Musings of an overpaid typist

Originally written in Jan 2002 for Infosys Bulletin Board

Ya, that's what someone I know closely calls software engineers as. In her opinion, software code writing is the most over-hyped profession of all times, one she would not like to classify under the "knowledge workers" category. It doesn't help that she herself is quite good at programming, and does most of her analysis of financial data by improvising quick algorithms and writing programs to handle them. She stresses that it is the problem definition, by her as a user, that is the only important part in the process.

I'll tell you her favourite analogy. There's a concept called "relative advantage" in economics. One of the most frequently cited examples for this is - Suppose there's a lawyer who can type at 1.5 times the speed at which his typist can type. It still makes sense for the typist to do typing because the lawyer's time is more productive when he spends it in court rather than typing. So that is where the typist's (and the software engineer's, according to my friend) utility lies.
A humbling thought, many would say. Not really. Just sound economics. Every unit this this great set-up of ours called world-economy works (or rather should work) according to relative advantage. And whether the job of a typist involves thought or not, I won't go into, lest the typist union should catch me. So lets just leave it at the point that I am happy to be an "overpaid typist", at least with the overpaid part of it.

But then, am I overpaid? Has anybody on earth till now said that he/she is overpaid? Lets look at it this way. I typically work more no. of hours than most of my non-software counterparts. Compared to that, I am paid very less. The per hour billing rate which I charge my employer is certainly one of the lowest among all my friends. You know the reply my abovementioned friend would give me - "Well, labourers are always the least paid and exploited of the lot. So the idiotic hours of working which you people put in just shows that labourer attitude. But your hourly salary is much higher than that standard, so you are still overpaid". Then she would pause and continue, "Should I tell you where you are underpaid? Its not in what you get less, its what is being taken away from you. This industry recruits the most talented people of the country, and puts them to the work suited to second-raters". And I am reminded of the statement from Atlas Shrugged, "This is the place where you employ the ablest of the aristocrats for the lousiest of the jobs". My friend would continue, "School drop-outs actually. And please excuse me of those glorified school-drop-out stories, I am speaking of people who simply don't have brains enough to get through a professional college. This industry stunts your intellectual growth, and that cost perhaps is what makes you really underpaid, net-net." I am thinking, "But that's exactly opposite ideal to Galt's Gulch as painted in Atlas Shrugged".

Is it really that bad? I would say not. But then, let me not rely on my personal opinions, so I voice these thoughts to some Infoscions. The responses range from total agreement (exception being the overpaid part, to which none agreed) to absolute rejection. From, "Ya, the only thrill I get is when I try to predict stock market" to "What man, to come up with a perfect design, an elegant working piece of code is the biggest kick of life". Reminds me of Rahim - "rahiman is sansaar mein bhanti bhanti ke log" (O Rahim, there are all kinds of people in this world).
So I let things be as they are. It seems frightening to come to any concrete solutions about the nature of work I am involved in, as I realise that it is as much a comment on oneself. Ignorance is bliss.