What does it feel like to be on the way home from work one evening, preparing yourself to tell the family that you don’t have a job anymore? I have friends who have been through this, yet I can only vaguely imagine what goes through a man’s mind in the moments before the inevitable confession to wife, child, parents. No one who hasn’t gone through that moment possibly can more than vaguely imagine the feelings: the anger, helplessness, guilt, shame, fear. If one had a choice, one wouldn’t want anyone to go through that experience. But I am also a person who has personally sacked perhaps two dozen people during my career. In the last three months, I have let three people go, on grounds of incompetence.

But today, we know what the reality is, what the rules that run a market are. I have known young software engineers switching jobs thrice a year just for more money and nothing else, their minds devoid of any concept of employer loyalty or job content. The times were good then, grand. The times are bad now, as they were inevitably supposed to be at some point of time. We have seen real estate developers on reckless building sprees, charging prices that look like phone numbers for apartments clearly worth much less in the long run. The party couldn’t have lasted for ever. And yesterday’s hot shot who got fired last week should have known that fast careers come with risks attached. Always.

... contd.