Just like an impending recession is signalled by salary-freezes (or worse pay-cuts),
pink-slips and ofcourse hiring-stops, there are also certain signals that indicate that
the recession is receding.
The first of these is what I call the "Dear All" signal. In its very common form, this is a
company-wide (or BusinessUnit-wide) email sent out by an employee who is quitting
the company. Usual format is "Dear All, it has been fun working here with y'all, but for the sake
of career advancement, bla bla..., I am heading out. You can contact me at iAmOutOfHere@yahoo.com".
When you see a quick succession of such emails, it is an indication that companies have
started hiring again, which points to the recession slowly fading away.
But the best signal of a fading recession is when the salary-hikes get really generous.
This is partly done so as to counter the trend of people leaving for better pastures.
Last week (Tuesday) was when the hikes were announced in our organisation. I was
working from home when my manager called up to inform about the hike and boy, it
was a pleasant surprise.
The salary hikes were in the 20% - 40% range across the organisation, atleast to my
knowledge. Possible that it even went upto 50%. I can't mention here by what %age
my salary increased, since some of my colleagues visit this blog and it ain't considered
a nice practice to compare salaries or the hike %age. Let's just say, I was reaaaalllllly
happy. :-)
I called my wife to tell her about the hikes and she had just 2 things to say :
1) I fail to understand why you guys are rewarded so handsomely, especially guys like
you who are not even at work (refering to my recent workFromHome stints).
2) How about getting that Rosewood dining-table + chair set home ?
So, looks like the recession is behind us. Not bad. Not bad at all.
P.S. : We got the dining table & chairs home last Saturday. A damage of 45K, but that
is OK because we finally managed to find the exact one we wanted, after a long search
of more than 6 months.
