I have been working peacefully in the last 11.5 years in the IT industry and have worked with the best and the worst in this industry. I have seen employers who do not pay salaries on time (or salaries at all - sighting several reasons), not giving proper certificates, not having toilets at the premises, not giving any overtime, etc. But never have I seen a company which has absolutely no human side and claims to earn $3 billion in revenues.
I saw an advertisement at www.naukri.com for a Technical Architect position in Cognizant and applied. After 2-3 months I was called for an interview. Some lady called Kalaivani called and scheduled the interview. I went for the interview in OMR and met a reasonable but technical guy. A good two months or later I got another call from some other HR guy who was recruiting but I told him I had been contacted by Kalaivani. A month later, another lady called Devishree called me and said this is in continuation with Kalaivani's recruitment. She scheduled me for another interview (second round she said!) and I attended that interview as well. I met a lady called Jayashree who was a director at the Whites road office in Chennai. A week or two later, I do not get any calls or confirmations and so I called Ms. Devishree. She confirmed that my candidature is being considered and an offer will be made (first time a prospective employee calls the employer and gets the offer letter!). A good two months later, I finally get the soft copy of the offer letter.
I resigned from my good employer of 5 years with a very heavy heart and reached the 'joining' office at Thuraipakkam in (a remote and mosquito infested) Chennai. An eager HR guy who reminded me of a bouncer in a bar with a tucked shirt asked me for my certificates and past experience letters. I gave him my bundle. He came back in 5 minutes saying that I do not have two previous employers' experience letters. These employers were eight years ago and had closed down during the dotcom bust and I had worked for 4 different employers after them. They had not issued experience letters as they went out of business. This was the beginning of my woes.
The following Monday, I met my new manager Ms Jayshree who did spend time with me. I did not get an employee ID and waited it for the next day. Ms Jayashree was to be in Pune for a couple of weeks and I was left alone to suffer. I kept calling the Admin and the HR and I was finally told that the recruiter Ms. Sindhu (a vamp who looks like a black poodle with lipstick on), had 'blocked' the issue of my employee ID. I sent her a couple of emails and she took her time to respond. All this while, I used to spend the day at the Whites Road office doing nothing. Two whole weeks had passed and finally she replied that she wants to meet me in person.
I go to the MEPZ office the following Monday, where she makes me wait for more than an hour (one hour and 12 minutes to be precise - she was doing nothing during this time). She comes and gives a very fake apology. We discuss and I tell her that I could not get an experience letter from these companies since they closed down. All this while she never let me talk and treated me like a criminal. She asked me how I had the guts to apply for a job in CTS without documents? I told her I had sent all the document copies to her team after they sent the offer letter and it was their job to verify and they should have verified the documents then. I told her that every decent company does a background verification and I believed even CTS (oh not decent this one!) does so. She said with her eyes closed and her head high 'Cognizant has it's own standards of verification'.
I have worked for 7 employers, applied for the UK HSMP visa and have had not a single background verification failure! Now what is the standards CTS has I wondered? She asked me to report to 'whomsoever you are reporting' to but what she meant is to get the employer certificates. How on Earth can someone get certificates from closed companies?! Does this idiot woman and her idiot company really expect that? Never for once did she mention that I HAVE TO get the certificates. I talk to my manager who advised me to talk to the HR head of that department. This man was even worse than the people who carry sacks at the Koyembedu market! He has the gall of saying that I am NOT an employee of the company and flatly denies any help. The agony that me and my family went through at that time had no end. We even contemplated suicide and I just could not think of killing my kids nor my wife. After 11.5 years, I am left on the street without a job and the guys who hired me are saying I am not wanted there.
I had another meeting with the HR VP and we agreed for a background verification and that I will not join them till it is complete.
At this time, I get another job offer from a small company who offered me the same pay. I took it up. A month later, the CTS guys come up again and say the background verification is complete and has passed. I ask them to re-issue me the offer letter to which the recruiter agreed initially. I sent reminders that I am waiting for the offer letter to which another week later I get a reply saying that no further offer letters will be made. Why cant they give me at least a week's time?! They said 'we were expecting you to join', and I was expecting them to send the offer letter or at least a word when to join. Finally they tell me on a Thursday to join on Friday (the next day!) else the offer is void.
On joining CTS, this is my state... I do not want to think what levels of pain me and my family will undergo after I resume duties there!!!
In my 11.5 years of career, I have never seen such a mean, boorish, unsympathetic, unprofessional and bedraggled bunch of people. I had heard rumours about CTS that their HR is very uncivilized and that they are very Tamil-oriented. Now I have first-hand proof that they are and Cognizant Technology Solutions IS THE WORST COMPANY I had ever had the misfortune to be associated with. If they had their will, they'd start coding in Tamil it looks like and they are ferociously biased to high-caste Tamils as is evident almost all of their top brass are Iyengers/Brahmins. Non-Tamils keep off or do the dirty work and get paid peanuts!
I believe me and my family have been harassed by this company and if there was any justice in India, I would have expected to either get the job or paid for the time I spent there and for the emotional agony that it caused us.
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