Newsy News

IT sector responsible for poor roads  - Interview with  Larsen & Toubro’s  MD.  I strongly feel that the hype in the media today about the IT sector and the craze for an MBA is responsible for the infrastructure mess today.

I worked in L&T for several years (I left because I always wanted to start my own business ) and after interacting with  people outside, I feel it  offers the best working environment for an engineer fresh out of college.

In contrast, in the IT sector, you write code and work on a single project for months.  Unfortunately , due to media hype and high salaries, most of the better engineers today either join the IT sector or do an MBA.  You have to be really thick skinned to ignore people  who ask you what is “wrong”  with you, why you are not doing an MBA or joining an IT firm.  Software languages can be learnt at any time, I do the coding required for my websites myself, but you learn to design and manage engineering projects only from practical experience. 

  If the IT firm is developing its own products, it is OK,  but most Indian companies are  just IT sweatshops doing low end work.  And if all the good civil engineers are working as cybercoolies in IT companies, why are people so surprised that the roads are so bad?

BPO employee murdered . Another BPO employee murdered and the statement of  the Wipro BPO president is typical big company speak.  At  the end of  the day , when you do a ”naukri” , you remain at the mercy of  your employer , who usually is not bothered about your personal safety despite whatever their PR agencies/media  put out.

When I had a 9-5 job, I once had to go to meeting in a North Indian city to finalise things urgently, it was supposed to end late . When I asked the manager to arrange for accomodation, I was told ,  ” Go to Karol Bagh, and check into any hotel”.   I told the admin department directly to book me the last flight to Mumbai.  I have stayed in Mumbai for long and have  managed to reach home even after midnight when flights are delayed, as it has a fairly efficient public transport system, but in a new city (especially in North India) it is an unnecessary risk.

 A few months later, a junior colleague came to me and said the manager was asking her to go to some project site / customer’s place in North India alone.  Many of the sites are in remote locations, for example LPG cylinder refilling projects were  about 25 km away from the nearest town/city as an explosion there can cause loss of  life.  She had refused citing personal safety, the manager told her ” look at N (myself) , she travels to many project sites alone. “  I should have made more noise.    

I have personally  not faced any problem since I am very conservative, but I have heard enough stories while travelling. To be fair,  at some regional offices in smaller cities, people have gone out of their way to check with me if everything is OK, but finally one incident like this puts you off. 

Rs15.5 lakh for suicide victim’s family - Foreign companies may be outsourcing customer service to India, but few Indian companies provide any kind of customer service (many specialise in customer harassment, spending millions on advertising is not going to change their atitude).  So you have to be extra careful in your transactions, especially with private banks. Getting even a minor issue resolved can take weeks , and you should keep all “proof” ready.

The newspapers are full of “news” stories about the  latest luxury  and lifestyle items , but they are not really needed . Why purchase on your credit card / take bank loans and face problems later? 

Urge to Splurge  - another story on people who spend millions on luxury goods. Most of the stories are from North India. I suppose the newspaper highlight the stories , since these companies are their biggest advertisers, not because it is news.