Corporations- Why they treat humans unjustly?
Recently, during my course of study, I came across an article on Ethics in which developing countries were dismissed as being very bad places to work. And nothing can be more true than that. In my last job at Ambuja I was up against the most ugly conspiracy. First of all, I can’t understand why companies hire people if they find them bad fits. I was hired and informed that I had to mostly do content work, which is my area of specialization. As the days progressed, my work gradually kept going to my competitor who was half my age and held the same position that I did after a period of 1 year of work experience as against 6 years of mine! It was as if the company had hired me expecting me to fail!
Needless to say, the situation got ugly. First of all, they gave me a computer without the requisite fonts and I was not able to work properly. Secondly, they started heaping me with work that I was mostly unfamiliar with and had no experience in. Thirdly, my colleague had the most irritating habit of grabbing all the work right under my boss’s nose. I realized later on that Ambuja, represented by the lady who hired me, Laxmi Iyer, had conspired to see me fall. I don’t understand when employees are given work, why aren’t their KRAs spelt out correctly. And to make matters worse, they bring in a pathetic colleague, who is so insecure, that she has to be happy only when I am censured.
Why do Indian companies do this to individuals? What they did to me was a complete Human Rights violation and I should have sued their pants off for the treatment they meted out me, but I was short on cash, so I politely parted ways. Indian companies and managers are like psychos on a war footing, the companies much like abattoirs. So the surmise that companies in developing countries are bad places to work wrung true.
Ambuja had bad practices and even worse managers. Bad companies are those that have no conscience and are low on ethics. And most of our companies treat individuals not as humans but warlords. Mine is not the only case. Take the case of MJ Akbar who was unceremoniously shown the door by a TV channel where even his colleagues conspired against him. Or take the case of a principal who wept on the day she was fired and asked to leave. If companies and managers don’t know how to treat humans, they have to be taught, even if it means suing their asses off in Human Rights cases.
Neha Singh
