How the Workplace Has Changed? Ask me.

It's scary how things have changed in the workplace. It's no longer the cosy place where everybody knew everybody and there was some continuity in the work one did. The designations of stenographer, clerk, peon, and cardex operator have been eliminated along with punch operator, photocopy operator, despatch clerk, receptionist, etc. Walk into any office and you will find a uniformed security guard managing the reception. The steno with the dictation notebook and pencil is extinct. There's no time for niceties, here.

Here are a few of my views as a so-called veteran of twenty odd years. It's no longer the way we worked around twenty-five years ago when loyalty to the company was the cardinal rule. Today all those M.B.A.s drawing fancy salaries don't think a shit about the company they work for. They only care about money. No, sorry, I may be using a harsh word here, but this is my view from all the places I have worked that employed the highly paid business executives with masters in management. Ergo, it might seem, management has become a dirty word, worth ridicule. The brightest of minds are soon bored by the routine work they do. They then jump jobs to get more money and find they haven't learnt anything worth the while and end up with empty talks of market share and market capitalisation, thinking up and inventing corrupt ways to pay themselves more money. The collapse of a few years ago was chiefly brought about by such green horns. It will happen again, I am sure.

So here's a lowdown on the cultural changes that have come about. Usually in those godforsaken (actually blessed days for employees) companies had an executive for recruitment. Just one executive, remember. Poor soul he just pushed the bio-datas to the managers of the company who in turn hired through direct interviews with the people who were going to work under him. That way the hierarchy was better maintained. Today, it's the age of human resource. So this bloated department of human resource hires people they think are fit and managers are told to adjust to them instead. Really. Not joking. Yesteryears the managers had their own say over who came and at what time, today computers and advance fingerprinting technology takes care of that function. So what happens? People are less motivated because of the stupid rules that govern in-coming and out-going times, leave, deductions, whatever. Human resource if not managed properly becomes human reprisal, a way of getting back at the employee, the worker who actually does the job.

What's the solution? I wonder why companies don't hire from campuses. My son – who just graduated – says there weren't many people hiring on campus this year. Poor chap he is still unemployed despite having a first class in computer science. That's another bug of the system. They won't hire without experience. So how do you get experience?