Time to change - Stop breeding RACE HORSES !

Disclaimer - This blog post is for the " Time to change " contest on Indiblogger, sponsored by Stayfree.
The link to the same is https://www.facebook.com/sftimetochange

All the contents in this post are based on my personal experiences. I am trying to pitch in my personal opinion based on my experiences, none of which are meant to offend or

hurt anyone. All characters mentioned or talked about are purely fictional and resemblance to anyone or anything is co-incidential. I also do not mean to offend anyone.

Prologue -
I would like to start this post with one of the encounters I had in my previous workplaces. I used to work with this so called company "____" for a so called team "____". As a new joiner, I expected a lot of documentation to be available as a part of on boarding process. The documentation could be anything related to project / process / business etc. otherwise how do you expect a new joiner to get inducted into the team.

Sadly there was no documentation available, days passed by and I somehow managed to get inducted into the team, though I did not have a clear idea about the business / process.
Few days later, I got to know the original reason for not maintaining a documentation [ though the official reason was different for not having a documentation.]

The reason was, employees were safeguarding their jobs by not having a documentation. If all documentation was in place, who would care for the employee in times of recession. If the employee only knows all the process, business, design, applications, come what may he shall never be let go.

Part 1 -

The above episode made me think,

1. Why do people put personal interests ahead of ethics / integrity ?

2. Are the people over there really enjoy what they are doing ?

3. Why are people so insecure ?

4. Why are these people so afraid to take risks ?

Let us try to find an answer to the above questions and go to the root cause.

People put personal interests ahead of ethics because of insecurity. They feel they have a family to take care of, they are so worried if they lose their jobs, they would have a mountain to climb. All these people are highly qualified and have degrees from good reputed universities. Are their engineering / Master's degrees of no use, when it comes to recession / job hunt that they resort to these stuffs.

If people really enjoyed what they were doing, they would never have bothered about job security. They would have been bold in taking risks.

But why do these people not enjoy their jobs? After all this is what they have dreamt of being.

Part 2 -

Not everyone who becomes a software engineer likes to write code. The salary in this profession is a bit high than other professions, as a result, many people chose this field over their interests.

So in a software company we do end up meeting people who wanted to be painters/ mechanics but instead ended up as software engineers.

The root cause of this leads to our educational system, where every parent wants bright future for their children. They can see bright future only in professions like doctors/engineers. No wonder, nobody encourages their kids to study literature or become a song writer.

So as kids we are bred as race horses instead. There is no scope to fail. Even before the school starts kids are enrolled for tuitions so that they do not fail. If failure is never seen as an option, how can we take risks, because, not all risks end up in being a success.

This answers the question as to why people do not take risks. - question 4.

After a while all race horses grow old and do not run at the same pace. As a result after few years in IT industry people lose interest and end playing dirty games instead of writing code, because coding which is natural to any software engineer never interested them in the first place. This answers another question. (Question 1 & 2 )

Now we try to figure out why people are insecure, if you love what you do, you give 100%, and since you give 100% you would be best in what you do. You will never have any difficulties finding another opportunity. This answers the question of insecurity. ( Question 3 )

Part 3 -

Now lets figure out what is the effect the educational system has on our contribution to the world.

1. India provides brain / manpower to almost all the countries. Some of the finest brain who have done some amazing jobs are from India. But have we contributed something indigeneous stuff from India, like a product in software which is sold across many countries or an automobile built with completely Indian technology which is in high demand across the globe ?

  We can see some of the automobiles from German makers in such high demand. Why so?

  My assumption is that,

  1. only people who are really interested in automobiles end up as automobile engineers over there. So they give their best shot at it. Unlike here where artists end up as software engineers, just because the profession is lucrative.

  2. Over the last century the German car makers have made all the mistakes possible and have learnt from them, so that now they have nothing else to fail at. Over here we are not allowed to make even a single mistake, how do we get perfect at an art without failing?

2. This effect you can see in software industry as well -

Do we have a flagship product of our own. Does some quality product ships out of India or is it just maintainenance and enhancement related activity.?

Epilogue - Time to change.

In this part let me write about what needs to be changed.

1. Allow kids to become what they really want to become.

2. Allow kids to make mistakes and learn from them. Make failing once twice thrice an option.

3. Stop putting personal interests ahead of integrity.

4. Take risks

5. Give 100 % in whatever we do.

May be after 100 years we can have an Indian car / an Indian operating system which would be in high demand across the globe.


Cheers,