In India we always remember a person with their name and how they are related to us and that is how we call them or refer to them. That is for relatives, for parent's friends especially for ones with very common names usually their workplace would be used as an identifier. My dad's phone/address book in past and now phone contact list has people always listed this way - company name followed by person's name. LIC Harish, BOI Manohar, ABT Mouli etc. Folks of my parent's generation almost always used to work in the same place for a long long time so this kind of reference point worked. They identified really well with their employer and switching jobs for more money or better position was very rare in those days. They had a huge network of office friends and knew each others families well. But gone are those days!
With my generation things changed, the economy really improved in last 20 years the number of jobs available improved and it became easier to switch jobs. Cozy life long association with a company was no more the norm. Switching is what a lot of folks started doing especially ones in my generation. So for kids in my neighborhood and with my cousins I did notice that initially uncles and aunts used to refer to folks by saying Jagadish in CTS, Ashwin who works in Wipro, Roopa who is in Infosys etc. Some major IT services cos were easy on everyone's tongue as almost every other kid used to work in SWITCH companies. There were folks in product companies with higher salaries and better growth track which were also public knowledge initially. All of these were reference points when talking about someone.
All was hunky dory, until these kids spent a few years in their first jobs and almost all of them started looking at other options like MS or MBA or switch to some MNC. All well and fine and good for them but this caused a big deal of confusion for previous generation as they had to keep updating the reference point. Poor uncles and aunts did keep track for a while when these kids kept hopping companies but it was a futile exercise. Usually while talking to someone when the name of a cousin or kid from neighborhood comes up, instead of confidently naming where he/she works these days it would start with a hesitant guess by the uncle that maybe he/she is working in xyz which would get corrected by aunt who would say no no he/she switched last year remember, he might be in this abc company. It would be followed by a general statement that it is so hard to remember where anyone is working these days. A cousin of mine initially worked in an MNC for a long time and then suddenly started job hopping with gusto that every year we would always wonder where he worked, no one was sure. Another cousin worked initially in HCL which was easy to remember but then he moved to LSI which was hard to remember for my mom and by the time she could remember that name he moved to another company PMC Sierra ( even I had to look it up in LinkedIn while writing this) and my mom who dutifully keeps tracks of where everyone works and always mentions it to me when we talk totally struggled with this name. After a while she just gave up and said he works in some place I can never remember. This eventually became the case with several folks, my mom now says she is not able to remember any of these company names!
In April 2016 it was time for a major work milestone - 5 year anniversary. My years with this wonderful company - Cognizant - actually represented the maximum time I spent in a single place in my life. Longest stay ever in a place where I clocked 8 hours a day - this is including school /college / work etc. So that was quite something, most folks at work were nice. I was well respected and did enjoy good ratings at work and was sort of satisfied with what I was doing, so it was a good milestone from that perspective. But with my generation such milestones were actually millstone around neck, many of us had this feeling that longer you stay in one place more you stagnate. Of course there are exceptions like several of my talented relatives in the technical line who are sticking to same company for a long long time.
But for me the feeling of staying too long was there by the time I hit the 4th year mark and thats a feeling very common with most folks of my generation with similar background as me. Its not that we don't like stability but its just that its really easy and seamless to move across companies to get the kind of work, salary or anything else that you desire. Most of my friends who eventually worked with me in same company at some point in time or other in last few years had started to move on and were working somewhere else so I was sure it was just a matter of time. Staying for a long time at same company used to be a mark of success which was cherished both by the individual and the company. Yet another cousin of mine completed 10 years at Microsoft last year and he was part of some major celebration party his company hosted for folks like him at a football stadium. He sent us the video and photos where the pride and satisfaction was visible. Happy for him of course, but that works only for a few folks especially in IT product firms. For those in IT services it is not always easy to grow in same firm easily and to retain your happiness and career satisfaction levels. I have always felt great in a new company after a few months only to start drifting away close to 3rd year mark.
While talking to a friend - who did complete 10 years in his company - the other day, I was trying to find out how he felt. The company he worked for used to give different color tags for the ID card based on seniority, so someone within 5 years would have one color ID card, someone with 5-10 years had a different tag, while those with 10+ had a different one. In 2005/6 he used to refer to those seniors with awe and respect, so I asked him this year how he felt wearing the 'senior' tag now that he has crossed 10 years at his firm and he was quite candid that it was horrible as it called out that he was an oldie who was stuck in this place. He was of course only half serious, but the point is long years in same firm is no longer what it was.
10-15 years back it was always believed that changing jobs initially in career is ok, but the point was to get to a dream role/company and spend a long time there. Everyone I spoke to was sure switching jobs would make their resume look back and sticking to a job for a long time was the way to go after initial few years. But in reality most folks have not followed that advice. Today almost all of us are convinced that how good you are with your work and what you can deliver is all matters for your boss at the end of the day in our line of work. In US I see a lot of folks working purely as contractors and not as full-time employees by choice as you get paid a lot more and if you are ready to travel anywhere in US you can easily get gigs quickly even if the current employer decides not to extend your contract. This 'Gig economy' is said to be future and apparently 1 out 3 people is US work this way and the number is only expected to go up
So how did I mark my 5th anniversary at work ... that's why the blogpost of course with the long pre-face. Yeah, I celebrated that occasion by telling my management that I'm quitting! It was not planned that way, but the stars just aligned in a way that I was able to announce my decision to quit right at that point after getting a mail congratulating me for 5 years of service to the company.
P.S. - The place I moved to was not quite something for job hopping youngsters, my current employer is a 120+ year old firm and most of my colleagues have put in between 15 to 30 years with this company. I have only heard about people retiring rather than resigning in my current workplace which is really strange but interesting experience for me. But the person who hired me here actually acknowledged it as much during a recent performance review. He mentioned that he expected me to do well and grow quickly in this organization "or any other company that you move to in future which is bound to happen for someone from your generation"!
