A persistent plonking. But this is not how my wake up call should sound. The plonking turns into an insistent wail. Eyes flutter open. The cuff directs itself to clear the slowly forming drool. Panicky fingers reach out for nearest switch to snuff the life out of the annoying device. Eyes frantically seek for familiar objects to latch on.
Curious eyes. Angry Eyes. Amused Eyes. All looking into my embarrassed eyes. A weak smile here, a muttered apology there and I make my dazed way into the restroom. The first splash of cold water, and I realize that I am in office; second splash – the horror of my disheveled clothes; the third splash leaves me begging for avoiding another splash – each splash unwrapping a new horror. My day in the office has started.
Before I proceed any further, a disclaimer: This article does not refer to anything even remotely explicit; the sensor board of any country would be more than glad to give it a U/A rating. Rather the article would endeavor to educate (the few, lucky) non IT guys about the grime beneath the shine in IT industry.
Let me confess, I am a reluctant participant in the IT revolution, an unseen cog in an untraceable component of the IT juggernaut. I had even selected my streams in collage to minimize the risk of me being sucked into this seemingly enormous black hole. But paraphrasing an ancient Vedic saying “Like all the rain water finally flows to the ocean, all modern day graduates depend on IT”.
I left the portals of my college (after a solid 7 year stint) a blue eyed, eager individual ready to make a dent in the universe. Unafraid of a hard days’ toil and eager to roll my sleeves, I looked forward to satisfying work, hectic though it may be. That was when I was introduced to the concept of “honeymoon period”. People tell me that, in the days of old, a new student/recruit was, in his initial days, literally ground on the stone. The intent was to test the commitment and endurance; if a tight rope walk is achieved, a walk on an expressway later on would be no big feat. The modern companies have another version of the same – give you all the time in the world; so much time that you begin to repeat every thought twice – and check out your levels of enthusiasm. A non brain dead individual at the end of the period is an achievement.
What is worse, its not as though you have no work, oh no dude, there is lots of it to go around. But the entire day going in contesting for pieces of work, in loops of mails and counter mails – between client and team, between team members and of course between you and your buddies. And suddenly you hear people politely smiling and wishing each other good night and reality hits you that the juicy piece of work you grabbed for yourself has remained just so – a juicy piece of work to be done. And your night and day merge in the twilight.
If anyone were to ask me what the biggest enablers of the Indian IT revolution are, even increased internet bandwidth would take a second place (we guys would have found ways to send the software by carrier pigeons, if need be). To me, the single biggest catalyst that enabled the miracle of IT is modern day office architecture. Kudos to the architect tribe, you now cannot differentiate between night and day, rain and shine, swelter and freeze; its al a plain dry office climate, as predictable as Chennai heat, and equally annoying.
But why am I complaining? A small (ok, a small but tending towards huge) belly, a thick pair of soda glass are small sacrifices against the handsome salary and a chance to retain my not-so-fair complexion. Or are they?
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