Of Human Bondage and other horrors.

I doubt that W Somerset Maugham had quite the same connotation in mind when he wrote his masterpiece Of human bondage, but this is what I think of service agreements, bonds et al. What are you walling in or walling out? You wall in your employees’ resentment and wall out growth. Why do you penalize them when they leave for greener pastures? Is it a crime to seek better opportunities? Change is constant. So, why leave a bitter aftertaste in your former employees’ mouths by your draconian policies? You reason that you have the right to recover the large amounts you invest in your employees. I agree. But what of the sacrifices they make of their personal lives and health to provide dedicated service? They more than compensate for that investment by enduring Carpal tunnel syndrome, insomnia and lumbago. Service agreements are effective in stemming attrition. But are they really? You make fugitives, “absconders”, to use your own term, of innocent, law-abiding citizens. Why not invest in retaining your employees through a good work culture, better management and care about their growth prospects? If they are provided a work-environment to their satisfaction, why would they consider other options? Everyone wishes to take away beautiful memories of the organization for which he or she has worked. Why ruin this for them? OK. This is enough ranting. But it’s tough to resist when injustice hits too close to home.

As a software developer, you are at the bottom of the food chain; the lowest rung of the ladder, as it were. Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to toil and die. There is no respect for your time, services or resources. You are a drone; one which keeps its head down and nose deep in work. You schmooze with the bosses and hope they’ll remember you during that crucial “performance rating” which decides your worth to the company. You slog and slog and slog some more, with nary a whisper of protest. God forbid should you so much as dream of insubordination. You form cliques, cartels even, with your managers; each cell takes care of its own members. Heaven keep you if you are perceived an outsider by the countless little “office-gangs”. They look out for their own; you are small fry. You play along, or perish.

I resigned recently. Weathered resignation veterans chimed, “HR wale sab kuch kar sakte hain. Bond waiver bhi”. OK. So the HR officers (HROs) in my branch are genuinely nice people. So much so that you would actually want to be friends with them outside the office, socialize with them even if you gained nothing from the “affiliation”. But, as the world works on the principle of ying and yang, all this sweetness and light is mitigated by, er, the opposite of s. and l. No prizes for guessing which HRO I got for processing my resignation. So far, so ghastly.

To say that she has the disposition of a snapping turtle, would be a gross understatement of which I’d rather not be guilty. So scratch that analogy. Attila the Hun, for all his ferocity, seems like a petulant toddler of indulgent parents; Hercules had it easy with the Hydra. But not I. Give me an alligator pit filled with hungry alligators any day of the week and twice on a weekend.

It transpired that I would end up paying a whopping fifty grand and this, when there was less than a month to go for the bond period’s expiry. Others who left before me paid a pittance to be released from this bondage. I would have to pay-up if I wanted the much-coveted “work-experience certificate”; unless the project management “recommended” me for “bond waiver”. Pshaw, said the veterans, the HRO has all the powers, she can do everything. So, I tried every trick in the book to have my bond waived. First, there was the docile, look-at-me-I’m-so-helpless act. When the Bambi routine fell through, I turned on the old charm. Kabhi-kabhi, gadhe ko bhi baap banana padta hai, nodded the veterans wisely. She shrugged off the politeness and spurned the smile. In the same breath, she cooed like a brooding pigeon when she spoke with a male colleague and answered all his queries with the patience of a monk. Oh, well.

I wish “Love thy boss” was a diktat I had followed. Yours truly had burnt all the bridges with the project management and drilled holes in the boats. Besides, being hydrophobic didn’t help either. I will someday write a treatise on Good bosses: An endangered species. But let’s dedicate that to some other entry. Coming back to my original whine, my tryst with the HRO was an exercise in patience; this particular one is in dire need of a beginners’ course in common courtesy. Given her rudimentary grasp on civility, you can well imagine my travails. So there I was, prepared to be set back by an astronomical amount. But, someone from the top management (God bless him!) saved the day and my recommendation came through.
Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,
God took a Daniel once again.
Stood by his side and miracle of miracles,
Walked him through the lion’s den.


As of July 16th , 2007 , 6:00 pm Indian time, I am officially unemployed.
Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.