‘Have we tried increasing revenue?': Intern's first-day email stuns CEO, reignites debate on Gen Z work culture
In the now-widely circulated email, the intern said, 'Hey, I had a quick idea for the company, sorry if this was already brought up, but have we tried increasing revenue?' — a suggestion so vague and broad that it left people both amused and bewildered.
We hired a college intern. Today's his first day. Here's what he just sent me. pic.twitter.com/VRyD3jMdKO
— Roshan Patel (@roshanpateI) July 28, 2025
Social media users wasted no time jumping into the conversation. One said, 'Firing him would increase the revenue.' Another user added a touch of optimism, saying, 'At least he is somewhat engaged and eager. Can't have it all can you?'
A third user commented, 'Next email… sorry if someone has already brought this up but… have you tried lowering your expenses?' Another X user said, 'You would be surprised how many companies have not, in fact, thought of doing that.'
Also Read: Indian moonlighter Soham Parekh reacts to hiring freeze at TCS: 'Outwork the system'
The incident has reignited an ongoing debate around Gen Z in the workplace, especially their approach to communication and professional norms. A few months ago, writer Harnidh Kaur sparked a conversation on X when she pointed out a recurring concern among her peers.
'They're smart and good at their jobs, but they're often rude, difficult to work with, and struggle with basic workplace etiquette. Honestly, it's hard to defend sometimes,' she wrote, echoing the growing discomfort many employers feel.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
21 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Donald Trump says he heard India may stop buying oil from Russia: 'Good step'
US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that he had heard that India might no longer buy oil from Russia, though he acknowledged he was not certain about the claim. U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S., August 1, 2025.(Reuters) "I understand that India is no longer going to be buying oil from Russia. That's what I heard, I don't know if that's right or not. That is a good step. We will see what happens," Trump told ANI. Trump's remarks come days after his tirade against India for buying Russian oil and the White House's decision to levy 25 per cent tariffs on all exports to America and an unspecified additional 'penalty' for purchasing Russian energy. In a post on Truth Social, Trump criticised India for maintaining the world's highest tariffs and 'obnoxious' trade barriers while continuing to buy Russian military equipment and energy during the Ukraine war. On Friday, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal defended India's procurement of energy and defence hardware from Russia, saying New Delhi and Moscow have a 'steady and time-tested partnership'. 'India and the US share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values and robust people-to-people ties. This partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges,' Jaiswal said in response to several questions regarding Trump's tariff policy. Also Read | US sanctions 6 Indian companies for engaging in petroleum trade with Iran 'We remain focused on the substantive agenda that our two countries have committed to and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward,' he said. He also pointed to the potential for growing the 'strong defence partnership' with the US and highlighted that India's ties with the US had overcome several challenges and New Delhi is committed to taking the relationship forward.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
MEA dials down Trump noise: India, US weathered challenges, focus on future
OVER 30 remarks crediting himself for the India-Pakistan ceasefire, referring to India as a 'dead economy,' dropping the 25% tariff bombshell and a Russia penalty even as talks are on — US President Donald Trump's diatribe was met Friday by diplomatic pragmatism from the Ministry of External Affairs. Underlining that the India-US partnership has 'weathered several transitions and challenges,' the MEA said that New Delhi will remain 'focused on the substantive agenda' even as it flagged that its friendship with Russia was 'time-tested.' This response came the day Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on dozens of countries including 25 per cent for goods from India. Responding to a question, MEA's official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Friday: 'India and the United States share a comprehensive global strategic partnership anchored in shared interests, democratic values, and robust people-to-people ties. This partnership has weathered several transitions and challenges. We remain focused on the substantive agenda that our two countries have committed to and are confident that the relationship will continue to move forward.' Asked about India-US defence ties in the wake of reports of India refusing to consider F-35 fighter jets, the MEA spokesperson said, 'We have a strong defence partnership with the U.S. which has been strengthening over the last several years. There is potential for this partnership