A visit to one of Pakistan's top Software Houses

Society Business and Career
1

OK guys I’m not being pessimistic or gossippy or something but honestly I didn’t expect what I saw :eek:

I won’t divulge the name of the company but like I was visiting this software house which is basically one of the biggest in Pakistan. It has offices outside Pakistan, owned by Pakistanis though.

So there I was at their office.

The office was not bad itself, I mean they had decent computers and furniture etc.

Lekin the atmosphere was totally unprofessional. Or maybe it was just that day or maybe my perception was biased.

KHAYR!!!

Here’s what I saw.

The two guys sitting behind me were discussing the movie ‘Dil Chahta Hae’ and discussing whether Amir Khan had a better hairstyle or Akshay Khanna. And then they started watching the DVD on headphones. This continued for about two hours.

The guy sitting on my right was getting constant MSN mssgs and everytime before he would maximise the window, he would look around, to check if someone was looking, and then reply. OOpar se itni bari daarhi rakhi hui thee…sheesh i swear!!! daarhi ka hi lihaz ker lya hota!!!

The girls one over were constantly asking the mulazim of the office to get them kabhi coke kabhi samosay kabhi icecream ye wo from neechay wali dukaan, chatting about pata naheen kya and khee kheeing and then one of them took out some fashion mag and then they both started surfing the web on paki fashion sites :smack:

The boss himself was a hecka young fellow, less than 30 I’m guessing, and he was sitting far removed from everyone else, like his desk itself was at the end of the office behind a wooden wall and he wasnt coming to check what the employees were doing. He was basically having some meeting or something. He left before all the other employees. mashallah se what dedication and supervision!

Most of the ppl there were just walking up to each others’ desks every five minutes to ask questions and guppay maaring for ages. And the questions they were coming and asking each other were such very hi basicccccc programming questions k I was thinking, not to sound snobby my own programming knowledge aint that good, but I was thinking mann how did they even get here if they dont even know this and they are actually working as software programmers!!!

Gosh!!! I was in shock!!! Totally horrified!!! The employees were sooo chillaxed n there was like no work ethic there, totally unprofessional atmosphere :smack:

I wonder whether they ever get any work done and when they actually code :konfused:

I’ve seen offices of good software houses and startups etc in the Silicon Valley in the US too and the work atmosphere there is hellishly strict compared to what I saw here…!!!

:halo:

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[QUOTE]
I won't divulge the name of the company but like I was visiting this software house which is basically one of the biggest in Pakistan. It has offices outside Pakistan, owned by Pakistanis though....
[/QUOTE]

Whatever their culture is...they must be doing something right. How else would they still remain in business?

3

Irem

the company got where it is because it did something right. I think I know what company you are talkign about and a good pal of mine is fairly senior there.

end of teh year is slow for many companies, that may be what you noticed.

what is interesting is teh sarcasm in your tone about the boss not coming to check on his people and leaving before tham and questioning his dedication. what you are looking for is micro management and an approach that values face time more than results. As long as they are meeting their objectives..whether they are on msn, eating samosas or talking about movies..let them.

In my experience most good bosses set the expectations, allow people to develop deadlines for their work..with manager inout and then track them to it. now whethr a person watses an entire day and then pulls an allnighter to do something, thats not the concern, although as a good manager whois interested in developing his employees one may try to encourage more disciplined work.

do you think that in US ppl just show up to work, sit on their desk and become a robot until lunch, and then robot again until quitting time? social inetraction and networking within thge company is very important. The company may not be efficient..you will not know until you are there for sometime.

point is, dont be so quick in judgements. the work styles in diff countries are different

4

^ spot on. I couldn’t have said it better or agreed more partner.

You sure seemed to have walked the path :k:

5

khanzaday

I once worked as a manager in Citicorp, it was an operations group. the way the place was run was much like a factory, scial interaction during work hours was not liked.. even if youa re done with yoru work, surely there must be something else u could be doing, help another dept etc etc. face time was important, show up by *;30 if u are late teh VP would sometimes stand there and take note. quitting time is 5:30 but if u leave at 5:30 it was frowned upon.

I had to enforce teh same set of rules on my team and face the same set of rules from my boss. I did nto like dealing with those rules or enforcing them, needless to say I resigned after a year. the turnover rate for this operations group was nearing 90% in 2 years.

ther eis this issue in operations sometimes, if u bcome a zombie in front of the computer and act like u are doing work..its better than the guy who is more efficient and gets more work done..not the best incentives for anyone who was motivated..

