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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Of Human Bondage

A little more than two weeks ago, I received a telephone call from a Calcutta-based dot-com company. Apparently, the recruiter had seen my resume online and wanted to discuss a vacant position. A couple of tele-conversations and about as many days later, he seemed to have decided to hire me and sent a job-offer through email, which I accepted as the money being offered was not too bad. Besides, I was rather excited at the prospect of going to work in a city I had never been to before and even purchased some new clothes for myself.

I agreed to join on September 17 and was on a Calcutta-bound flight on the morning of that day. After landing there at about 7:00 a.m., I took a pre-paid taxi to the guest-house, where the company had booked a room for me, the bill for which I was supposed to pay on my own. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the fact that the company offered to reimburse the expenses that I would incur on relocation, only 60 days after I joined service.

After dropping my luggage off at the guest-house, I went to the office. The first thing that struck me, upon arriving there, was that the office was located in a residential area and there were not even any signboards, to announce its presence. Once I had gone inside, I was welcomed by one of the ladies I had interacted with earlier, on account of completion of some formalities. She introduced me to another man who was to join the same day, as a graphic designer, and then, to the trainer who was to conduct the induction/orientation programme for the two of us. The trainer told us a little about the company and its business, besides making us aware of the online locations, on the company's intranet, of various policies and procedures. For a while, it actually felt like I was welcome in the organisation.

Soon, however, the atmosphere began to change, at least for me. While going through the company's policies, I came across one, according to which, I was to agree that I would withdraw my resume from any job-sites, where I might have posted it and that I would be liable to be dismissed from the company's employment if my resume was found posted at any such website, at any point of time in the future. There was another, according to which, if I were to quit within the period of probation, I would not be paid at all for the last month that I worked. I found these conditions to be very unfair, if not draconian.

A little later, I was summoned to see the senior recruiter who had hired me. He said that he hoped that whatever I had written in my resume and had told him earlier was true. This was quite surprising for me, as I would have expected him to have confirmed that before offering me a job. Then, he told me that I would soon have to see the 'big boss', who would give me some kind of an assignment.

When I asked him to suggest an alternative for the room at the guest-house, as it was rather too expensive, he said that it would be clear within a few days whether I would have to look for another place to stay at, at all. It, therefore, became clear that the company had given me an offer of employment without having completed the process of selection!

When I met the 'big boss', he told me, at first, to gather as much information as I could about the company, from its website and when I had finished with that, gave me a few requirements to work on. When he asked me how I planned to go about getting the work done, I asked him for access to the resume-databases of any of the job-portals that the company subscribed to (The company had sourced my resume, too, through such a database.). This appeared to have upset him a little, as he said that he wished I could find him resumes of suitable candidates for free, through personal contacts and references. It left me wondering about the reasons for which the company subscribed to the resume databases. In any case, he agreed to let one of his subordinates supply me with the necessary details i.e. the user-names and passwords. He also said that his company wished to employ those who had relevant knowledge of and experience of working on 'open-source technologies' and not 'Microsoft technologies', against the requirements that I was supposed to work on.

By evening, I was able to find five relevant resumes, out of all that I went through. Two of these were against one requirement and the rest against the other. I was asked to print these out and show these to the 'big boss' (He had obviously not heard of the concept of 'paperless office' or, if he had, had no intention to prevent deforestation by using less paper.). He said that he found two of the resumes, one against each requirement, to be good. However, he also declared that I had made a 'serious mistake' by short-listing the other three. The reason, according to him, was that the prospective candidates had worked on 'Microsoft technologies'. The fact that they also had relevant knowledge of and the requisite work-experience on the 'open-source technologies' that he and his company were looking for, did not seem to be of any importance to him. He then proceeded to make several derogatory remarks about my capabilities as a recruiter, even as I tried to explain to him that all five of the resumes belonged to people with relevant knowledge, skills and experience. Finally, when he could not seem to proffer a logical argument, he resorted to the farcical one that he did not wish to employ those who had worked with both kinds of software tools and techniques as he believed that they were 'a confused lot'!

That was the proverbial last straw, as far as I was concerned. It had not only become obvious to me that the company was unsure about whether it wished to employ me for an extended period of time, but I also feared that it might fail to pay the amount of money due to me, if I were to be asked to leave its employment within a few days. So, I decided to cut my losses and run.

As soon as I was out of the office, I telephoned my father to make the situation clear to him and then, my brother, to ask him to book an air-ticket for me, for the next evening, so that I could fly back to Delhi.

My father was waiting to pick me up at the Indira Gandhi Airport when I landed there and we reached home at about 1:30 a.m. on September 19.

I have been trying to think hard since then, but can not seem to recall if I have ever come across any organisation that can be described as an employer worse than the one I have written about here. Evidently, exploitation as a policy of management is still being practised in so-called corporate India.

3 comments:

Sidhusaaheb said...

