Here is a genuine critique of my experience while working in a high profile cloud computing project at TCS:
1. Destructive Corporate Culture:
->Mass recruiting company: This company conducts recruitment drives almost every alternate Saturday and hires by the hundreds when so many people are not actually needed. They can perform more efficiently with leaner staffing. My project had more managers than technical hires!
->Notice period increase: When I had initially joined, the notice period was 1 month but later on, a change to company policy increased it to 3 months. A middle path of 2 months would be more preferable.
-> Foreigner fascination & worshiping!: OMG don't even get me started on this one! At the start of the project we were asked to go onsite for KT even without checking the availability of our onsite counterparts which led to wastage of visas as they were on leave for the full duration. They worship foreigners so much that even checking their mere presence during our travel was considered a sin!
Also, whenever foreign management came for visiting, un-necessary townhalls were conducted where freshers straight out of college were performing tamil-telugu raps and ramp cat walks in ethnic attire for them. They didn't even understand what was going on and had a good laugh at our expense. Also all awards to be handed only by the foreign management.
Instead of going for more sophisticated corporate gifting, the offshore management selected gifts from local shops like a bullock cart show piece and a cow feeding its calf and so on and the foreigner management couldn't understand if it was a joke or not.
->Employee morale: As many aptly say in this government or “sarkari” company, no zeal to excel in associates exists. It is more of an i'll scratch my back only as far my hand reaches instead of moving on to superior tools and usage approach.
2. Rampant Politics and Sexism:
-> Be ready for pretty serious arse and boot licking in TCS because I saw my team lead actively doing it to his supervisor every single day and this person used to not do an honest day's work and instead used to sit in his desk and sort out his personal finances like calling stock brokers and the like to ask them their suggestions for stock and mutual fund investing instead of doing his work during office hours.
-> Company policy dictates that employees serving notice period can take sick and flexi leaves. Despite that your manager can refuse to allow it.
-> An inexperienced guy's professional opinion matters more than an experienced girl's view. Due to this a BA hire was trusted more than a permanent female employee which led to a massive database wipe out in my project! Oopsie..
-> Male manager's openly comment on the physical beauty of female employees and are much nicer to them as opposed to others thus granting them more favours like unlimited work from home despite staying a mere 20 mins away from office.
-> Speaking in local languages, cracking jokes and discussing local events,festivals & movies during client calls and team meetings without consideration that it is unprofessional and not everybody would understand what is being said.
-> Extremely old school managers who prefer the "illusion of hard work" as opposed to the "realism of smart work".
-> Asking to support during weekends as well inspite of nothing like that being mentioned in our work contracts. Refuse it and a huge scene is created victimizing you to the core!
-> When entire team contributes to project they are taken to team lunches but after that only management selected employees secretly get together to have thier own fun!
-> Employees who have contacts with higher management despite not specializing in that technical area can still go onsite and to keep their boat afloat technically advanced people will be made to provide offshore support.
3. Resource Management Group (RMG):
An utter waste for and of TCS employees. Other companies don't have this unit and run fine even without this group. The RMG is "supposedly" there to allocate hired employees to projects based on their technical prowess by using sophisticated resource allocation tools.
However, what actually happens is that almost always they are whiling away time shopping on e-commerce sites and the only tool they use is an excel sheet with project names and skills needed. If the skill you were recruited for no longer has an opening, then bad luck as they harass you to change your domain.
During my meetings with them I heard countless employees calling and arguing with RMG stating that they were disappointed with the projects they were matched to.
4. On Boarding:
Document Mix-Up -> Before joining they send out emails to submit documents and photos. In spite of submitting before hand, the on boarding manager Mr A.Nair mixed up the documents for everybody in my batch and despite the quality photos submitted for ID badge via email we were given an excuse and a point and shoot camera was arranged and everybody were made to stand one by one during the session and live photos for ID badge were retaken. Way to go on the first impression! <Sarcasm intended!>
Super long sessions -> The on boarding is for 2 days and extremely lengthy from 8 am to 21:45 - 22:00 at night. No consideration irrespective of whether you stay near or far and whether public transport is even available at that time of night. Not even efficiently conducted as most of the time was wasted in waiting for the various SPOC's to come and conduct their sessions with us.
5. Mismanagement:
Even after attending and clearing the technical interviews during the initial recruitment process, you still have to attend additional interviews with each project's managers before the project on-boarding.
A majority of the times the managers will on board you in spite of technical mis- match and the RMG will harass you to accept it stating that you might have to wait more than 3 months on bench and that your appraisal rating will be affected.
Once in project the managers say that since your skill has no work in that project and you will have to re-skill yourself to meet the client's demands.
My manager actually told my group that we should learn a new technology almost every single day and change from our specialization in spite of my domain being a hot skill in other companies.
Get frustrated with all this and demand a project change and the "mis-management" gives lame excuses like:
-> You have to stay in project for minimum 18 months without which we cannot release. This wasn't even stated in any project related contract and this doesn't apply uniformly to all employees also. Some get released within 3 months of project starting while others have to wait indefinitely.
-> Sorry you will have to continue until your replacement is found. After telling this the manager's dont even do their job of searching for your replacements with RMG. In fact we were directly asked to bring our own replacements and get a release when clearly this is the higher management's work.
The only way out for me and many of my colleagues was to resign from the company with other offers in hand. They would rather loose employees from the company itself as opposed to allowing them to change projects and stay in the same company! A whooping kick to their faultless attitude! <Sarcasm intended>
6. Transportation:
Initially when i joined, the company's transportation fees was a mere 1200/-. A few months later the escalation trend was: 1200 -> 1600 -> 2000 -> 2900.
Even public transport, Volvo monthly pass costs around 2200/- and we get even AC for that. Charging 2900/- per month for non AC buses without recliner seats and in-built workable Wi-fi for all employees is a blasphemy!