The c-suite really wants you to work overtime, be available 24x7, take no leaves, and they don’t want to pay you well.
1. Despite being fully available and putting in the work, even taking up tasks that nobody asked me to do, and delivered client customisations, I got 0 variable pay in FnF settlement. They reward sincerity with ungratefulness.
2. There is an ugly trend of working overtime because the CTO (Prithvinath Prabhunath) is an workoholic. He actively discourages taking leaves and encourages working on weekends and after hours. Late night discussions and patches are very common because he can call people whenever he wants. It’s a good thing that leaves are approved by reporting managers and not him. I am waiting for the day he realises work hours don’t equal to effectiveness.
3. During the FT salary discussion, COO (Ajay Asati) denied negotiations with the following excuses: “We are family, we don’t negotiate with family”, “This is the college policy of the company, I can’t change company policies for a single guy” (I was a off-campus hire), “If I pay you more, would you work for 18hrs instead of 9?” (I was already working on weekends during my consultant stint and I will go on to work for 10-12 hrs, sometimes 15-16hrs on a bad day thereafter).
4. There is a verbal saying that goes like- they give a hike around November which makes it up for the less salary. (Verbal, shouldn’t have trusted). Come November, apparently CPO (Rohtas Kumar) denied my hike after which I lost patience and resigned.
5. Resignation call- I clearly told Rohtas the salary is less compared to the work I am putting in and asked for 10 lpa. He said a 100% hike isn’t possible and told me to think “rationally”. He told me I was going to be promoted anyways, but he won’t reveal the hike when I asked him. I had a call with CTO where he told me he knows my problem and said “I support you in this”. Clearly that was a lie.
6. 90 days Notice Period- The notice period isn’t for KT and transfer of responsibilities, it’s to make you work till the LWD.
7. Post LWD- The HR didn’t even arrange for a laptop pickup. Told me to do it myself. Unprofessional. They didn’t even reimburse the courier cost.
8. Experience letter in 45 days- The HR said that. I was afraid they are going to stall it until the last day so I had to document all events on email, incase I have to file a complaint against them. I got the letter after around 25 days.
One could argue that I asked for too much, but I can’t make a career decision based on empty promises.