Today’s Youth: Living in a Matrix

Indian job scene never had it so good. Jobs are raining, along with the moolah.It is surely making the society a rich and wealthy one, but it is bringing in a silent change which is not much palpable now, but is surely hitting India where it may hurt the most in the coming decades.
Job scene was not like this earlier, even 3-4 yrs back, when i passed out. We had to really struggle to get a job, and all through the years at college, we had no surety of a job once we pass out, though me n my group were among the ones who fared best at the college.Me and my friend’s are aware of the hardships gone into getting the job, and really value the effort spent and respected the job we got. Today, we may be earning good money, but we still hv respect for money and understand its value.

But when I look at college students or fresh passouts now, I c complacency and arrogance setting in them.They are so sure of getting the job, that they guile away the college yrs. doing evrythg else than study.Their fundamentals are made of sand, and they are least bothered abt it, coz today’s env. doesn’t require them to be good at them. They kick any job that doesn’t put them in glass cubicles, or one which makes them do some shitty work in the fields.Evryone wants a desk job, or in other words, wants to join the IT industry. They feel tht’s the easiest way to earn money these dayz.Of course, where will you get paid for checking mails, and making GF, and partying all night, writing blogs, chatting, boozing and wht not.
I come from a conservative school of thought which had a belief that without sincerity and hard work, things can’t be achieved.But today’s scene belies such idea.But only just. This is wht i am gonna emphasize.

When I joined my first job, I was living alongside a bunch of college ppl.I used to scold them always for study, as I never saw them serious with studies. Though they scored well in their college usually, but they had weak fundamentals.At times, I used to even tell them that this way getting a job will be difficult for them, and they used to laugh it off.But I was really surprised when all of them got into good companies without much ado. They had this satisfaction on their faces,of proving me wrong on my predictions.And these guys are not alone, there is a whole bunch of them, who feel industry and companies are their mistress, and will pay them whtever they demand, even if they dont do an iota of a work.

When I look at the job scene, and the way projects are getting executed these dayz, I am able to understand this phenomenon.India is unarguably the hottest IT destination today. Most countries, including US, outsource their work to India, coz of cheap and skilled availability of labour.To a IT company, billing of a resource is all that matters.The kind of work they do, or the kind of growth it provides to an employee, the company is least bothered. One of the biggest ambiguity in this whole IT industry is to calculate the effort reqd. to complete a work. One can calculate how much time one man can take to make a table,lets say; but how will you calculate the efforts involved to incorporate a functionality in the software.Quantification of skillset is an improbable task in the IT industry.Though there are no. of tools and formulas which one can employ to calculate this figure, but even then that figure is subjective. Many a times, Indian companies make use of this flaw and demand more money from customers by billing more ppl.So, wht happens is tht the work tht can be completed by 10 ppl, has 30 ppl employed on it.N if u ask me frankly, it wud actually be executed by 2-3 ppl only out of a team of 10.So, that leaves 20-25 ppl with no work to do.Company is happy to feed them as they are getting billed, and the ppl are happy as every month-end they’ll be getting their free pay-cheque.This scene gets repeated ad nauseaum in most companies, more so in Biggies.

This phenomenon leads to a no. of side-effects which are spoiling the very base of the Indian education structure.All these ppl who are getting easy money tend to feel tht this is the way a Job works, it requires no effort, and the pay also keeps on piling up with every appraisal cycle.They spread this view amongst the peers, the student fraternity and the likes. This view gives birth to the present day easy going attitude of students towards the studies and job in general.The materialism, consumerism, loss of ethics and morals from the society are just the children of this kinda attitude.After all, wht wud a stale mind do,splurge on pleasure of course.

Now tht I have explained this phenomenon, let me come to the point I was really trying to convey.I am not a pessimist, but a person who feels one shud hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.Taking that logic forward, imagine if all this bubble goes bust.Countries call off their projects, outsourcing almost comes to a naught, may be due to any dramatic reason, lets say a depression happens round the world(which is imminent in coming yrs.). Countries may either completely turn down projects or come to a point where they ask the Indian companies to downsize.What would happen then?
IT companies have to lay down most of their taskforce, or bear the cost,hoping for this catastrophe to get over.My experience says in such situations only a few category of ppl remain safe–
One who have worked well over the yrs., and have strong fundamentals.
Two, ppl who hv good contacts, but in cases where the asses of even big bosses are on fire, such ppl also perish.

