Day after day
Week after week
Month after month
Year after year
You've shown the world
How not to be an employer
Treating your employees like slaves
Demeaning them with insults
That were way below the belt
Denying them their basic pay
For which they have braved storms
Scaled towering mountain peaks
And dived to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean
And firing a few of them
For no justifiable reason whatsoever
Today, however
You have sunk to a new low
It is bad enough to not pay your employees
But to accuse them of not doing their jobs
And lie to their faces'
That you've been paying them properly
Is despicable to the core
And goes on to show
That you are nothing more
Than a rat in the gutter
But then, the rat at least deserves to be put out of its misery
You, on the other hand
Deserve to rot in the confines of Tihar Jail
For a very very long time
Of course, we all know the famous saying
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
But it applies only to human beings
You are not one

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
Are you capable of any good?
Or is it utterly pointless
To keep such expectations?
You live only for money
And your employees are mere tools
To be used one day
And thrown away another day

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
Your employees sacrifice so much
By burning the midnight oil
Every day, every week
Every month, every year
Some of them have to do it
Just to make ends meet
And you deny them
Such a basic thing as salary
For an entire year

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
During these mad times we live in
With many people dying
And many more getting infected
You still care about work only
Of course, your employees are just robots
But, if they are robots
Why are they getting infected as well?

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
With every passing day
The situation is getting worse and worse
As the virus is spreading everywhere
Including amongst your employees
Yet, you still act like Emperor Nero
Who was content to play the piano
While his beloved Rome burned
Is it not your duty
To create a safe environment
For all your employees?
Should you not make it a priority
To ensure that they all work from home?
Instead, your lust for control is such that
You would rather prefer
Your employees to risk their lives
Just so that you can watch over them
Just the way the monster Cerberus
Guards the gates to Hell

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
You may be a Founder of a company
But you lack basic goodness
And unless you mend your ways
You and your husband
Will die a dog's death
The sooner that day comes, the better
So that your employees
Can start leading a normal life again
Free from your evil influence

When will you ever be satisfied?
Work, work and work
That's all you want us to do
Never mind that it's a Saturday
That we have a life of our own
That we have a family
That we've already burned the midnight oil
With no rewards for our hard labour

When will you ever be satisfied?
We all know the famous saying
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
Do you want us all to be Jacks?
Are we humans or machines?
What ever happened to work-life balance?
We work for hours and hours
In front of a computer screen
Is this fair to our eyes?

When will you ever be satisfied?
We handle multiple roles
We handle multiple clients
We run a huge risk
In upsetting a few clients
In order to satisfy your favourite client
But will that particular client
Justify its enormous price tag?

When will you ever be satisfied?
We never get our incentives on time
Yet we rarely complain
We patiently put in all the hard yards
Waiting for months, in vain
At the huge risk of burnout
You will never be able to replace us
Yet your lust for control is such
That you will never be satisfied

What do you know, really?
About the midnight oil I burn
About the sacrifices I make
About the long waits I endure
As you find numerous excuses
To delay my salary and incentives
About the pain I endure
In order to share resumes on time
Even as my stomach muscles burn

What do you know, really?
About what goes in my work
About the amount of time I spend
With my eyes glued to the screen
Searching every nook and corner
For the ideal candidate
Even as my eyes protest vociferously
About the calls I make
Hoping to convert every one of them
Into a successful lead
But instead ending up in rejections
Even as the pressure mounts on me
To find at least two good resumes
By the end of a long day
A tedious and totally exhausting day

What do you know, really?
About the various situations
I have to deal with in my life
About the efforts I put in
To ensure that work is not affected
At any cost, whatsoever
About my Asperger Syndrome
And the difficulties it puts me in
Whether personal or professional

The list goes on and on
You may be a Founder
And me just a team member
But as far as my ordeals are concerned
What do you know, really?

Every week, every day
Every hour, every minute
You pile on the pressure
The same way a python
Slowly, but surely
Coils itself around its prey
The hapless rabbit struggles hard
But its efforts are entirely in vain
As the python tightens its grip
And chokes the rabbit into submission
The poor prey can only pray
As the serpent opens its mouth wide
And devours the rabbit whole

Every week, every day
Every hour, every minute
You expect us to close roles
At the speed of light
As it were child's play
As they say, ignorance is bless
While a pandemic is raging
And many people are losing their jobs
And many more, their lives even
All that matters to you is money
Money, that you don't pay us on time
And yet expect results from us
After all, you can't have the cake
And eat it too!

Every week, every day
Every hour, every minute
You take us for granted
You expect the impossible from us
But have you ever realised
The pains we go through
In order to satisfy your unreasonable demands?
Have you ever considered the fact
That we are also human beings?
What would you do
If we decided to abandon you?
It is easy to lose good employees
But a herculean task to replace them
Your firm would be finished for good
You would end up bankrupt
And there would be infinite time left
To reflect on what may have been
Had you been a little more understanding
A little more considerate
A little more human

How cruel can you be?
How heartless can you be?
Every month, every week
Every day, every hour
Every minute, every second
You subject your employees
To nothing but abject slavery
In the name of hard work
In the name of targets
But in reality, just to satisfy
Your unquenchable thirst for money
Your insatiable greed for power

How cruel can you be?
How heartless can you be?
You expect results at the speed of light
But you do not provide your employees
The necessary resources
After all, do you think
They are all Harry Houdinis
Capable of pulling rabbits out of hats?

