional introspection. First there are so many mouths to feed rather than teaching their fingers to handle mouse and key boards.
We need to do a serious multi dimensional soul searching to answer the question "Is India an IT super power?" In my view, in a decade or so, say in 2015, there could be very little to boast of india as an IT super power, as, I hope, by then, International biggies would have acquired many Indian companies or Indian bigges will merge with IT services giants like the big blue, accenture etc. So, what can we do, that makes us specialists in that job and lets us command the world??
They call it the "quarter-life crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two but then get hot and scared because you barely know where you are now.
You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared.
Doesn't this truly resonate with what we think?
This is what i always think - why don't people get to do the work they "aim" to or atleast they "wish" or "like" to. It is said that we have to chase such work but the work we like to do will not come to us and ask us to "do" it! I have always wanted to interact a lot with people, sell concepts, spaces and products. I like travelling too. But i never get to do them in my present job! Enough has been said about "Like the work you have got." How can one simply like a job where knowledge gained by the end of the day or at least learnings that we use from past experiences is "nil". In a so called "software company" in India, all that remains in the end of the day are tonnes of documents, ppts and excel sheets. HR Managers talk tirelessly about attrition rates and job hopping professionals but i wonder if they have done a little introspection on why this was happening! They should know the realities of techies' working atmosphere.
The IT industry in India runs over the following two parallel tracks:
1) The notion that Indians are excellent software programmers and
2) Indians will work day and night including weekends if paid a little more.
The second idea is taken for granted given the mindset of an "average" Indian. But, i seriously doubt the first notion, after having spent more than an year in an Indian s/w services company. It may collapse any time and put the train in danger. Little can i understand, how american companies who offshore work to Indian s/w services companies, are ready to pay those millions for a low quality work (YES, the quality of work is low here, let me explain down the lane...) that they get in return. Quality of work lies in the product that we deliver, but not in the documents that go along with the product. Our managers here tend to give utmost importance to a document or a presentation but when it comes to a code deliverable, they have little time to go through it, given their "competence" in doing so. Indian software companies need Technical Managers rather than managers who come up through the "experience" chain or who has done a certificate course in Project Management. I often come across managers who use the words "Road Map, Proactive, Ground Work, Priorities etc" too often (without any need to use them) that i tend to hate these words nowadays.
Atanu Dey, an economist has written an article on why India can never be an IT super power. It's available here.
The only reason i am happy about the Industry is that many young passouts and professionals are getting jobs which otherwise they wouldn't if the industry is not experiencing this "tremendous" growth.
Another reason why the americans are outsourcing could be this: what if we venture into High Technology R&D and come up with World Class products in Chip Design, Telecom etc. Then, the US would loose its numero uno position among the technology nations. (would this ever happen? :) ).
moreover, a few facts as to why India can never be an IT superpower. Indian s/w exports in 2003-04 were aound $12 billion whereas the total exports of Microsoft alone (one of the big s/w companies in the US), was much more than that of the whole India. Take china, where the domestic s/w consumption was worth around $ 30 billions (My GOD!). China is doing great in manufacturing too that the Government wants to slow the growth of the country. Much has already been said about the technological prowess of Japan, automobile competence of Germany etc. Finland has also been emerging fast as a Techie nation, why not when it's home to Nokia, which connects more people on Earth than it's nearest competitor. When so many countries are fast revving up their technological competency, can we, a poor nation of kinky billion people ever come up the tech ladder? It's a serious question which needs a multi dimensional introspection. First there are so many mouths to feed rather than teaching their fingers to handle mouse and key boards.
We need to do a serious multi dimensional soul searching to answer the question "Is India an IT super power?" In my view, in a decade or so, say in 2015, there could be very little to boast of india as an IT super power, as, I hope, by then, International biggies would have acquired many Indian companies or Indian bigges will merge with IT services giants like the big blue, accenture etc. So, what can we do, that makes us specialists in that job and lets us command the world??
posted by Venkat Ramanan @ 3:32 PM
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