History of IT
Monday, March 30, 2009
Today we are going to discuss a unique period of India's history called the ITernal age.
This era of Indian history began somewhere around the end of the 20th century and lasted well into the 21st century. It marks a unique technological age that dawned upon this country that, till then, lagged the rest of the world in harnessing technological developments.
Initially, smart Indian engineers began doing petty technical tasks for people in other parts of the world. They found that they could do it at a fraction of a cost of their competitors and still earn big money. Slowly, the word spread and before soon, everyone and their aunt were into IT.
Today, however, we're going to delve more into the social tendencies of this era than the economic aspects.
A lot of research has gone into the area of how people lived and worked. Broadly, historians and sociologists have found the following categories of the ITernal man as per their behavioral tendencies.
The 0-1 year IT professional
These usually consisted of people who'd jumped straight out of college into the shark-infested waters they called IT. When they were not training and learning things they didn't need, they patronized libraries and coffee machines in their 100m radius. Recorded accounts indicate that this tribe used to roam around in large groups - perhaps seeking security in numbers.
The 1-2 year IT professional
This tribe of people often began understanding what they'd got themselves into. With the 2-4 year IT professional (see below), they formed the workhorses of the IT workforce. Cheap labor ensured they were present in large numbers and were the fuel that kept organizations going. Accustomed to working long, odd hours and often around the week, they used to spend a fair bit of time on pondering about what their lives had become (and wrote blogs on it!). They often longed for their carefree days of college. They were often evangelized into the dogma they called "Process" and were made to do things they didn't know and/or didn't care about.
The 2-4 year IT professional
Having spent a fair while, they understood fairly the madness around them and how their world worked. They were also regularly groomed into future roles into management. This involved using esoteric jargon and creating reports and reports of reports. An enterprising few also made a large number of presentations. By the time people progressed into this tribe, they had also been a part of the corporate rehabilitation program they called "onsite". This program involved changing the geographical location and currency of the employee's salary. This was said to have a motivational effect on these men and women for reasons not entirely understood.
The 4+ year IT professional
It is speculated that the behavior of men and women became radically different after this critical juncture. They became everything they'd feared in the past. They were now managers, leaders, designers - in essence, generals marshalling the pawns of the army. Outside this, the distinction becomes rather difficult to determine. Currently, the world’s best historians are trying to understand the identifying traits of people who were more than 4 years into IT. One theory suggests that people moved out after 4 years for good once they realized the importance of things like health, social life et al. This is yet to be verified though. There are other theories that the 4+ group had different diverse sub-groups of its own but little has been discovered so far on that front. Despite these differences, there were some broad similarities in the behavior of men and women of this era - trends that transcended the boundaries of classification. For one, folklore and discussions recorded in these times have a returning and emotional reference to one word - "appraisal". The cult status of this phenomenon is yet to be entirely understood by researchers. What they have found is that this more mention in the art forms of the era - like email forwards, blog posts, etc. periodically in certain parts of the year.
Besides, perfectly modern workplaces were designed in a fashion to accommodate modest stalls serving tea. As some manuscripts indicate, this was called Tapri. This was a place between office and home for these people. It was here that the ITernal man had whatever little of social life that they had. Anything between office politics to life's biggest questions could be discussed here.
Some researchers also believe that this section of the office described a lot about the organization. For example, the number of people here was inversely proportional to the volume of business of the company and was used by business analysts tracking the company to forecast quarterly earnings.
We still don't completely understand what caused the end of the ITernal age – whether it was a sudden "big-bang"-type end or was it slow decline as people moved onto greener pastures.
However, one thing is for sure - no one can claim to have understood the unique land India is without understanding this period of India’s history. This phase will be a subject of interest of all historians seeking to understand India - the way it was, and what it now is.
