For techies, losing a job means rebooting career

In April this year, when the Infosys management asked Sijo Joseph to make up his mind on whether he wanted to quit the company, Sijo was not devastated; in fact, he was happy about it. Sijo finally got an excuse to quit the job. Sijo had been planning to quit the job by June in order to realise his dreams of being a film director. So, when the company “during one of those appraisal exercises” asked him if he wanted to quit, it made the decision easier for him. Sijo, like many others, had graduated during the IT boom time and worked for Infosys — first in Thiruvananthapuram for a year, and later in Bangalore.

But with the job pressure becoming unbearable, courtesy recession, he decided to quit and make films. “I have become my own boss now,” Sijo told.

With two musical albums in the last one month and an ad film for a Cochin-based firm to his credit, the 26-yearold is off to a flying start.

Sijo has also worked as an assistant director for a recently released Malayalam movie Crazy Gopalan, which had some big names from Malayalam film industry. “I am better off than before,” said the ex-techie. “If you can’t climb Everest make your own Everest. That’s my slogan.” But Sijo’s is not an isolated case. Neha (name changed), who was also a techie, is now trying to crack the civil services examination. She has saved enough money from her old job to prepare for the exam. She also works part time for two leading TV channels as an anchor. “I was anyway planning to quit for my preparatory classes,” she said.

“When they asked me to leave, it came as a boon to me.” Some techies see the whole episode as the only positive outcome of the financial downturn. “The one good thing the recession has done to us is that we now have the opportunity/ willingness to look beyond an IT job,” said Renjith, another techie who is planning to do something on his own after he was sent on a forced sabbatical last month.