Rocking in the Free World

Have you seen this ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Ad, which shows a guy sitting at home, rejecting a call from the office, to enjoy the wonderful rain pouring outside? The punchline goes something to the effect of ‘retire from work, not from your life’.

The ad portrays the situation from the viewpoint of a 30-something year old person who has probably been stressed out enough by his line of work to contemplate wanting to just let go and start something afresh or do something without being restricted by a whole lot of bounds, including that of having to supervise, or be supervised and monitored.

There are a whole lot of people who’ve been disgruntled enough with the Indian IT industry to want to take that leap, and perform a trailblazer act of sorts and charter their own course of life. Some of them take up further studies either in the form of an MS in the states, or undertake their MBA from a leading institute within the country.

The end result of either undertaking results in the subject in question leading himself/herself back to square one, by probably working in some allied field, that runs the risk of leaving them as disgruntled as they were when they decided to quit, though with a substantially ballooned up compensation.

(To digress a little, why is our salary referred to as compensation? Something to seriously contemplate.)

There are very few people that one would’ve heard of, who is actually at peace with the sort of work they do, and would enjoy working in the same place for the rest of their lives. This is an assumption, call it a blatant extrapolation if you will, that I have made, based on the general rants that I have heard from a limited section of people who aren’t happy with what they’re doing.

The general discontent is more the norm than the exception. The only thing that probably keeps a whole lot of people going is the security, primarily financial, that probably provides a safety net and compensates for everything else that the job isn’t.

In my opinion, (and you’d concur when I’d say humble), it really takes guts for someone to break away from the system, and attempt to do something that lays more emphasis on the satisfaction of a job well done (guaranteed, if only for the efforts put in, because it is a labour of love) as opposed to the safety net that a mundane job would provide.

I was wondering, sometimes, if I would have the courage to want to do something like this. I eventually figured out that I will definitely do it, but once I have attained financial stability. Playing it safe seems like the only option.

However, there are some people out there who have decided to take the plunge on their own, and a colleague of mine has done just that.

My admiration for his efforts is not a reciprocal thing reeking of sycophancy,for him having filled out and uploaded my resume on the monster job site, for me to look for greener pastures, but is a sincere attempt at trying to highlight his courage.

Having worked for two years in the It industry, our man, Sachin (thatzhisneihm), has decided to call it quits. He would have completed two years in the tech industry at the end of June, but he chose to leave the organization where he was at a month earlier, simply because he wanted to watch the FIFA World Cup.

After a well-deserved month of drowning himself in the magic of the beautiful game, he plans to start a venture of his own, a website of sorts, the details of which are still under wraps.

Being the football crazy guy that he is, he has come up with a WC toolbar that you can download and use here.

Amusingly enough, when asked for the reason for quitting his job, he had the chutzpah to say that it was for taking time off to watch the World Cup, something which is probably still flabbergasted the poor person unfortunate enough to take his exit interview (some procedural requirement in organizations as a last-ditch attempt at wanting you to stay on even after you’ve made up your mind to escape).

There are other instances as well, of people walking away into the sunset, far away from the mundane throes of a not-so-satisfying job, to move onto something they really enjoy doing. Sidin Vadukut is once such example, though our Footie man here is a babe in the woods in comparison with the blogging stud, who has more extensive credentials to back him up, combined with (probably), substantial capital that he’d have amassed at his consulting job. Takes a whole lot of balls, nevertheless to rely solely on his book, and his other ventures for a living.

More updates on our friend, in the posts to follow. Good luck, Sachin.