I recall being in my elementary school when everyone proudly described themselves as either US Return or Foreign Return. They took immense pride in the fact that they had achieved a status that their ancestors had never even qualified for, spanning over five generations. Typically, these men would return to India to marry a girl from their religion and caste. The bride’s parents would happily marry their daughter to a US Return individual, who was expected to be an ultra-rich, highly accomplished, and well-off person.
Today
However, something changed once I began attending college in the early 2000s.
As of today, 2024, the software industry is in a state of decline. There are no jobs, lower salaries, bankruptcy, and court cases of fraud between business partners and investors.
Yesterday I saw a Marathi movie called Phullwanti. But I was amazed that when I booked a ticket 18 hours before there were no bookings for the hall, I was the first to make a booking of two.
Now today, when I entered a cinema hall, there were only a maximum 10 to 15 seats, and remaining almost all 95% seats were empty.
Now Phullwanti Film Review:
Pros:
The cinematography was great and would match any Bollywood or Hollywood movie.
Music, colors, and costume design were great also.
But only I was impressed with Prajakta Mali and Gashmeer Mahajani’s acting.
The year was 2001/2/3, and there was a new movie experience on the block. And there was new mall culture introduced in Mumbai for my age individuals.
Early Success:
Somehow I got to know about R-Adlabs Playes movies for INR 50.0 only.
Now every day I find myself watching at least one movie, or sometimes three in a row.
At that time, classmates would find themselves bumping into each other as theatres went house full.
First Evil Thought of Money Making:
After say half a year, cinema hall increased price to INR 250.0, and suddenly all shows were abandoned and empty with no people, or 4 or 5 people per show. Sometimes they have to cancel the shows.
Then brought down price to INR 150.0, then people started visiting cinema halls again but lost all houseful boards that existed at start with a 50 rupee price tag.
Experience that I wrote in my earlier blof post about GEP HR Head, Muthu, Kadam, Roy, and Vishwakarma as that was something that I avoided for almost a decade.
But then I realized when one day I went for an interview with a company called Hexaware in MBP, Mahape, Navi Mumbai. There was a Bengali individual who supposed to be head of Design in Hexaware who said he knew Roy as an industry disruptor with whom he worked before. I told that Bangali individual that if he has given you any information about my issue with the GEP company and why I left, then let me know. Then I told him to call Roy immediately then we can discuss the issue within the time limit of the interview.
What I exactly remember is that I was in 3rd or 4th standard. My school was Lokmanya Madhyamik Vidyalaya.
Principle was IDK, madam. I think her full name was Indira Kulkarni. Most dislike women who will make any student stand in front of her cabin on her will, even if he or she was passing by a corridor to get a book from the library.
But today we will talk about Khan Madam, who used to teach us Alzebra, which was ‘Bijaganit’ in Marathi. As I was in Marathi school for you, it will be vernacular medium.
Khan madam will start teaching a particular subject for the next 5 minutes, and if I say to her, please teach again, I didn’t understand anything from your lecture. then she will teach the same subject for the next hour, which was thought by her earlier in just five minutes.
Year was 1994/95. As Raj Thakarey says, with the NCP party formed by Sharad Pawar, Brahman-related Heatred was just getting formed.
Yes, there were cases of Love Jihad, but the word ‘Love Jihad’ was not that popular at that time. But there were cases of Muslim boys poisoning, hypnotizing, or doing black magic called Vashi Karan to get Brahmin or any other Hindu girl’s approval to marry him. As any Hindu girl in her full consciousness will think, a thousand times even getting the first thought in her mind about marrying a Muslim boy.
There has been a Monginis cake shop in my area for 15+ years.
I used to eat chocolate cakes in the same shop.
However, after a few interactions, I started experiencing irregularities, hindrances or arrogance by the shopkeeper when you asked for the order. Sometimes, an older person who is supposed to be a shop owner will insult you or talk rashly in English to sound excellent and non-offensive on the part of the shopkeeper.
After a few interactions in the first 5/6 years, I never went back to shopping again to eat cakes.
So here I am documenting my first-hand experiences with Monginis Cake Shop in my area.
First Experience:
So it was the same shopkeeper I mentioned above when I went to the same shop in the early years there was a single cake remaining in one rack which was four weeks old and past the date of expiry written on its label.
So, by choice, I told him to give me a different cake to eat, which was very fresh as per the date mentioned on its label.