Dear Sidhusaaheb…every experience whether good or bad is a learning experience. InshAllah u’ll land on a good job soon
This organization indeed seems to be one of the worst ones….the **big boss** who believes that candidates having experience working on microsoft and open-source technologies both r confused, seems to be a confused soul himself. Doesn’t he know that to survive in today’s IT industry one needs to be an all-rounder(to some extent).
Fariha Akhtar | Homepage | 09.22.07 – 9:43 pm | #

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changa kitta iss company pe matti pa ke :P
U deserve a lot better
Fariha Akhtar | Homepage | 09.22.07 – 9:44 pm | #

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interesting, if mildly dickensian, experience i’m sure. i think yusufi might craft a memorable story out of this encounter.
kinkminos | Homepage | 09.23.07 – 9:41 am | #

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Man..all I feel like saying is…
Some experience Sidhu Saaheb!

Aman | Homepage | 09.24.07 – 8:22 am | #

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That sounds totally unprofessional and unfair!
You know what, you should make a good writeup, alongwith company’s name and post it on your blog. then email the employer the whole stuff alongwith comments…
You are too humble to still write so decently about them
unaiza nasim | Homepage | 09.24.07 – 9:59 pm | #

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Is it a common trend in India these days to hire w/o a personal face to face interview? Well, I think it is not a good idea to join a Co. without having met face to face with the high ups (especially if it is a “dotcom” stuff). Like job seekers, lots of “Tatpunjiya” (I don’t even know what that word means) companies also project themselves to be bigger than what they are. I also understand that sometimes it is not feasible to meet the high ups as in this case you were in Delhi and the Co. was in Calicut. Over here they conduct the initial rounds of interview on the phone (even if you are local) and then the final interview is at the company’s premise (and you fly/drive down there). This way they get a better idea of who you are and you get an idea of what the company is like. After all it is the question of spending half of your day with them. Anyways, good luck and hope you will find something pretty soon.
Sifar | Homepage | 09.25.07 – 9:46 pm | #

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try http://in.jobstreet.com/jobs/200…295706.htm? fr=J
Anon. | Homepage | 09.25.07 – 9:56 pm | #

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Oh my god … It’s pure exploitation of resources.

I wonder were you mailed properly the contract before hand?? That should have been a must thing .. since you were not interviewed personally nor did YOU got the chance to analyze your employers. This behaviour was insane.

Yu did the right thing … but now take a step further and have your story printed in Some Newspaper of that story as in Letters to the editor. People should be knowing what the newer IT maket is all about … they should learn business ethics first.

And what was your ex-boss thinking? I wonder if he knew about Open Source Technologies If I analyze 100 people that i know from CS – all of them Know aout Open-Source as well as MS application … we work in both.

GOD …!
Asma | Homepage | 09.26.07 – 8:50 pm | #

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sir-ji no offense, but as much as companies should do background checks on employees.. we should do some checks of our own as well

and next time you’re at delhi airport, might as well let me know
nomad | Homepage | 09.28.07 – 8:45 am | #

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Hope you get a new job soon, best of luck
cyberkitty | Homepage | 09.29.07 – 2:20 pm | #

Sidhusaaheb said...

@Fariha: I agree! I definitely learned a lesson there, even if I gained nothing else. Big Boss would’ve been able to expand his business far beyond its current size, if he’d realized that, it seems to me.

Bilkul sahi farmaaoNde ne janaab! Mera vi aiho khayaal si.

@Kinkminos: Hehe… I, for one, would love to read that story!

@Aman: Thanks for dropping by! It was quite an experience indeed!

@Unaiza: I agree with you about the company’s actions being unprofessional and unfair. However, since I have decided not to reveal my identity completely on my blog, I’ll not be giving out any more details or sending the blog post to the company.

Thanks for the kind words about me!

@Sifar: Recently, my brother has been hired by IBM’s BPO division at Bangalore in a similar fashion and his experience has been good in this regard. However, I agree that in my case it would have been better if I had insisted on a personal interview, before agreeing to join. Thanks for the good wishes!

@Anon./Sifar: Thank you so much!
Sidhusaaheb | Homepage | 10.06.07 – 3:14 pm | #

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@Asma: They did mail me an offer-letter that provided a brief idea about the kind of recruitment work they expected me to do, besides the details of my compensation package.

I did write to the company, after I reached home, asking to be paid for the day that I worked and to be reimbursed the expenses for travel and stay. However, I have received no response so far. I think your suggestion is very valid and am actively considering writing to editors of leading newspapers.

Only if Big-Boss were to realise that multi-skilled employees are an asset to the company and not a liability!

@Nomad: You’re right! Actually, I was taken in by the fact the company’s B2C website has been up and running for several years now and has a sizeable number of users worldwide.

I’ll definitely try to remember to inform you beforehand, the next time I’m likely to be at Delhi airport.

@Cyberkitty: Thanks for the good wishes!

@VM: Thanks for dropping by!

The reasons were as described in my response above, to Nomad’s comment.
Sidhusaaheb | Homepage | 10.06.07 – 3:30 pm | #

Sidhusaaheb said...

Scary! Best of luck in your endeavours sidhusaaheb
sabizak | Homepage | 10.10.07 – 11:36 am | #

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Yup! Thanks!!
Sidhusaaheb | Homepage | 10.14.07 – 7:26 pm | #

 
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