Articles for a Cause

THE SATYAM Computer Services (SCS) debacle offers only a glimpse of the grey side of this so-called white collar world. It is totally unwise to single out Raju for what he is supposed to have done. We can point fingers at others only if our hands are not dirty. But in most of the cases the employees working in this over-rated corporate world are conferred an immoral pedigree by their peers and seniors. This results in loss of values and ethics leading to corruption, shirking of responsibility by burdening the subordinates and promoting a sycophantic culture of exploitation, amongst other things.
A weighed-down employee has to stay afloat in this dirty corporate sea. He becomes more and more convinced that only malpractices can help him survive. If he goes through a bad phase in the company he will ensure that his subordinate too goes through a similar phase. On the contrary, if the said employee is a person who believes in ethics, he will do the opposite: he will do his best to make life comfortable for his subordinate. But sadly this is not the case.

Another common feature of companies is the ease, with which they invoke the word layoff. They make a mockery of their employees by misusing and abusing their power to lay off employees.

Consider this: one of Bangalore’s IT companies bagged a project worth millions of dollars. But it hit a roadblock in the execution of the project when it realised that the redundant VB6 (a computer language) was to be used to execute the project. Since the company did not have the requisite human resources, it immediately hunted out an experienced head for a compensation of Rs 8 lakh per annum. The poor guy worked his fingers to the bone and completed the project successfully. But since his skill set was not of much use post-project, the company asked him to quit immediately, citing recession. Sad isn’t it?

I can cite numerous examples like this. But this is not going to help anyone. Together we have to come forward, leaving behind our lust for money. There are certainly more important things in life than money and power. Respect for each other, giving back to society what one receives from it and a healthy personal life are amongst the more precious and more important. If people think along these lines more, then we will get to see fewer cases of the Satyam kind.