But in difference or kind hate about maybe Marathi speaking locals or perhaps ignorance of health issues will that person have or sake selling cakes without thinking about society health he didn’t bother to give a cake that I chose which was same day delivered. Still, he offered me a cake that was four weeks old. So I told him I ordered a different cake, and you gave me a rotten one, which is four weeks old. He said it doesn’t matter, eat it. Nothing will happen to you.
I joined GEP (Global eProcure) company as a UI Designer in 2015.
The company was overstaffed or overcrowded as they planned to buy two more floors in the same building. But it used to be seen as a time profitability of the company.
In a few weeks, I realised the company app we designed and developed was unstable and lousy by performance vice. And we were losing customers every day. In the words of the company’s current clients, they can’t even interact as the development team used multiple external frameworks on every page rather than inline coding it by themselves. It seems an analytical page that the company app’s essential feature took more than fifteen minutes to load, which should be not more than five seconds or less.
There were multiple Usability issues, such as an add user form with hundreds of input fields, no autocomplete, no progress bar, and no step-by-step wizard-type interface so that the user can take a break or complete tasks later. With this, a minute inactivity threshold was added by developers, which caused users to be unable to use the app. This company hired its staff to feed data rather than fix the product, as its clients can’t use it.
So it was messy. On the outside, the company was on a hiring spree with a shiny face outside. But inside, all was screwed up. And things were going downstream towards hell.
During this period, suddenly, we as a designing team got to know from our current manager, Mr Muthu, that a new UXD Manager will lead us from the next minute, and HR has arranged for a meeting with the team in the next three minutes.
We learned the new Manager was Mr. Roy. Our old demoted Manager was shaken inside.
My interaction with my old manager was abusive. He used to spit curses at every member with statements like design should be wow, मजा नही आ राहा है, i.e., In a word, it should look like interfaces designed by Apple or Microsoft UXD Team. The new manager even outsourced design to Microsoft’s Consultant for around fifty lakhs. But the result was a failure, with the money going for no good.
The Real Story:
In this ugly environment. I was having lunch with my team one fine day. A man almost my age was sitting before me named Mr Kadam. He suddenly started abusing my Brahmin Cast with statements I will list below in numbers.
One fine day I was returning from one destination to home through a cab booked over Uber Cabs. While travelling, I snacked and drank water, and my hand was wet. Once I arrived, I made a trip payment through an online card or Amazon Pay.
About to get out of the car, I was scrolling on my iPhone through my wet fingers to rate that trip.
In the next second, I received an in-app notification that you had been charged INR 100 for tipping the driver for a safe ride. In disbelief, I thought about how that happened, as I was not planning to tip the driver.
First Story that I want to share today is from my experience
In 2009 I worked as an Animator and E-Learning Courseware Creator and Designer. And I was planning to switch the design domain to HCI/UX, i.e. Human-Computer Interaction/User Experience Design.
And software like Apple Shake and Adobe After Effects was standard competitive tool used in both domains.
I was using an iMac at that time. Adobe After Effects was bundled in Creative Suite, costing around INR 45,000/- in India. Apple Shake was way cheaper as it was a standalone offering from Apple.
It was the day of 30th July 2009 that I was going to start to learn the Apple Shake as Apple offered all tutorials on their website for free. And it was the same day that Apple discontinued Apple Shake. When I woke early to learn, I saw the news on their portal. I was devastated by the news. But I was relieved as I saved my time as if I started learning it two months ago, and then they discontinued it, which was a waste of time and energy. The software skill you acquired doesn’t exist in the world, or there is no demand for your talent in your industry, is a total waste of time.
There is another story that I can share with you today.
By graduate degree, I am a BFA Applied Art graduate. I know the UX field has existed in India and World longer than I know, but I learned of it at my first job around 2007. I am a multidisciplinary designer.
I opted to do User Experience Design/User Interaction Design/Human-Computer Interaction Design certification around 2016. I have been going through HFI’s website since the year 2012.
HFI has three main certifications Certified Usability Analyst (CUA), Certified Certified Certified User Experience Analyst (CXA), Certified Digital Persuasion Analyst (CDPA).
My observation was HFI was increasing the cost of Certification every year by 15% to 20%.
When I first visited their website, the cost was INR 75,000/-, But when I registered for the CUA course, it was INR 1,08,000/- Immediately the following year, they increased rice to almost INR 1,20,000/-.
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