Let’s say the first and the second category of ppl do survive this crash.Even after that, more than 80% of ppl crash out of job.What will they do, how will the govt take care of them, or employ them.It will lead to a big crisis all along. India will not only lose a lot of money, but will see its GDP eroded overnight.Does the govt. has any contingency plan on that.I dont want to discuss this topic now, but what I wanna discuss is does the easy going, money proliferating IT junta has any plan to survive it, OR
are they even confident enof of pulling things off in such horrific conditions.
The answer, if you ask me, is sadly NO.

There may be two ways to survive the crash:
1. Try to get absorbed in any other industry in India, so that neither the person nor the country loses out on being productive and contributing to the GDP.But that wud raise a question, how will a computer engineer get absorbed in a manufacturing industry. That brings me to the point that it is the aptitude and the analytical abilities of a person that makes him perform in a given condition.
IT industry is the most widely open industry, when it comes to technology. Most of the technologies being used in practice are never taught in colleges, but still ppl adapt to them and use them effectively. Adapting to a technology requires an aptitude to learn things and deliver.What builds this aptitude is the hard work done at college and university levels, or even at job levels, when one is made to work in unknown/unchartered territories. When a student would shun his studies in college, feeling that he is assured of a job; and when an employee finds solace in sitting on bench and collecting the pay-cheque; without the concern to reskill; tell me how is this aptitude gonna build up. Of course, it will not be a one-day or the one-week affair which can be made to execute in bad times.
How will the bunch of ppl who have never worked hard to earn money, and those who have never thought abt reskilling themselves contribute to the country when good times are over. What wud these bunch of ppl do, other than being a burden on the govt.?

2. The other way to survive the crash is to become an enterpreneur.
“What happenned if I lost my job, as the market goes bust, and it cannot absorb me. I’ll work over to setup sthg else on my own, and make it as an enterprise.”
Can we think like this today? At least the ppl in IT industry, and I feel today’s youth in general doesn’t have the bandwidth to even imagine this thing.
B-Schools are a rage in India today.Why?Not because it makes you a good manager, teaches you managerial concepts but becoz u can be assured of a big fat cheque at the end of the course.
Today ppl think the following way:
“Who bothers abt taking pain to setup sthg on his own?
Why take such risk,man, when a company is willing to pay you loadfull of greenbacks.
Of course, everyone can’t be a fool like SaratBabu, who kicked plum jobs to setup an Idli-Vada joint.Goodness me, to sell Idli-Vada, after IIM-A.Was this guy nuts?”
If you talk to most wannabbes on the street, this is the reaction you’ll get when u ask them “Will you venture out on your own after getting a degree?”
First of all, our education system doesn’t teaches or rather encourages us to become enterpreneurs.And
secondly, the students don’t have the will to toil on their own when they are assured of a fixed and easy money after passing out. What this has done is make students shun enterpreneurism and shy away from risks.That whole attitude is slowly evaporating from the society.
So, just imagine if and when the crash happens, how many ppl will have the will, the tenacity, the confidence, and the acumen to pull sthg off on their own if the situation so demands.The answer,I feel, is Very Few.So, that will again leave the 90% ppl with no contribution to country.Again the same problem will raise its head, how to handle such mess.

So, my concern here is the changing mores of the society, fuelled mostly by the unexplainable boom in the IT industry, and the easy access to money that is making the today’s youth hollow from inside.One who can’t handle pressure, one who is not ready to take risks, one who runs away from hard work, one who is moving away from studies, one who is slowly being moulded into machines who can perform but lose the power to think on its own, to have the mental tenacity to achieve the unthinkable.

All this reminds me of the movie “The Matrix“. Alike that movie, aren’t the youths today becoming sthg of a energy cells being used just to make the machines rule over them.They live in an illusory world which has blackened out the actual scenario that is hitting them in the background.They will never know when the plugs will be taken off them, and right now they have no plan, neither the mental strength to fight out that scenario.
I consider myself a citizen of Zion(it may be an illusion also), and I think there are more members like me who populate the city. I sincerely hope to find “The ONE” to liberate the souls of today’s youth and bring them back to my city.It will be then when India will really shine.

Amen.

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