Most of us take life decisions based on our past experiences, by looking at rear view mirror as it were. As the story of Satheesh shows, in times of major change (paradigm shift), this approach to decision making can have serious consequences.
The incident that I am about to narrate happened in the early months of year 2000.
I still remember these period because I was attending a training program on Oracle Technologies conducted by a company called 'System Logic' (which has since become Helios and Matheson).
Oracle had big plans to expand their presence in the Application area and they were coming out with innovative products in new technologies and Oracle Education had designed this 6 months program to provide the participants thorough grounding on the upcoming technologies.
I was 36 years old at that time and was an enthusiastic participant in the program. (there is a reason, I am mentioning my age, you will see later)
To understand this story, you have to understand the significance of the year 2000. The IT Boom in the country was on the cusp of explosion. While we did not know it, it was obvious in retrospect that coming years would see a huge demand for IT Professionals - Developers, Technical Experts, Architect, Domain experts and such - and that there was a huge demand supply mismatch in the country.
And that was one of the reasons why Oracle Education started this program.
As it happens with any great change, we were living through this but we were not aware that the change was happening. The HR Policies were still based on 'Profile' (read Age) and 'Fitment' (associated with Old economy). In the old economy, the career progression was supposed to be linear. You join as a trainee, became a junior manager, Assistant Manager and so on. The trainers were older and trainees were still younger back then (except me, I was much older than many of the trainers). The whole paradigm of Knowledge as different from Age was not known at that time. The fitment in the companies was based on 'Age' and 'Relevant Experience'. The regular reply from HR was 'Your profile do not fit our requirements'.
The jobs explosion was just starting and most of us were unaware of the changes happening. We were driving our life watching the rear view mirror as it were. The air was thick with pessimism, if you see what I mean.
One of the participants was a young guy, may be around 24 years old, from Kerala named Satheesh. Since I was also from Kerala, I became pally with Satheesh.
"I am from Kannur. I just completed my post graduation in mathematics", Satheesh told me once
Being a mathematician, he was quick to grasp the coding language and the inbuilt logic. He quickly became fluent in coding and could write complex codes in a jiffy. It was impressive, to watch him code. He had this habit of verbalizing the logic before he wrote the code and that gave a wonderful insight into the way his mind was thinking about issues.
4 months quickly passed and we were at that point when we were having to prepare our CVs and apply to companies. I was enthusiastically preparing, editing, reviewing and updating my CV and I observed that Satheesh was not doing anything.
I asked him why he was not preparing the CV.
"I don't think any of us will get good jobs after this program", he told me
"But you won't know until you try", I tried to encourage him.
"My father is a school teacher. He is retiring and there is a vacancy in his school. He has asked the owner to recruit me and he has agreed. So I will be going back to Kannur in a month", he replied
Despite the overall pessimism, I had this inkling that things are going to turn around. I tried to motivate him to stay back in Bangalore. I implored him not to listen to his father since his father did not understand the changing economy.
My words were in vain. Like his father, Satheesh also did not understand the changes happening in the economy.
Satheesh left the program a few days later.
I can't help but think what would have happened if he had stayed on. With his skills in mathematics and coding, Satheesh would have become a leading expert by now. By all chances he would have travelled the world twice over, might have published papers and would be sitting as a senior director or some such role in an IT Company in India.
He would have got his regular salary, his international salary, his travel allowances, Esops...
He would have purchased an apartment in a good locality in Bangalore and probably his parents would be staying with him.
Instead, for all I know, he must be teaching mathematics to high school students in remote Kerala now and would be hating every minute of it.
That my friends, is the power of decision making. You make a wrong decision and your life can take an irreparable turn...
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