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Coder’s dilemma

Worrying times Scared of flying pink slips

The icons sit pretty on the desktop. My Computer opens up for him many worlds, neatly partition his life into manageable chunks.

Firefox launches him many a time into the inbox, endless IMs, browsing or simply gawking. Though they are not programs, they are, he feels, pleasing in just-look-at-me-please sort of way. Prashant envies ‘the little critters.’

Shuffling among drives on his computer with aimless clicking, he says: “I am not sure I will be working here anymore.” A pink slip may arrive any time. Something inchoate starts building up under his ribs, and he dreads the thought of being broken-hearted.

With the U.S. declaring it’s in recession, Many employees of software companies are feeling the pinch. It’s the meltdown of reality of software company employee’s life. It’s not the other country, not the other company, not even the other cubicle. It’s ‘me’. It’s real.

Prashant has been a programmer with the company for the last two years, enjoying himself there, participating in team meetings to get things running smoothly for the client bank, coding tasks, developing relationships in and beyond his cubicle.

“Life seemed a joyride” what with the 30k and perks. With his salary, he bought a flat, a car and insurance, everything the modern middle class man calls “good things of life.”

Then the crisis hit. “I am expecting a pink slip.” That makes him crazy. “I never expected to be laid off.” In the fast paced developments, “I felt I could be indispensable.”

He is, he feels, as dispensable as a used paper. The coder, high on a kick till now, struggles to decode his fate, his future. Life, for him, doesn’t feel like step-by-step logic that drives an algorithm. It bugs him in other ways too. “I was thinking of marrying. My family is on the lookout for matches.” Initially, “at least five families were interested.” But the word ‘software employee’ now conjures up laid-off drifters, men with fancy wares and plain vanillas. “They all backed out,” he rues.

As things pan out, companies will cull people from their offices, but they may not make it into a big issue like bird flu when countless chickens were culled.

“See this, I have been without work for two months,” says yet another techie Deepak, who is placed in a state of suspended inanimation. He doesn’t know if he is wanted, nor knows if he is unwanted.

“I don’t know if I will be asked to work again.” It’s more akin to placing one in a recycle bin. He doesn’t yet see any prospect of being ‘restore’d. His default state, now, is fear. As things stand, it’s going to be more of ‘empty recycle bin’.

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