In Noida during the last week of August, we had a team meeting to discuss budget cuts and the upcoming RIF. The manager mentioned that decisions around who would stay and who would go were largely based on salary levels, echoing the earlier company guidelines. It felt like a pure financial exercise rather than an assessment of individual contributions. Afterward, I realized that those who were being kept were often the ones with lower salaries, while others who had consistently delivered were in jeopardy. It was unsettling to witness priority given to numbers instead of actual value.