Software slave.

Vidat has described himself as a software slave in his profile at the blog site he had created for himself whilst working in Wipro as a software engineer. He has concisely stated a whale of truth !It is a apt description of software engineers in India.
It wrings my heart to see scores of computer engineers in early 20's who are made to work day and night even at weekends on a domain -coding-which I am sure is a creative and like all fields of creativity requires immense mental energies that needs to be replenished by adequate rest and sleep.
But conversely the great I.T giants seem to be unaware of this or donot care and make young and talented people work for long hours from 8 in the morning to 2 A.M at night for a meagre sum in comparison to what they profit from the hard labour of these 'slaves'.
Poor kids are torn between the devil and the deep sea.Because of their technical qualifications they can't do some other job[they think] like teaching,banking,insurance or the I.A.S.and they can't leave their current jobs as there aeren't as much jobs lying vacant as to accommodate all those millions of educated youth.waiting hungrily on the wings. So they continue to plod hoping to reach a higher position with attractive salary but in the process invariably burn out.
I wholeheartedly endorse the socialists view that unions should be allowed to be formed in I.T enterprises.Then the least that will be ensured would be regulating working hours to 9 to 5 with week ends strictly off ,removal of insecurity in job ,[no hire and fire],receive commensurate salary for work done and assurance of permanency in job with regular promotions and the provision for pensions.
The fear that such measures will render I.T and corporate offices as inefficient as our government offices is unfounded. Banks have unions but that does'nt make the clerks ,officers or managers lax and corrupt. Every bank I have visited serve their customers promptly and sincerely.
It is time that our young people lured by money [pittance by western standards but princely by Indian] shake themselves of these invisible chains binding them to greedy corporate houses that have scant regard for basic human rights like rest and sleep and overburden young shoulders with too much work and responsibilities.
These I.T.giants and corporate houses are also insidiously breaking up family life ,which we Indians are reknowned .Due to long and unpredictable hours of the young I.Tproffessionels parents scarcely meet their children although living in the same house!Similarly working married couples meet only on festivals and push the custody of their house and children to total strangers [ayahs] and become strangers to them selves.The companionship and intimacy and energy required to make marriage a pleasant affair is gobbled up by the long hours spent at their offices or at some distant foreign country [in I.T.parlance 'on site' ]
How I long for those days of my youth when working people ,how so ever high ranking he may be [my dad was the chief of administration of c.s.i.r] left their homes at 9 and were back home by 6 to relax in the hall with snacks and share the days events and gossip.
Life was simple, predictable and less stress free then.The youth of this generation are very hard working .Though richer in money are poorer in spirit as they don't even have the time and energy to spend their hard earned money.