Akkiblogpost

Gopal did everything right. Good marks throughout his computer science degree, a genuine interest in the subject, no shortcuts taken. He graduated, joined an IT services company, and within his first few weeks on a real project, something became obvious to his managers that his degree certificate had never once tested. He could recite data structures and algorithms from memory. He had no real idea how to break down an actual, messy, half-defined problem and build a working solution for it. His company put him through two more months of training before he could contribute meaningfully to the project he was hired for. Gopal isn't a real name from a news report. He's a composite case a World Bank study used to illustrate exactly this pattern, based on real employer interviews. But ask almost any hiring manager in Indian tech, and they'll tell you they've met a dozen actual Gopals this year alone. A good degree. A clean academic record. And a genuine, sometimes painf...

A friend of mine left her company two years ago in a bit of a huff. Better title elsewhere, slightly better pay, and honestly, she was tired of the same four walls and the same Monday standup with the same jokes. Six months into the new place, she called me one evening and said something I've never forgotten "yaar, I think I made a mistake." Not because the new job was terrible. It just wasn't what the offer letter had promised. The culture felt colder. Her manager didn't have time for her. The "growth opportunities" mentioned in the interview turned out to be a PowerPoint slide, not a real plan. Last year, she went back. Not to a different team at a rival company. Back to her old company. Same building, mostly the same people, a slightly better title than when she left, and her words "it felt like putting on an old pair of shoes that actually fit." If this story sounds familiar, that's because it's happening constantly right n...

He badges in at 10:15. Says hi to a couple of people near the coffee machine. Sits at his desk for exactly long enough to be seen by his manager walking past, opens his laptop, replies to two emails. By 12:30, he's badged out again, headed home, where he'll actually get his real work done for the rest of the day the way he was doing it perfectly well for the last three years, before HR sent that email about "mandatory in-office collaboration days." Nobody told him to do this. He didn't read about it in a management book. He just quietly figured out, the way a lot of people across a lot of offices have figured out independently, that showing up for two hours technically satisfies "come to the office" without actually giving up the flexibility that made the last few years of his career genuinely bearable. This behaviour has a name now coffee badging and it's become one of the most searched, most argued-about workplace terms of the last two yea...

You haven't been fired. Nobody has said a single word about your performance being a problem. There's been no warning letter, no HR meeting, no difficult conversation. And yet, somehow, you know. The good projects stopped coming your way around three months ago. You weren't looped into that client call last week, even though it directly involves your work. Your manager, who used to check in every couple of days, now goes ten days without a message. Your last raise was smaller than everyone else's on the team, and nobody explained why. Nothing has technically happened. And yet everything has changed. This has a name now, and it's showing up across Indian workplaces with increasing frequency — reported specifically in India's IT services sector , where an industry body has flagged companies deliberately creating conditions uncomfortable enough that employees choose to resign on their own. It's called quiet firing, and if you've felt this exact, ha...

You are in a meeting. Your manager says something that is wrong. Not a little wrong. Clearly wrong. You know it. The person sitting next to you knows it. Maybe even your manager, somewhere deep down, half-knows it. Nobody says anything. Heads nod. Someone says "yes sir, makes sense." The meeting ends. And then, the moment you step out, the real meeting begins — in the corridor, in the WhatsApp group, in hushed voices near the coffee machine. "Did you hear what he said? That's not even correct." Everyone agrees. Everyone. Except nobody said it in the room where it actually mattered. If you have worked in an Indian office for even six months, you already know this scene by heart. You have lived it. Maybe you were the one nodding. Maybe you are nodding right now, reading this on your phone under the desk. 📌 Key Takeaways ✅ India scores 77 on Hofstede's power distance index , one of the highest in the world, against a global average of 5...