What It’s Like To Work In Indian IT
In a few months, I’ll complete 6 years in the Great Indian IT industry. I’ve worked at corporate, in startups, and even freelance, across businesses (well, moving fast does have its advantages). There are a few things that I noticed while exploring this industry, few patterns, the unsaid rules that people follow, although I never knew why. Allow me to share my observations, my experiences, some of the little known dark secrets. See if you can relate.
It’s a Low Trust Environment
Managers rarely trust your work ethic (or help build one). They want you in the office, and if you’re working remotely, they want to see your productivity report on their devices. They’ll even go ahead and install privacy invading software to track your productivity. Even after that, working from home is still treated as a vacation. In India, manager (they like to be called a leader) is the one who makes people work. If the manager can’t see you slogging, you’ve got the bandwidth.
Never Keep Your Employees Idle
Never keep them idle. Somehow, employers feel that if you’re paying for something, you have to juice all the working hours out of the employee, even if you don’t have anything relevant to assign. Once, I remember being given some made-up work because I had time on my hands and I chose to work on a personal project.
At the end of the day, you’re often left thinking if you’re a white-collar employee or a daily wage laborer.
Productivity is Counter-productive
Most companies follow some sort of sprint system where they divide their work into chunks and subdivide that chunk within the team. But if a team member somehow manages to complete the job before time, they’re assigned more work, instead of celebrating their productivity and incentivizing it.
Contrarily if an employee does 1 day’s worth of work in 3 days, that’s accepted as a baseline and the expectations are continued thereon. Being a bad employee is rewarding as you enjoy the same salary with less work pressure and a better work-life balance.
Women-folk are a Hassle
Male managers hate dealing with women. Mostly because they can’t ask female employees to stay late or put the same amount of work pressure on them because of female’s “soft” personality. More often than not, I’ve seen managers worried about a woman disturbing the dynamics of an all-men team.
CXOs want you to Work 12 hours a day because They Used To
This is a weird way to motivate employees but a typical CXO pitch goes like, I used to work 12 hours a day and that’s why I’m where I am today. If you do the same, you can also be successful.
Moonlighting is a Taboo
People are not open to talking about hustle or any work they do after their full-time job. Why? There’s this constant fear of upsetting your employer, even if moonlighting is acceptable in company policies. Employers in India want their employees to work for them and only for them. Like their salaries somehow give them the right to control our lives.
Mental Health is Important, on Papers.
You cannot expect a positive response from your manager if you share your mental health concerns. At best, you’ll be asked to do yoga because yoga heals everything. Things like Anxiety, ADHD, and depression, they’re just part of life and would work out if you take a few ayurvedic pills, because Ayurveda and yoga, have answers for everything.
Muslim Hate and Caste-ism are Real
I’ve seen managers standing as gatekeepers to only allow people with certain religion or caste in the organization. I’ve seen colleagues who admitted they’ll feel threatened if people of a certain religion or cast are allowed in the team. This is something that even the likes of Google have to deal with. One of the best kept dark secrets in tech.
Our Laptops are Your Problems
This is the funniest practice out of all. You’re expected to receive a laptop from your employer, which would allow the employer to reach out to you anytime and ask you for work, BUT, while receiving the laptop you also sign a few papers. In most cases, it says that you’re solely responsible for the machines given to you and you’ll have to pay for any damages incurred or any loss/theft.
Isn’t that stupid? The employee takes your machine, brings it to work every day, takes it back, work after hours to deliver on time, and also takes the sole responsibility for the device? why won’t the employee be happy with just a desktop in the office? Funny story, Once, I was even asked to put in a deposit of one Lakh to take the laptop :D
Work Culture just means Work
Most companies just want to get work done. Doesn’t matter how we reach the milestone as long as we reach it. Even if your employees barely share a bond, even if your employees have to work on continuous weekends, even if you know next to nothing about the person you’re working with or for, even if you get screamed at, at work, or abused, or your dedication is silently taken for granted.
I don’t think people spend enough time thinking about how my company should be, what kind of person I want to work with, what kind of environment I want to create, or even what kind of product I want to deliver. Only getting things done matters.
Well, this post turned out to be more of a rant. That doesn’t mean the things written above don’t have any substance. These are real experiences that I had during my journey.
If you relate to any of them, clap for it :)
