I'm worth just....

Happened to pick up a middle aged person on the way today. He wanted to go somewhere along my way. For the fact that we were to be riding together for a while, I stroke a conversation wid him. After a while, as we spoke, got to know he's a Security Guard... his work places - far n wide... every day, a different location to guard. As we spoke, he told me some facts about his profession...

each shift lasted 12 hours on paper, but it could go longer if the reliever was not in time.

consequtive shifts do not continue at the same place.

if he's late to his next assignment by more than 30min, he'd be marked absent.

Most of the night shifts are nightmares. Owners, drunk, shout at them late in the mid of darkness, without any knowledge. These chaps, without any right to protest, bear it all for just a square meal a day.

said they needed to sometimes, work for 96hours, without break.

24hours of break if he's guarded for 96hours!!! I can't even think of staying awake for half the time!

A family in some far off village. whom he's to money order a part of his earnings.

for every shift from 7PM to 7AM, the earnings are a meagre 100 bucks, and a 120 if it were working 7AM to 7PM!!! (does this really matter to us??? he's paid for his work... ain't he?)

A meal on the roads costs him atleast 40 rupees a day. His life goes on with a savings of 60rupees/day.

Today, when I earn nothing short of atleast 7 times what he earns a day, and that for mostly whiling away time in an Air conditioned cubicle, and that for working just for 7-8 hours a day... (SW Engineers, don't tell me you work for 13 hours every day. I'm one among you... and know the facts.) it makes me ponder over and again over the same question...

"Is his hard work of days together, justified by what he earns?"

Aren't we engineers grossly overpaid for whatever we're doing?

Give it a thought... never know, you'll never even think of looking into the eyes of a security guard now on!! shamed by life...