6

As part of a project I was doing in my previous life, I had to work with some programmers in another of Pakistan's premiere software houses. It was in Lahore and is still very big in software exports and projects implementation.

Anyway, my experience is a bit different. True, the office atmosphere is not as polished as most US companies (mismatched chairs, scattered magazines, hit or miss receptionists etc). The work environment was a bunch of tables in which people were sitting next to each other, not in cubicles. While this allows for more openness in terms of their work, it also means there was more chit chat going on.

Having said all that, the owner of that company is a very good friend, had studied in MIT and is extremely well trained manager. He did not micro-manage by face time, but rather by project dead lines and a sharp rein on deliverables. Early morning meetings and all that.

The engineers were, more or less, work aholics. Yes, there will be some chatting, most will have ICQ screens open all the time, but if they are putting in 14 hrs/day, out of that approx 10 will be strictly work. Most evenings they'd go out an hour before maghrib, and play cricket in the compound (the owner will join), and then come back and after some chai samoosay will restart work till 8-9 pm. So, it was a lot of fun working with those guys.

My gripe with them was more in terms of quality of their work. They'll supposedly "hand off" stuff to us, without much QC and as a result, we will catch problems with the functionality/code which they should have caught themselves. To be fair, they'd be really good in fixing stuff.

Also, the programming ethics left a lot to be desired. My techie collegues will often say that these programmers (most of them rookies) are putting far more lines in the code than necessary which slows things down and made code-fixing a bit of a longer process. There was lack of documentation too in terms of error fixes etc.

This is a few years ago, and based on our feedback the company did initiate a number of measures to improve the quality of their products and procedures, including full time QC section and more drills into good programming ethics. The Company is still around and is doing increasingly well in software export business line, so I am assuming they have removed some of the 'kinks' we noticed back in 98-99 time frame.

7

Unbelievable..

I haven’t worked in Pakistan but after reading your post I had a few flashbacks. It reminded me of the office environments in Pakistan and the overall attitude of people towards jobs. Personally, I don’t think I can work in a non-serious environment. Samosay, msn, guppaN..is totally not my idea of a work environment. I work with I.T and other business units and I can understand if programmers want to work flexible hours ..work at their own pace etc but there has to be some discipline ..it isn’t about micro-managing but its about providing an environment for all employees to work at their full potential.

I can totally see you being disappointed with the environment…You will notice people have different approach towards work in different parts of the world…North Americans are workaholics..Europeans value their siesta time…and I’m not sure how ppl are in Pakistan now…I read your posts before you went back to Pakistan and I remember you went with a lot of energy and intentions to serve the country..it is disheartening to see a youngster not getting a serious work environment to prosper.

I would like to know more firsthand experiences of people (especially new graduates) working in Pakistan. Khanzada maybe you can shed some more light on what happens during 8-5 at your workplace. What are your observations…Do u think there is a need for change? Do you feel things could be better? Do you feel that professionalism is lacking? Are your superiors giving feedback to juniors from team building…mentorship…career planning perspectives?

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hey everyone

thanks for your replies

my apologies....the post was meant to be partly humorous as well so plz dont take it that seriously....infact never take my posts too seriously :D knowing my personality i actually like this kind of workstyle better :D the laid back type...i am no workaholic by any means and am quite a lazy procrastinator type myself :D

i dint mean to say k its worse here or its worse in the usa, its just different and i was highlighting that...

BoSS nah I wasnt really disappointed, it was just a surprise as i had no idea...ideally i would prefer something between the north american and pakistani work atmosphere, in fact closer to te paki work atmosphere...i dont like the work work work atmosphere...
plus Faisal bhai is right, it could have just been a chillaxed day...
its different here in different offices i heard..in pvt banks its very hectic but i wouldnt wana be part of that kind of an atmosphere either...

Faisal bhai you've worked at Techlogix???? thats cool!!! i've heard its a cool place...

Fraudz, it wasnt supposed to be mean sarcasm, it was just a bad attempt at comoedy i guess lol :o

i'm sure they are able to manage their work coz after all, thats why the office is still open

very good point abt sitting in comp acting like zombie but getting zilch done

Khanzada stop being lazy n write a proper reply will ya :p

9

oh man i would love to go in such a company .. wessey i think IT companies each have there own culture ..

the last company where i worked at .. we used to play multiplayer games there all of us .. from the manager to programmers ..
it doesnt mean keh we didnt worked ..infact ppl used to be in hurry to complete there task on time so that they can play games in the end :)

so i guess it helped a lot in the over all performance of the company .

and this doesnt happen in Pakistan only .. i was looking at the office environment of mertroworks.. ( code warrior ) and ppl there they play bowling on there office floor every saturday or so ..

so probably as other ppl said the company was having a time off or something ..

