A Chennai-based founder has revealed that a promising young employee recently quit his company to work full-time as a delivery driver. Akshat Jain, the founder of Seeco Wealth, said that the employee, a member of the administration team, resigned saying he could earn up to ₹40,000 per month through delivery gigs.
22-year-old quits office job
To many, the idea of quitting a stable office job to work as a delivery driver may seem unappealing. But Jain said that his employee, a 22-year-old, saw higher earning potential in delivery work.
He described the employee as promising, someone who could potentially become a team lead in a few years. Despite this bright future, the employee resigned from his office job at Seeco Wealth.
“Our admin staff resigned today - he is 22, extremely talented and we were also grooming him - we'd give him books, taught him ai and he was seemingly satisfied. He could go onto lead a department in 3-5 years,” the Chennai-based founder said of his employee.
{{/usCountry}}“Our admin staff resigned today - he is 22, extremely talented and we were also grooming him - we'd give him books, taught him ai and he was seemingly satisfied. He could go onto lead a department in 3-5 years,” the Chennai-based founder said of his employee.
{{/usCountry}}He explained that the 22-year-old had started doing delivery work over the weekend to earn extra money. He soon realised that he could earn more that way.
“Now he resigned saying he can earn 35-40k by doing delivery work,” Jain said.
The founder added that he tried to explain that there there is no growth in delivery work, but his advice fell on deaf ears. “I'm like - you'll do this for 5 years, but beyond that - your health won't support you, you won't develop corporate skills,” Jain wrote.
Jain was responding to a post alluding to recent protests by factory workers in Noida demanding higher wages.
Social media says ‘pay more’
However, his post drew some amount of criticism on X. Some people in the comments section called out Jain for not paying a liveable wage to his employees — so much so that one person quit in favour of delivery work.
“Nice way to say that you were paying him by grooming him rather than paying him enough to survive. If he left you for 35k delivery job then it's easy to understand how much you were paying him. Food on plate is more important to most people rather than AI books and grooming for corporate skills,” X user Vivek John V opined.
(Also read: ₹13,000’">Noida workers protest low wages: ‘We work 12 hours a day, earn just ₹13,000’)
“He was so good - but you couldn't pay him ~50k?” another person asked. “I dare you to disclose how much you paid him,” a third added.
Other people said that the 22-year-old had missed out on a good opportunity by quitting his job. “What a missed opportunity , clearly he isn't thinking long term,” one X user said.
“Most enterprises can't afford to pay for potential. They can pay for performance. It takes patience for potential to translate into performance and then it reflects in the pay. This young man was foolish and impatient,” another declared.