How cruel can you be?
How heartless can you be?
Your employees burn the midnight oil
And brave Hell for you
Some of them are forced to do it
Just to make both ends meet
And you have the sheer nerve
To deny them their pay
Which they have so richly earned
After weeks and weeks of toil

How cruel can you be?
How heartless can you be?
Mark my words, the time will come
When you will pay for your deeds
Till now, you have been lucky
Fate has been on your side
However, things will soon change
Your company will be in free-fall
You will be in debt
With nowhere to turn
As your employees will desert you
One by one
Not even a Houdini can save you then

Three years of hard work
Three years of patience
Three years of dedication
Where are the rewards?
You talk so much about speed
You talk so much about quality
You talk so much about numbers
Where were you
When the salary was delayed
Every alternate month?
Where were you
When the incentives were delayed
By more than a year?

Three years of hard work
Three years of patience
Three years of dedication
There has been so much
I have put up with
But I do expect something in return
Such as timely payment of salary
Timely payment of incentives
And you have failed to deliver
In all of these aspects
Each of which, is so critical
For a healthy relationship
Between employer and employee
But, are you a good employer?
Looking at the evidence so far
I guess the answer is no

Three years of hard work
Three years of patience
Three years of dedication
The wait has been long enough
I have been extremely patient
But at some stage
My patience is bound to snap
And then, you will hopefully understand
That it may be easy
To lose a good employee
But much more difficult
To find a replacement
And, looking at the speed
At which you pay the salary or incentives
The search will go on and on
Until your wretched company shuts shop
Which is something
That we are all eagerly looking forward to!

Are you a human being?
Or are you an agent of Satan?
Do you value human life?
Or do you consider it disposable?
Do you understand love?
Do you understand kindness?
Do you understand empathy?
If not, are you fit to run a company?
Are you fit to be a boss?
Are you fit to be an HR?
Are you fit to work at all?

You have been blinded
By your fanatical zeal for results
By your overpowering greed for money
By your insatiable lust for power
For you, employees are robots
Tailor-made for your animalistic needs
Which cannot be satisfied
By any sane human being
For the sake of your whims and fancies
Which change at the speed of light
Several innocent lives are being ruined
Today, it is the employees who are doomed
Tomorrow, it could be your husband
The day after, it may even be your daughter
And this vicious cycle will go on and on
With no end in sight
Therefore, for the sake of humanity
It is only just
That you are banished from Earth
Down to the all-consuming darkness of Hell
Where you will rot, for eternity
And the world shall be happier for it

Month by month
Week by week
Day by day
Hour by hour
Minute by minute
Second by second
The pressure builds
The stranglehold tightens
Like the monstrous coils
Of a giant anaconda
That is savagely determined
To squeeze its hapless prey
And ruthlessly quell every ounce of resistance
Until the poor rabbit realises
That it's all over bar the shouting
But I am not a rabbit
I am a mongoose
The mere sight of that ugly serpent
Fills me, not with fear
But instead, with rage
A rage so powerful, and so enduring
That I long to rip the snake
Into a thousand slimy pieces
With my shiny claws
As sharp as daggers
Until and unless Justice is served
We employees are accorded
The respect and dignity we deserve
Our dues are paid on time
And you, the employer
Finally show some transparency and accountability
And empower us with that freedom
Which you keep boasting about
But which we all know, is just a sham
Just like the training sessions you promised
The dedicated office setup
The addition of more employees
And of course, most of the incentives

On a dark, dreary day
Kissed by the Rain Devils
Who launch a monstrous attack
In the form of buckets
Of water so cold
That it sends shivers down your spine
As you keep a brave face
Confronted with a heap of work
As tall as Mount Everest
With every passing minute
Despair creeps in
And penetrates your system
Infecting every nerve and bone
Every artery and vein
Until an epidemic breaks out
As you are about to pass out
An angel stirs inside you
It seems to be saying something
That sounds a lot like gibberish
As you regain some of your senses
You realize that the angel is singing
And, all of a sudden
Your head is filled with music
Music that is so symmetrical
That it is the very antithesis of noise
With every beat
Your foot begins to tap
Your body begins to sway to and fro
A fresh ray of light
Begins to dawn upon you
As it fills your mind and body
Your heart and soul
You begin to realise
That the tide can be turned
However, just as your resurgence is growing
It is brutally thrown off the rails
By a large and ugly boulder
In the form of a Skype message
Delivered by your tormentor-in-chief
The boss, ably supported by his cronies
The clients, reasonably unreasonable, as always
However, though you may have lost the battle
You can still win the war
Because, the flame of Hope, once rekindled
Can never be extinguished
Thanks to music, you can dare to dream
Such is the magic of Harris Jayaraj