The Post 40 "IT" Syndrome

With just 3 years of experience and at the age of 25, I used to make more money than my neighbour who at the age of 45 used to make after some 15-20 years of experience in a nationalised bank. This of course doesn’t make me more intelligent or smarter than him, but it is just that the industry (dot com) I chose was new, which demanded more youngsters who possessed the latest Internet skills.

There are pros and cons in both the work industries. In the conventional industry, you know where your job starts and where it ends, you know the time frame for getting promoted or to get a salary hike, you know whom you should report to, and there is nothing new you need to think or do or suggest everyday to prove your presence felt. The pressure is less, and life is kind of planned well!

In the modern IT industry – most of the times you don’t know where you job starts and where it ends and when & at what time it ends, you will never know when you will be promoted, when you will be demoted, or when you will be sacked, you never know whom to report and whom you should not, and you need to give new ideas everyday, and push yourself to prove your presence felt. The pressure is more, and the life is never planned.

If money & a better life style are the only criteria then choosing the latter industry is a better option. But if you want to have a healthy, long & stress free life then choosing the former industry is a better idea.

Recently I spoke to an unmarried 32- year-old IT guy who earns 50 k a month. I asked him what is your savings in your bank he said 40 k, I asked him what is your investments – he said nil. And I spoke to a married banker with 2 kids with 20 years of experience making 18 k a month. He said he has 4 lakhs in the bank, has invested in 2 flats, has invested in 2 children, and is looking forward for a retirement with a handsome PF. Of course there is a major difference in the lifestyle they both lived – which includes the number of times they ate out, the number of times they visited a multiplex or shopping mall, owning a car, and wearing branded garments. But everything else remained the same!

So what is the post 40 IT syndrome I am talking about? Though we think that the IT industry has done a lot for the benefits of the people, it has screwed people’s life equally. First and the foremost it has screwed people’s back – by making them travel in those buses in the name of transport, and secondly they have screwed people’s sleep by making them work in odd hours! Yeah, people enjoy those things when young thinking effort leads to success, but then what if all the money you made is spent on your health related problems later?

These days the people in their 30s, who started their career coding a decade back hate to do the same. They aspire for leadership posts like Project Management, where in they can work less and guide more. There is a strict competition here, and not all who did coding can be project managers, even though the industry is expected to boom multifold in the coming years. Moreover the IT firms prefer to hire younger people, with latest knowledge & expertise than people with experiences. This becomes easier for them as the youngster are hard working, full of energies, and don’t mind taking peanuts as salary.

By the age of 40 the people who took up IT as their career will undergo a major shift in their thought process and lifestyle. They will be unsure about what they need in their life, what they want in their life, and whether they chose a right kind of career in their lives. Money won’t be the criteria – because by that time – they would have understood the uselessness of it. And this particular set of people will move towards spirituality or religiousness in a major way!