to grow further under the India-US COMPACT for the 21st century.' Responding to Trump's talk of a penalty on India for buying energy from Russia, Jaiswal said: 'In securing our energy needs, we are guided by what is on offer in the markets, and by the prevailing global circumstances.' Incidentally, this has been Delhi's position for the last three years, since the war in Ukraine broke out after the Russian invasion in February 2022. On Trump's tirade against India-Russia ties and that they are both 'dead economies', the MEA spokesperson said: 'Our bilateral relationships with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country. India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.' On Trump's anger at India buying Russian defence equipment, he said, 'The sourcing of our defence requirements is determined solely by our national security imperatives and strategic assessments.' While India does depend on Russia for the defence supplies, much of it is because of the legacy from the Soviet Union era. Although the dependency is about 60 to 70 per cent, India has, in the past few years, steadily diversified its defence purchases from countries including the US. Yet, the framing by Trump — 'I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care' — has been seen as offensive by many. While his criticism of India putting high tariffs has been a pet grievance from his first term — when he called India a 'tariff king' — the US President's latest statement described India's trade policies as 'most strenuous and obnoxious'. Trump's remarks deepen Delhi's diplomatic challenge when India and the US are negotiating a bilateral trade deal. There are two possible impulses that guide Trump's responses, according to Delhi's analysis. First, his negotiating style to browbeat and bully the adversary by imposing high tariffs and try and get the deal on his own terms. This has been seen with China, where he imposed 145 per cent tariffs and then dialled down to 35 – after talks in Geneva. Second, some in the Indian establishment feel that the US President has not taken very kindly to Delhi fact-checking Trump's claims on brokering a ceasefire. Not only has PM Narendra Modi conveyed this in the phone call with Trump on June 17, but Indian ministers and officials have repeatedly denied the claim. Despite not stating that President Trump is a 'liar' — as demanded by Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi — the Indian government has forcefully contradicted the US President. But New Delhi feels that Trump's remarks threaten to undo the hard work made by the two countries as 'strategic partners' in a relationship that was framed as the 'defining partnership of the 21st century' by US President Barack Obama. South Block is, however, trying to not get drawn into an emotional and angry response, and is projecting restraint amid the US President's verbal tirade and social media blitzkrieg of epithets directed at India. While the Commerce ministry said it has 'taken note' of Trump's statement on bilateral trade and the Government is studying its implications, sources said that any response had to be shorn of emotion. 'India and the US have been engaged in negotiations on concluding a fair, balanced and mutually beneficial bilateral trade agreement over the last few months. We remain committed to that objective,' the Commerce ministry statement had said. Sources said that negotiators from both sides are in touch and they have to be immune from the noise. The diplomatic challenge is three-fold, sources said: how long can Delhi stand its ground against the US; whether India can engage with Trump's inner circle; and whether they can overcome the distrust fuelled by the Trump's comments in the long term. 'We will not get drawn into the tit-for-tat response with the US President, and our negotiators have been asked to not pay attention to Trump's unique style of public negotiations. Those are best left to be done away from the public gaze,' a source said. Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism '2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury's special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban's capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Why Trump talk of Pak's ‘massive oil reserves' is hot air — not much else
US President Donald Trump's announcement on Thursday that the Americans will work with Pakistan to develop the latter's 'massive' oil reserves came as a bit of a surprise, as Pakistan is not exactly a country synonymous with oil exploration and production, unlike Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Venezuela. Far from it, Islamabad depends heavily on energy imports, has dwindling hydrocarbon production, and a rather inconsistent and uninspiring record of oil and gas exploration. There have been a few preliminary studies and reports of potential reserves over the years, but they have remained inconclusive, and the world's oil majors have so far largely steered clear of hydrocarbon exploration in Pakistan. But Trump appears convinced, at least on his own social media platform, that Pakistan is sitting on huge oil reserves. He went to the extent of saying that 