Tuesday 26 December 2017

'Your call is important to us ...'

'Your call is important to us, please stay on the line. All our operators are busy.' This cold impersonal voice at the other end of the phone is followed by instrumental music or announcement of discount offers.

Mind you this is what we get after undergoing a long drawn rigmarole of 'press 1 for this ... press 0 for that'.

By the time one of the 'busy' operators comes on line and says 'good morning my name is so-in-so and how can I help you' your systolic blood pressure may have travelled a great distance in the wrong direction.

Hence when they ask some questions like model of the gadget, its serial number or exact date of purchase - all essential from the manufacturer's or a service provider's point of view, but to the customer it acts like yet another turn of the screw and things reach snapping point.

One has to rummage through old bills, bend down or even go underneath the gadget to get the required numbers. After mentioning the number comes the assurance, "Thank you, your complaint number is so-in-so and our technician will rectify it within 24 hours," followed by a text message.

For some lucky ones their deliverance happens at this point, while for many others it is back to the Sisyphean grind with follow up calls.

Welcome to the world of answering machines, a contraption ushered in by the telecom revolution. It was seen as a as a posh device intended to ease customers' pain, but its too has its own penchant of being Kafkaesque and open to manipulation by human operators.

While bureaucracy of yesteryears took a toll on your legs with sundry babus making you run round in circles, the modern day answering machines does the same on your nerves by making you sit as your mental poise and phone balance take a hit.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Tuesday 12 December 2017

No Country For Old Men

While Indian employers are gleefully adopting the hire and fire credo by copy-pasting the American template, the HR recruiters, on the other hand, are pursuing ageism with a missionary zeal. With the country flush with young people (thanks to our rabbit-like breeding tendencies) fresh graduates are dime a dozen. Hence, our HR managers never had it so good.

In private and corporate sector no job at any level can be considered immune to pink slips. Nor do higher ups get any stray thoughts (bordering on altruism) "Oh, if I fire such a senior person he may find it very difficult to get a job. He has a family to run and EMIs to pay." In fact they are often the first to be sent off.

If the layoff axe falls and you happen to be on the wrong side of 30, your chances of re-employment are slim as the long shadow of experience makes your journey towards the coveted offer letter a gruelling marathon. And if you are above 40 then you are the proverbial camel trying to get through the eye of a needle.

They eagerly hire fresh graduates keeping in mind low wage bills and short shelf life. As these recruits hardly stay beyond a couple of years, they need not bother about doling out gratuity and other retirement benefits. Hence they do not want to suffer the toil of even considering a ‘costly resource’ with years of experience.

If at all a senior guy makes it to the personal interview stage, he or she will have to contend with patronizing interviewers and dynamite through an iron curtain of skepticism. Sample questions: How comfortable are you while working with young people? (ideal answer could be "As comfortable as former US president Bill Clinton with his interns") or “We have a very young team, are you sure you will be able to fit in?” (As if you came out of the womb as a 40-year-old, then lived rest of your life in an old age home!)

Unless you happen to be a ‘referral’ candidate or part for some crony entourage that follows a CEO when he moves from one company to other, then be assured you have been called due to extraneous factors like filling up a quorum of candidates (higher ups in HR department often ask 'kitne aadmi the') and not because they have any intention to hire you.

While many companies may wear their 'equal opportunity' employers tag on their sleeves and some may even carry out 'trophy hires' from sexual minorities and other disadvantaged groups, 'ageism' is not even considered a form of discrimination. In fact it is an essential requirement to retain 'competitive edge' and be 'nimble footed'.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat