We asked Get Ahead readers to send their layoff tales and we are getting mails from employees belonging to different sectors of the Indian economy.
In the eighth part of this series, Anisha Sharma from the information technology sector tells how her company used her and other employees just as 'resources'.
Name: Anisha Sharma (name changed on request)
Age: 24
Company/Sector: IT
Educational qualification: BTech (Computers)
Work experience: 1 year and 3 months
Background:
I finished my engineering in BTech in 2007. I got my first job through the campus recruitment.
How I lost my job:
I had joined my company in 2007. Though it seemed like a dream come true destiny had something different in store for me.
Initially I was happy to be a part of such a big organisation. But gradually I realised the loopholes... the salary promised to us was never given... there was always a neat excuse prepared by the HR people that 'the policy has been changed... we never got more than 12k or say max 14k...
Staying in a big city like Bangalore and having financial obligations was really very difficult to cope up with... so couldn't save much money... rather I was just living a hand-to-mouth existence... but I had hope that may be after a year there will be appraisals which was again disappointing.
The manager merely treated us like 'resources' and they literally meant it. All the big talks of 'employee work satisfaction' proved just glib talk. They had no value for our qualifications... all the BTech, BSc grads and trainees were made to work on the same project. Or rather it's quite affordable for the company to hire cheap labour.
You were not given the right to speak or choose the kind of work you were capable of doing. If you do then you are in the bad books of the manager.
And yes my manager didn't lose this golden opportunity to put these people out.
In September I along with few other members of my division were asked to leave. The reason they stated was because of poor performance but they could not prove how a person who has been good performer through out her career could become an underperformer in just two months.
I really felt that such power should not be given directly to managers. There should be some higher authority to take care of proving the underperformance of employees.
Now I am still without a job and looking out for every other option and opportunities. I had recently attended a job fair at my place where only start-up companies visited and were ready to hire if we accepted Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh as our annual pay. Such is the condition of the market for skilled IT people today.
Family support:
It is indeed my fortune that my parents, my brother and my boyfriend are supporting me in this hour of crisis. I have some loans to be paid which is now being handled by my father.
Who can I trust?
No one except my family. I can hardly trust people anymore now after this experience.
Lesson learnt from this episode:
Always save money when you have a job even if it is a pittance.
Always be in the good books of managers; that's the most important thing.
Never trust people at office. They will never be yours.
Most importantly: Love your work and not your company because you never know when your company stops loving you.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier
Do you have a layoff tale to tell?
Have you lost your job? Do you know someone who has lost her/his job recently and is trying to come to terms with the situation?
If you, your friends or relatives have a layoff story to tell, to inform readers about the lessons that you have learnt, please write to us at getahead@rediff.co.in. Your name and identity will not be disclosed unless you want it to.
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