A 5000 pound car and a 500,000 pound Mercedes

Suddenly in office the desks become cleaner, the food becomes tastier and your cubicle has a new name board invariably with a spelling mistake in your name . If you are working in an IT firm you must have guessed already it is a Client Visit . You can never guess what levels people go to make the Client visit smooth particularly in the so called Indian IT biggies .This is not meant to be an offence to these companies but because there is much at stake for them and so much competition that they don’t take any chances. I was in my first project then and the UK relationship manager called us for a meeting a day before the clients arrived. I didn’t know what for but he told us to wear matching socks for the pants, take print outs of the project architecture(I didn’t realize we had one till then) and stick them in our cubicles and most ridiculously mention the toilet as ”loo”. White skin automatically gives an inferiority complex to most Indians. Are not we still the same Indians who shamelessly look at every foreigner on the street and think he is an American billionaire while the reality is many Americans save for the whole year for their holidays . In my three years in IT i am yet to see a manager who has said a “no” to a client even if he is a developer like me but just that he is on the other side of the planet . They are always the privileged, it is absolutely fine if they leave office at 3 in the afternoon , don’t complete their work by the deadline and go on a long leave during the delivery. They are the clients but even when these affect our work not a word is said . And the way people involve in cajolery when they speak to clients is absolutely horrendous. Every time people talk with the clients it is never only about work , it always includes a talk about India and the country they are from . The most famous of the topics include the Indian food , Indian coffee and not to forget “The Taj Mahal” . And then from there it goes to America , junk food , las Vegas and the horrible coffees you get there. I do talk about these to clients but not to an ridiculous extent , not every time at least . If I was one of the clients I would really feel pestered but these fellows know Indians well and enjoy the over indulgence. My manager told me “Yuva , you are the only one in the team whom the Onsite manager doesn’t know by name” . I know it is not all true but I replied “That’s fine. Till a week before even I didn’t know that guy’s name”. I have met this guy only once and I have only as little business with him as he has with me. Whoever it is - development lead, Onsite manager , the project owner , head of IT , research head or even the CEO , the same applies . Here it is considered aloofness and non-interactiveness but people don’t even realize that it is the way the westerners work . They are absolutely friendly and easy moving but when it comes to work they like it all professional , interactive to only the needed extent ,don’t over indulge and always maintain a personal space.
In fact I have always liked my clients . It’s a problem entirely with us .I like the way they work , their professionalism , management , interaction and straight forwardness . They have a very aplomb air around themselves .You can learn more from working with the English for a month than from anywhere else. You realize the difference between how you do things and the how things should actually be done . Enough of this soliloquy about westerners but what they expect from us is some good quality work and straight forwardness . Unfortunately they mostly don’t get either . All the over caring , sweet talk and fake miles that is done when they come here is to cover that up. Under the smiles there are pity lies and a lot of dirty mess. It is all a bloody ruse . It is all made-up . A very good example is the most used word in the IT industry - Deadline .All the troubles that any ordinary engineer faces basically emanate from this very word .The deadlines accepted by the marketing guys( who by the way have no idea how the work is actually done) are not a result of careful planning and thorough analysis but more of an auction bid .Unacceptable deadlines are accepted with a broad smile just to pip another company from bagging the project . So there is something wrong even before a project starts. So how do you meet these deadlines? .Obviously by making people working day night like dogs and disregarding all the processes. Just that the clients are made to believe that all the processes are followed and people are working nights because there are genuine technical problems and they are committed in getting them solved . You only get tagged uncommitted and rebellious when you try to change this . No points for guessing who I mean by “YOU”.
But then you can cheat some sometimes, many many times but not all always. If you think clients don’t know what is happening , that they are very glad to be in the midst of us enjoying the attention , you are a fool . They know everything is worth only its cost . They cut jobs and send the work to India not because we are God’s gift to the world but because we are cheap labour. They digest things not because they don’t have any other way but because they already know all this would happen. One my rather arrogant clients supposedly had said “I know what to expect from a 500,000 Mercedes and what not to from 5000 pound car” . People don’t even understand what an insult this is .Everything is drowned and forgotten in the beer that flows in the team party after the release .Next day it is another project and another client. No post mortem is done , not a lesson is learnt but only smiles looking at the photos that were taken with the clients last night in the party .