Reusability of Business model?

As a child my dad explained me about construction work and workers.

He told me you can hire them in two ways. One is on contract bases, where you pay them x amount to a contractor. He will get x people to complete the work. but he also warned, that the contractor try to get less number of people finish work the work at the earliest, since the payment has already been decided so that he can move on to the next piece of work. Work may suffer he warned.

The second way was to hire x number of workers on a day to day payment basis. But he warned that the workers try to extend work as much as possible to ensure the employment. Budget may suffer he warned.

He also told once they enter your house to work on something, they look around to see more opportunities. Like if they came to build an extra room, they will suggest how the electric wires of the house should be re-laid, telling how they can sense a huge problem in near future.

Also the workers who do actual work get paid less as compared to the contractor/“thekedaar” whose responsibility is mainly to get the workers and manage them.

And in case, more then one of these group is hired for a construction work, say one doing the flooring, another electricity lines, another plumbing and so on; the workers will change focus from work to proving that the other group inefficient and taking over their piece of work.

Oh my god! Are Indian software service providers successful because to some age old wisdom? [:)]

Conflict ...

Desperate to find a house, we reluctantly approached brokers yesterday evening. Very much aware of their modus operandi, as they not only rely on commission but also use a combination of over-quote to customer and under-quote to the house owner, to make money.

Look this is very obvious, since there is direct conflict of interest. They want to make most out of the deal and the customer & owner, who are the real participants of the deal want to part with the least. But what is worth mentioning is how politely and with great humility they do business, along with lying and manipulating.

I could not help but compare it with the corporate environment.

There is a direct conflict of interest between the employer and employee. Despite the terms like employee satisfaction, human resource development, ethics and values of the corporate, competence driven compensation and everything else that sounds good.

All employees want highest possible compensation, with work associated with latest technology, if possible with plum postings; with work load based on their specific aspirations and personal responsibilities. The employer cannot give everyone desired posting, cannot satisfy everyone’s demand of promotions, need people to do any and all task that bring him profits. The management does not want their employees to get lured by opportunities outside, so transparency is limited.

So a lot of sophisticated lying and manipulating happens. Though it may or may not be evident based on the organization.

So work life is not as good I thought it was as a kid. I thought office was all about not getting up very early(as compared to school), getting ready without the choice of dress restricted to a uniform, come home without homework to complete and no tests/semesters to pass.

Job Satisfaction …

Today again a few colleagues sat down to crib about work…talking about the existing, bitter dissatisfaction….my thoughts not very different from this known trend in my circle….

The possible reason….

Life has two constituents … personal and professional…. They are closely related status and success of one affecting other…
But now a day’s most of us…stay away from families to pursue careers …and consequently they expect the professional life to be doubly rewarding to make up for the non existence of the personal life…

Also today’s careers leave little time for recreation … someone may drive pleasure out of cooking, some pursuing sports, some reading others writing…but today most people work round the clock to accelerate their career progress…so any pleasure, excitement and exuberance is expected from jobs

May be this is over simplification of things…but I still believe we want too much from this mundane act of earning livelihood. …