Reasons to salute IT professionals
It was a fine evening; I was walking inside office, holding my coffee cup, I moved towards the balcony. It was a very nice view of the campus from the 7th floor of the building. Took a small sip of coffee along with deep breath and looked down towards the road. Buses and cars were moving to the home. Boisterous bikes were taking turn from gate. Eye catchy dressed guys with elegant formals, shoes, and electronic gadgets that too everything branded. I guess this is well enough to introduce you to the well known next generation professionals, IT professionals or techies.
To get these luxurious and lavishing lives, IT guys suffer many things in their lives.
Family Emotions
IT guys come from all corners of the country and work in metropolitan cities. At the end of day they have to go under very tear-jerking emotional trauma when they call their homes to ask the well being of their moms and dads. They always force their parents to come and stay with them and their parents persist in giving reasons of languages, regions, and many more to stay at home towns only. They change the topic when their parents ask them to marry and if they are married then their parents would ask for new child in home. They never want to stay away from their moms and dads; however their parents are very smart they want them to enjoy their own lives. If the techies are at early stage of their career and staying abroad then this emotional blackmailing will start from their parents’ side to get them back in their own country. It is very hard to explain their parents that they are abroad for betterment of their family and future.
Society:
Sometimes techies can handle parents, after all their parents can understand them, however society, OMG!! they cannot face society when they are techies and not married. Whenever, they visit their hometown, everyone in the village/town looks at them as the most eligible bachelor and they will find such techies as the one and only person left to get marry in society. Till marriage drama it is fine but you feel so awkward when someone asks you " so, how much? 1 lakh per month hun? " (come on man, I joined as a fresher, no one offers directly a PM post), “How is Infosys man ? " (I feel really sorry for such questions, how to tell people that, there are many IT firms other than "Infosys") and a very tough question to answer and explain "what is that your company produce?"
Work pressure:
Working hard for the whole day, techies look at the corner of the monitor, "oopsss, It is 8 pm, well now just for more 5 mins and I will finish this task and go home" After some time again you look at clock and convince your mind with same sentence, however, now the time is 9 pm or may be 10 pm. During interview for the question “what are your positive points?" "I am hard working, this, that, blah, blah “everyone reply with word "hard working". Techies aren't afraid of working hard, or working late in the night or even on weekends then what makes them to go past work pressure? When they work hard for 10 to 14 hrs a day and instead of appreciating them their management blames them for their small mistakes. The management magnifies their one mistake and neglects their 10 good tasks. If these keep on going, duty becomes burden for techies and when it's burden it will convert in responsibility, when your management doesn't change its behavior, This responsibility will turn in to "Work Pressure" for them. Their log-in time is fixed but log-out time depends on work.
Life of uncertainty:
Techies join as software developers/testers/technical writers with some sort of skill, they always have to keep on improving their skills or have to learn new skills. As their experience keep on increasing expectations from them go high too. If they do not improve/learn new skills, they become scrap for organization. IT environment develops their attitudes to learn new skills, sometimes organizations offer them some kind of training. They get the biggest shock when recessions strike their organizations. Techies never know for sure when they would lose their jobs, this tension is doubled if they have taken home loans. To avoid such tensions it is mandatory for them to keep learning new skills, sometimes they compare themselves with colleagues, sometimes they may become victim of office politics. Recessions have to do nothing with their skills or competencies.
Working Fathers
With all these hazards of IT environment techies finish work, catch the bus or ride their vehicles fast to reach home. As soon as they reach home, they search for children in halls, kitchens, and reach bedrooms. "No, no Don't open, Don't go inside, Don’t disturb her" wives shout on them and they end up in watching TVs. Working mothers get soft corners from their seniors, obviously their work is shifted to persons sitting next to them who are unfortunately "working fathers". This father leaves home early to reach office before his child wakes up and reach late to home after his child had slept off. If both mom and dad are working in IT then along with parents child has to suffer a lot too.
Suddenly, my boss called me, "ya , I'm coming" I reply. By the time evening shining sunlight gets converted in a dark night. I try to take chilled coffee sip while looking at very strong minded IT professionals who daily go through many mental phases, from family emotions to the uncertainty of life.