Money, get away, Get a good job with more pay and you're OK?

Many commentators, most of them far wiser than me, have coined brilliant terms to refer to the generation gap that exists in the Indian demographic today. Since the workplace is but a small subset of the overall demographic, this generation gap is equally alive and kicking there as well.

In my humble view, the workforce in any organization can be divided into two generations:

  1. Those who completed schooling before the turn of the millennium, and
  2. Those who did so in the present century

I’d like to see the former as the RKM (Roti Kapda Makaan) generation, whereas the latter is more of the YOLO/FOMO (You Only Live Once/Fear Of Missing Out) kind. I neither desire, nor possess the ability, to perform a cost-benefit analysis of either approach towards personal finance. However, running the risk of generalization, this is probably how each generation judges the other:

RKM (judging YOLO/FOMO): Where are your savings? How can you blow up your entire salary within the first fortnight? Let me show you how to manage your finances.

YOLO+FOMO (judging RKM): Papa don’t preach! Get a life!

Irrespective of whether money is funny or not for you or whether you desire to write a suicide note on a hundred-dollar bill, you cannot escape the thrill (or chill) of earning your first few pay-checks! And this is arguably one of the primary transformations you’ll experience as you transition from being a student to a professional in your chosen place of work. But as Uncle Ben advised Peter Parker (aka Spiderman), with great power comes great responsibility…

What’s fantastic is, that the power is yours to wield and whether you want to do so responsibly or not, is entirely your choice!


Arijit Dutta photo Arijit Dutta
Arijit started his career as a chip designer in Motorola (and subsequently Freescale Semiconductor). In his 8 year stint in the semiconductor industry, Arijit led critical design functions and methodology formulation for Motorola’s next generation chipsets and managed cross functional teams across locations. Arijit holds 3 patents in this domain. Next, Arijit turned an entrepreneur and ran a company that developed and sold internet platforms and content in chip design, mobile application and web development. He graduated in Engineering from IIT Bombay. Arijit is a martial arts and music enthusiast.