Billability of parked cars

The Indian corporate world unabashedly focuses on the bottom line and in the here and now. This is understandable given that many companies have recently been taken over by outfits pledging allegiance to western systems and governments. Billability has become the reigning mantra, the founding principle of the stock market.  

There used to be a time when if an employee was found not having any job to do, (s)he was still carried on the company’s rolls in anticipation that something will show up. Her/his billability, the lack thereof, was taken as a temporary situation (Yes, of course, many times this “temporary” idling translated into permanent goofing off!). This is not taken kindly to anymore. The temporal tolerance is a thing of the past. It is billability, by the hour. This is OK with me, when in Rome do as Romans do, after all.

Just a few minutes ago, as I was walking along a street from the metro station to my house, I was actually walking in the middle of the street, between double parked cars on both flanks. That is when this thought crossed my mind – what is the billability of the parked cars?

For argument sake, we can say they are waiting to be economically productive, to drive the lady of the house to the mall or to the Lady’s Club (excuse the sexism in this sentence). That is, there is more than a hint of anticipation.

My question relates to cementing this analogy between parked cars and employees with low billability. If low billability of cars is tolerated why not that of employees, at least to an agreed time frame?

Raghuram Ekambaram