BOC (British Oxygen Company) was the first organisation I had joined from campus after engineering. For added context, this was one of the coveted placements from my campus back in those days for mechanical stream. I reached Kolkata all excited and eager. Joined on a Monday and ended up resigning that Friday. I resigned on principle. So did my good friend and batchmate Vivek Suresh.
We were asked to sign a bond on joining. It was not so much the bond terms that was a matter of concern but the fact that until the batches that joined earlier this bond condition had not existed. Thanks to some seniors from college who were part of the organisation, we came to learn that it was this owing to this one person’s stubborn insistence that this bond thing was being shoddily pushed through. These seniors of ours were also uneasy about the manner in which it was getting implemented.
We discussed this and decided to take up the matter with the HR & concerned authorities. Knowing fully well that the possibility of them changing or dropping this owing to couple of freshers objecting was low to non existent. Me and Vivek had alternate offers from campus (at lower CTC’s than the one with BOC) so we reckoned we were better placed than others from our batch to take up the matter as well.
The process to have a conversation was set in motion sometime on Thursday. I remember speaking to my parents Tuesday evening informing that everything was great after which all this started unfolding. They either wanted to stall or genuinely wanted more time since they were all caught up with other things. We were on a clock since we had our joining dates with the other organisations also coming up fairly quickly. For me it was the Monday right after and Infosys Mysore. This was also pre Air Deccan 500 rupee offer days.
To force a conversation and also aided with the timeline pressure of decision making, we walked in to HR Friday morning with our resignation letters in hand. An emergency con call with key people were convened but it was mostly a routine affair with everyone sticking to their positions. Our resignations were submitted, formalities completed and by end of day, I managed to secure a train ticket as well to head back.
Few months later, we did check in with those college seniors of our at BOC. The bond practice was dropped. The bonds executed with others from our joining batch were also revoked and cancelled. Not sure how much of it was influenced by what we did. While our intent all along was to be able to influence.