About Designations and Salary !!!

Greed is a phase that goes by for some, for some it stays, till it takes their life away.What keeps us up, what keeps us going,like in any other industry it's moving up the ladder that matters the most, so let's closely examine the motivations of the growth process, the drive behind the back office of the world:

Designation :

In an industry which is young and vibrant like in Information Technology, there are roles, role names which could not have been coined by writers with highest imagination capabilities, even if they were high on marijuana. Say I have come across designations as big as "Business process architect", the guy who bears the designation would fall by the weight of it, if the same is given in writing on a piece of paper. People who are outside the industry would look at the visiting card and build images of our hero flying across the Atlantic, being served by stewardesses wearing deep neck tops, holing conference calls and finalizing decisions between top government officials of the west. On the ground, he would be running between technology groups, filling in forms and excel files and writing processes directly copied from the first search hit that Google could provide. ( Keywords used are the strictly confidential as that's a game changer).

So designations are something which everyone in the Industry is worried about, Project coordinator, wants to be a manager not because his manager is doing something different, just because Project manager sounds better (Marriage markets love Project Managers, though Job markets give a deaf ear). Job hops are made in the industry because the hiring organization is lenient enough to call the same job by a different name, it's as gross as a prostitute calling herself a pleasure merchant. So we all chase designations and love being called a consultant or an architect and we have an oath that we take while we pull up the socks for the designation chase.A sample on goes like this:

" I XXYY, as a member of the this family will ensure that no matter what happens I will act, walk and pose the way society wants to perceive my designation. As a consultant I would wear dark rimmed spectacles, as a Project manager I would be the torch bearer for cliches in formal dressing and If I accidentally get to become a VP or above I will wear suits even while am taking a walk on the beach with my wife and kids. I would ensure that people know that I am powerful through the gadgets I use, the dresses I wear and If am unaware of the technologies that has changed I'll bring in topics from Adams and crush anyone who acts smart with my arrogance". This is just a sample Oath, please refer to the disclaimer before use.


I have myself chased fancy designations, from Bangalore to Jaipur, I have made one of the most weird career moves just to be a "Leader", on papers. Yeah the designation given was a "Process Leader" and I almost ended up doing the same job under the hot sun in Jaipur, opposed to the cool breeze in Bangalore.

Money :

Hey this is a key factor, Jumping jobs is considered much more important than enhancing your skills or learning new stuff. The trend is to do the same job at different places, for salaries that could never get justified. There are loads of components and terms including the most abused one in the pack CTC. CTC is like our penal code, it could change according to circumstances. There are organizations where in your CTC and your take home would never talk to each other (Take home is another Jargon for the exact amount getting deposited in the bank account, after babu's and the government get's their cut). People who work for one company life long are like "The Bengal Tiger", they do not exist and there is no Amir Khan campaigning to protect this endangered species. Anyways people change jobs and during the last fifteen days in the organization they ensure that enough venom is inserted into their colleagues, flashing their offer letter and the great life promised ahead.

Work Culture:

Work culture, often projected by an Organization in many ways, major categories of these desperate attempts are :

Best Employer Awards: Usually there are 1524 awards every year given out by magazines for the best employers in the country. These magazines have information about the organization, their own employees have never come across. Flashy babes they never saw, in costumes they could only see at the theaters and last but don't not least pictures of gourmet dinners with much more than Chai and Samosa :). So awards project work culture better than anything else!!!!!

T Shirts and Bags with a company logo, a flashy Campus and wear what you are comfortable in stabbed into the dress code policy are the building blocks of any company that would like to project itself as a company with a great work culture. Though work is less, work culture is something that cannot be compromised. Wearing a Benetton T-shirt, carrying the best in class portable, riding into a dream campus, and being on a bench for nine months is Nirvana, the competition of who has more time to waste is definitely won by the company in the longer run.

"Being there done that Certificate" aka On Site Visits:

If one thing the Indian IT industry offers and lures it's employees with, is definitely the promise of travel. There are friends, who could not get enough time to change their underwear because most of them got busy clicking and uploading pictures. And these pictures have a trend they are mostly in front of the London bridge or the Eiffel tower or the statue of liberty. With a pay comparable or just above a Janitor at Star Bucks, we still save money ,we buy gifts for everyone around, and if asked about the visit abroad other than a nerd who didn't save money most of us would not have seen anything other than the spots that's supposed to be visited or told in another way we are good at making "Being there done that Certificates".

So we move on, expecting hikes to come in with lesser work, with expectations of finding code online so that it need not be re-written, with dreams of clients coming in from "Tmibaktu" so that exquisite pictures could be posted on Orkut. The great Indian IT dream is fired up by mostly these factors. Any additions to these are welcome :)