The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : The stress and strain behind the elegant exterior

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Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

The stress and strain behind the elegant exterior

Krishna Velupillai

An IT professional’s day is a mix of meetings, conference calls

— Photo: Shaju John

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK: An IT professional in front of her computer.

CHENNAI: The day starts very early if you want to stay in shape. “IT [information technology] professionals spend most of their time in front of their computers … if you want some form of exercise, you have to start very early,” says Madan, who wakes up at 4.45 a.m. every day to go to the gym. Work starts at 9 a.m., but a considerable amount of time is spent commuting to his office on the IT corridor.

IT professionals command a lot of respect in the current context, but most people also assume that the professionals in the field lead cushy lives making bags of money. Quite on the contrary, IT professional are a hardworking bunch who face all the usual stress that comes with any job or maybe even more. With tight deadlines and clients living in different time zones, jobs are anything but nine to five.

For Madan, an average day is a mix of meetings, conference calls and other job-specific duties. “Depending on what your deliverables are, you may have to work longer hours and also put in work during weekends. We have very strict deadlines to meet and our outputs are what are known as our deliverables. When the work is critical and the deadline closes in, the stress levels go up. To deal with it, we have to put in lots of extra hours, but after some time, you also learn to distribute the work well and manage your time,” he said.

For women with children, the job can be more stressful. “As you move up the ladder, there is more flexibility about timings with possibility of working from home, but when you are new to the field, you have to slog,” said a female IT professional who has been in the field for 12 years working with various companies.

“I have only worked in this field so I cannot compare it with other fields but I think that for a working woman this job is as stressful as any other job. The only difference here is that we face a lot of mental exhaustion by the end of the day” she said.

The reason why most people end up working late is the need to accommodate the different time zones,” she added. “My son is now seven, I was lucky to have my parents to support me when he was younger, but I think that all working women, whichever field they are in, face the same difficulties when they have to juggle work and home,” she said.

The cushy image aside, for these two it is about working as hard as you are required to. “In the end the perceptions are always subjective; every industry has its pluses and minuses.” Madan says philosophically.

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