Universal truth: Work sucks! Or does it?

India is seeing a lot of growth and job creation, but these invariably end up with people who are hopelessly overqualified for them. You'll see IIT grads doing maintenace work in coding, IIM grads in backend analytics, Engg. grads selling credit cards (both direct and in call centers) and so on. Hardly encouraging! Now, the million dollar question is, are there any jobs out there that might give you the most elusive thing in the world, more elusive than true love, namely Job Satisfaction

I'm beginning to think that a lot of jobs that look glamorous on the outside is real drudgery when you actually get down to it. But most such jobs have a carrot - either that of high pay or that of future rewards like a really cushy position after a few years in the trenches. For eg. take Investment Banking. When you start as an Analyst, it is long hours of donkey work. But you persist because of the pay, and the hope that someday you'll make it to MD and go jetting around meeting clients and pocketing million dollar bonuses.

On the other hand, there are professions like Teaching or Medicine where you feel (or is this another example of the job looking better from the outside than it really is?) a certain sense of accomplishment, but may not be particularly lucrative.

Now take IT and ITES jobs, what are touted as key drivers of India's job-creation. Whether it is supposedly high-end Equity Research or low-end data entry, these jobs offer a fairly beauracratic career path. What changes for you over the years in such a job is just pay and your designation till you end up being a People-manager (which is called a Team-Lead or anything else to even a Vice-President like in the place that I work, though we've been told that you can't say VeePee without saying CRG too in the same breath, just so that client Investment Bankers don't panic). Of course, the pay is supposed to help. Sure, it helps you assuage your suffering with blatant self-indulgence that'll cause your parents to wonder how you can manage to spend so much money in so little time. Is the real reason for American prosperity this virtuous cycle of meaningless, monotonous jobs that combines with a 5-day week will make you spend almost all that you earn over the weekend thereby creating even more such jobs!!! Makes you wonder, doesn't it! I think that India is short-selling its talent and fast becoming the back-office of the world. And yeah - don't forget that even IT is a back-office job. Now what is wrong with a backoffice job, you may well ask. Well, I'd say that any job where day after day you spend your time doing the same kind of work, where you hardly get to use your judgment and creativity, is hardly any better than a factory shopfloor job. What is the difference between a so-called white collar job like this and a blue-collar job putting hub caps on cars?

ubergeek, the