Another one flies the coop
Yet another one of my close friends - who joined the company around the same time I did - left today, to join another outsourcee company. I've lost count of the people who joined my firm, became friends, and then left -for their MS, for other jobs, for startups, to get married and raise kids, one or two for family business, whatever. I'm still here for non-work related reasons, in case you were wondering. This is the new kind of friends circle - individual people changing every year or so, the group never having an employee who's been in the company for many years.
My current groups of friends are all my project mates. They're the ones I spend the most time with, so they're the ones I discuss most of my life with. I dont know which of them are going to be in the company a year from now.
I have another, broader group, people who have remained friends in spite of not even being in my city or country any more. The only interaction with them is through email or IM. Your average IT worker probably types more stuff into IM or email than he does into vi. For many people, whole weeks go by without any interaction with friends except by IM. It's probably the reason why IT sorts are really enthusiastic about some sport - badminton, trekking, cricket - which requires them to spend time with each other.
In spite of all efforts, programmers are probably the groups who spend the least time in social activities. It's very rare to develop close friendships, even rarer to find people who share your interests and who happen to be around for long enough to develop such friendship. So when it happens, it's amazing.
And when it ends, it's hard to imagine what it feels like, for those who dont work in IT.
Fare well, pal.
My current groups of friends are all my project mates. They're the ones I spend the most time with, so they're the ones I discuss most of my life with. I dont know which of them are going to be in the company a year from now.
I have another, broader group, people who have remained friends in spite of not even being in my city or country any more. The only interaction with them is through email or IM. Your average IT worker probably types more stuff into IM or email than he does into vi. For many people, whole weeks go by without any interaction with friends except by IM. It's probably the reason why IT sorts are really enthusiastic about some sport - badminton, trekking, cricket - which requires them to spend time with each other.
In spite of all efforts, programmers are probably the groups who spend the least time in social activities. It's very rare to develop close friendships, even rarer to find people who share your interests and who happen to be around for long enough to develop such friendship. So when it happens, it's amazing.
And when it ends, it's hard to imagine what it feels like, for those who dont work in IT.
Fare well, pal.
posted by Sudarshan | 8:00 AM
2 Comments:
Sud,
Aptly put, in the list of email, ims add commetns in blogs too :)
i think the kind of job volatility problems you talk about isn't restricted to IT anymore. the job situtation is so fluid pretty much everywhere nowadays, that it would probably be pretty hard to find a group of people anywhere who have been together on the same project for say 3 years, without any additions or deletions to the group in between
i guess there are just too many people out there doing what they don't want to just so that they can pull some cash out of their ATMs at the beginning of the month
"flies the coop" is so accurate a phrase - no matter how many jobs you change you'll always be someone's pigeon - fluttering and cooing endlessly for a few bits of grain
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