'maybe' Pakistan will be 'selling oil to India some day', a remark that many have interpreted as a veiled jibe at New Delhi over its heavy imports of Russian oil, which has surfaced as an irritant in the India-US relationship. The backdrop also features the heightened tension between India and Pakistan following their military conflagration in May due to the Pahalgam terror attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he brokered the ceasefire between the two countries, while India has maintained that there was no mediation by any other third country. To be sure, Pakistan's proven recoverable conventional crude oil reserves are pegged between 234 million and 353 million barrels by various estimates, while India's proven reserves are estimated at 4.8-5 billion barrels, or nearly 14 times of Pakistan's. By proven oil reserves, Pakistan is ranked between 50 and 55 in the world, compared to India's ranking in the early 20s. As for natural gas, OPEC's latest annual statistical bulletin pegs India's proven reserves at 1.15 billion cubic metres (bcm), 2.7 times of Pakistan's 0.43 bcm. Pakistan's oil production is estimated at around 60,000 barrels per day, only about a tenth of India's domestic oil output of over 580,000 barrels per day. Both Pakistan and India are heavily reliant on energy imports to meet their domestic demand, and oil is among the top imports for both countries in value terms. Going by this current data, it is hard to fathom a scenario wherein Pakistan would be in any position to sell oil to India, barring a realisation of Pakistan's hope of some miraculous, fate-altering hydrocarbon discoveries. Theoretically, at least, impossible is nothing, although exploration efforts so far in Pakistan have yielded very limited success. Then what is the source of this hypothesis of Pakistan sitting on 'massive' oil reserves that Islamabad, and now Trump, appear to be proposing? The basis of this premature assessment might lie in a decade-old report. In 2015, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report that estimated around 9.1 billion barrels of 'technically recoverable' shale oil resources in Pakistan based on available data and technical analysis, but without any exploratory effort. The same report had pegged India's technically recoverable shale oil resources at 3.8 billion barrels. These estimates, however, cannot be equated to proven reserves, which rests two rungs higher on the ladder of hydrocarbon resource recoverability. In fact, only a fraction of such technically recoverable estimates might eventually be produced, if at all, according to experts. Technically recoverable resources mean the oil and gas that can theoretically be produced based on current technology, industry practice, and geologic knowledge. A much smaller subset of these are what are known as 'economically recoverable resources', or oil and gas that could be produced without incurring a loss. Again, not all of these estimated economically recoverable resources may actually be produced due to various technical and economic considerations. A much smaller subset of these resources is what are known as proven or proved reserves—'the most certain oil and gas resource category'. 'Proved reserves are volumes of oil and natural gas that geologic and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions,' the EIA said in that 2015 report. Notably, the American agency also stated that the recoverability of shale oil was quite low—ranging from 3 per cent to 7 per cent of the oil in-place with exceptional cases being as high as 10 per cent or as low as 1 per cent. Suddenly, the 9.1-billion-barrel technically recoverable resource estimate doesn't appear as big. Also, given that all the assessments were based largely on available geological data and without any real exploratory data or exploration effort, it is anybody's guess how much shale oil production may actually be economically viable and feasible for Pakistan. While nothing can be ruled out from the realm of possibility, experts believe that it is highly improbable that Islamabad will win an oil lottery big enough to offset its own oil imports and then be left with excess volumes to export to India, the world's third-largest consumer of crude oil. A few reports of hydrocarbon discoveries have appeared in the Pakistani press over the past couple of years, but there is little data available in the public domain to back those claims made by officials in that country's establishment. And again, much of the claims are reported to have been based in surveys and studies, and without any significant exploratory effort. It is also worth noting that hydrocarbon exploration itself is an extremely expensive and long-gestation endeavour that could last multiple years, which is usually followed by another years-long development phase, before commercial production can start. For Pakistan, this would mean a significant lead time before any of its potential oil reserves can be tapped into, apart from billions of dollars' worth of investments that its fragile economy may not be able to afford. Perhaps that is where one or more of the American oil majors might come in with their deep pockets.
