Rajesh was a talkative young man. He was working as a clerk in a famous accounting firm in South India. When a friend and I were sitting in the firm’s office, he started to talk to my friend. “You may think I am arrogant and lack humility. But, I have no hesitation in telling the world the truth. I am much better than all the rich people in this city,” he said.

“What makes you think so?” my friend asked him. “All the clients of this firm have no peace of mind. They always spend their time in courts and Tribunals. At no point of time in my life I have stepped into a court room. This shows I am a better law abiding citizen than these rich people,” he replied.

“Do you live in your own house?” my friend asked him. “I don’t own any house,” Rajesh replied. “Do you have any tangible or intangible properties?” My friend asked. “No,” Rajesh replied. “What is your income?” my friend asked. “I earn Rs.3,000 a month,” Rajesh mumbled.

My friend told Rajesh in a soft voice, “Only those that have properties or high income will get into problems related to tax or properties. Even if you want to get into such problems, you will never be able to. Please don’t waste your time in thoughts and feelings that have no substance. Instead of feeling better than successful people without any valid reasons, please work hard and become a prosperous man. Only then you have the right to have such thoughts.”

After a few moments of silence, Rajesh said in a broken voice, “What you say is true. All these days I have been trying to mask my weaknesses with stupid thoughts and words. I am an accountant and know how to use leading accounting software packages in the market. Is there a way for me to increase my income?”

My friend looked at me with a question in his eyes. I said to him, “You are a software developer. I know you spend a lot of time in software testing. Some parts of the testing can only be done by software engineers. However, only the actual end users can give you meaningful feedback on many features and user interface. Instead of wasting your precious resources such as the time of the highly paid software engineers, you can hire people like Rajesh and get the work done on part-time basis.”

“It is an excellent idea. Both I and Rajesh will be benefited by this proposal,” my friend said.

“Do you think I can do this work?” Rajesh asked me. “Please don’t have any such negative thoughts. If life gives you an opportunity, you must work hard and acquire the skills that you don’t have. You are an accountant. So, you know what to expect from an accounting software package. Actually, in some areas of software testing, you are better qualified than many software testing engineers,” I replied.

“That makes me feel good,” said Rajesh. “Accounting software is not the only category of software that can generate income for a non-professional like you. There are hundreds of categories of software programs. As many of these programs are written for common man, there are innumerable income opportunities for us. Many of us have friends or relatives that work in software industry and live in developed countries such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom. You can contact them and they may be able to get you assignments.”

Rajesh said, “I will do his work first. Once I learn the workflow and the process of software testing, I will contact my overseas friends.” I replied, “That’s a good idea. But, remember that your income expectation should be modest. Please don’t begin to think that you are better than Bill Gates of Microsoft or Narayanamurthy of InfoSys!” “Oh,no,” Rajesh laughed happily.

When I met my friend after a few months, he gave me some bits of information on Rajesh. “I pay him Rs.2,000 per month for 3 hours of work a day. I save Rs.8,000 on my software engineer’s salary. My engineers are brilliant. But, many a time they forget to think from end user’s point of view and unnecessarily complicate the development process. Feedback from Rajesh is really useful and justified every rupee that I pay to him. Recently, he has taken up the testing work from an American company. He got this work through his brother-in-law who is working in that American company, He is paid Rs.6,000 every month. Now, he earns more than Rs.10,000 a month.”