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by irem: *

Fraudz, it wasnt supposed to be mean sarcasm, it was just a bad attempt at comoedy i guess lol :o
[/QUOTE]

yeah there is a reason the term tanz o mazah is used i.e. u can have sarcastic comedy as well which we are good it. I was just saying that maybe your assessments were untrue.

Boss

*I can understand if programmers want to work flexible hours ..work at their own pace etc but there has to be some discipline ..it isn’t about micro-managing but its about providing an environment for all employees to work at their full potential. *

The manmager coming out and checking on his employees is micromanagement and a very factory floor approach, does not fly anywhere except operations type of background.

I can totally see you being disappointed with the environment…You will notice people have different approach towards work in different parts of the world…North Americans are workaholics..

Havcing worked closely with companies like PeopleSoft, Oracle, JDE, Siebel..knowing people there, I can assure you that as high as the productivity may be and as workaholics as those people are, they have similar type of fun and games at work.

..it is disheartening to see a youngster not getting a serious work environment to prosper.

it only appears to be a not-serious work environment, we dont know and she does not know what does it mean to work there.. if by serious you mean very formal, strict, military atmopshere, she can always join the Ordinance group in the army.

11

i have found out recently that if ppl keep buging me to do stuff i get so pissed off i could shoot them..... if someone says somethign to me i will do it ... its upto me how i do it .... iream baji salam :p

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by manitoon: *
the last company where i worked at .. we used to play multiplayer games there all of us .. from the manager to programmers ..
it doesnt mean keh we didnt worked ..infact ppl used to be in hurry to complete there task on time so that they can play games in the end :)

[/QUOTE]

I'm in NY and previously I worked in consulting company which had a develping department and we had about 15-20 programmers. And we pretty much had the same thing, rush to finish stuff of by 5 pm (while discussing movies) and then DoomII. Ofcourse there were times when it was so busy that our families won't see us for a few days.

13

digital surgeon, i know people at oracle and peoplesoft, send me you resume and I will hook u up, my oracle contact is in canada and peoplesoft in US. Not being a techie myself i dont know many developers but for technology consulting type roles I can always try and help.
as far as what u experienced at the ordinance factory..many companies operations groups are the same.. got o any major financial institution, look at their ops groups in institutional assets, check clearing, etc etc and its like an assembly line almost.

14

Boss: I can relate what happens at ‘my’ workplace (there are about 1,000 odd employees in our Head Office but i will only speak about my department-the Investment Bank).

My experience may not be construed as representative of workplace environment in Pakistan since we as an organization have recently experienced a paradigm shift (we were privatized and so lots of structural and policy changes, new faces, focus on systems and procedures and the likes, you get the idea na?)

The official timings being 9-5, we actually get off office at 8:30 pm or thereabout. Why? Don’t know. Most often than not its because of the work, but sometimes its due to the fact that we have a culture of late sitting in office-something that i do not personally approve of (however, in our particular business, it is common since the work nature is such that work comes in spurts literally, the times when you have to work mad hours and deliver).

We do not though strictly work cent percent of the time. We have cubicles for senior managers only and we ‘kids’ sit in an open environment. However, there are only 10 people in our team so the enclosure doesn’t represent a fish market. We get together for a chai/samosa session once a week in the evenings and a religious halwa poori session almost each Saturday (Saturday is a half day and its a casual-dress day). We invariably go out to lunch together, the entire team, department head and all, which works well in instilling a candid yet professional relationship amongst the various levels of the departmental hierarchy.

All said and done, i would say we end up working about 70%+ of the time we actually are supposed to work (9-8:30). Professionalism, um, yes we can do better than what we are doing currently in some of the areas. Feedback is instant and is mostly aimed at improvement rather than admonishment.

Things could certainly be better in my opinion, but things are not as bad with us as they are at many other places. For e.g., in the same organization, there were people (at least some time back), who used to spend 70% of their alloted work time (9-5) reading newspapers or enjoying snacks in the conference room and getting off to washroom to comb their hair every 10 odd minutes or so.

On average, i would say a lot of improvement is needed in instilling professionalism at workplaces here. However, as indicated earlier, the ambience differs across organizations due to the work that they do. For e.g., work at a software house would invariably at least ‘look’ more casual than say at an investment bank (i understand some of it is mostly perceptual but that also counts)-and irem, at that has picked an extreme example.

irem: poora qissa likh dia, khush? :hoonh:

15

ahh its such a good work environment why complain this is what you call a dream job!!! :love: