Kiran Verma, chief serving officer at Change With One Meal, needed an envelope sent across Noida. He booked Porter, the cost came to ₹40, and a rider arrived at his door: an older man, tidily dressed, unmistakably out of place among the city’s young delivery workforce.
He climbed the stairs to Verma’s first-floor flat without fuss, waved off an offer of water, and let slip, almost in passing, that work had been thin that day and he had simply been waiting for a job to come along. The polish in his manner did not match the errand.
Verma called him back. Over a short conversation he learned the rider’s name: Manoj, 56, formerly of the admin department at Tata AIA Life Insurance, where he had put in 14 years before a 2023 restructuring ended his run with a pink slip. Age and health, Manoj said, have kept him out of formal work since.
He left Verma with a line worth repeating: a curry leaf goes into the pan first, and comes out of the plate first too. Verma is careful to note he cannot vouch for the reasons behind Manoj’s exit or the merits of his tenure. What he can vouch for is the gap between a 14-year career and a ₹40 courier fee.
Verma paid him, and watched him go from the balcony. The rest is arithmetic every large employer knows and rarely dwells on: a layoff clears a line item, and somewhere down the line, a stairwell in Noida gets one more visitor who used to run a department.