The worst job in the world

I often look at people in bad jobs and wonder what keeps them going. What do they tell themselves when they wake up in the morning to be able to get to office? One such job that completely beats me is the job of a villain's henchman/assistant (VA) in Indian movies. What allows our leery evil villains to garner enough charisma to be able to make slaves out of these well-meaning energetic youngsters? Let's look at this job along some accepted parameters of workplace motivation.

Job security : I think we skipped a parameter

Security : None. In fact, assured death. The VA has many options but those only cover the means by which he dies. In about 75% of known cases, he gets killed in various gruesome ways by the villain himself for seemingly small errors such as being beaten up by the hero, and in some cases for carrying bad news. There's a third special circumstance where he betrays the villain and thinks everything's hunky-dory if he blabs the villain's secrets to the police and/or the hero. It's re-think time in about 10 seconds when he gets killed after being of partial use to the hero's efforts by giving him some cryptic clue about a treasure or the location where the hero's family's being dangled tantalisingly close to boiling water.

Boss : Talk about the bad boss syndrome. The villain is hardly seen giving any positive reinforcement to any member of his coterie. The average dancer-lady gets more praise from the villain, albeit drunk, in one song than the VA in a whole year. The villain frequently sets the VAs impossible targets ending with "..now". If the VA communicates negative feedback to the boss, he has no choice but to quit the establishment. Where quitting refers to 'run as fast as you can and I will shoot you at the count of 10'.

Compensation : There is actually no salary per se, leave alone performance incentives. The villain takes the topline and takes care of his staff's basic needs. There is absolutely no incentive to smuggle more gold or steal more cash or to do better than Saambha at anything. The VA's loyalty is inexplicable because he could easily go to the police and collect the bounty amount on his boss's head. He would get killed for betrayal but as we mentioned earlier, he's bound to die anyway.

Growth : The single factor that keeps a VA going is probably the dream that he would take over the mantle from his boss some day and enjoy the kind of absolute power he enjoys. But this almost never comes true because sadly, the villain is usually the last member of his gang to die in the movie. If it's the climax and the VA is still alive, be assured that an impatient hero will wring his neck shortly, something that would be called a 'soft dismissal' in cricket.

Team : On the whole, peer quality leaves a lot to be desired. The VAs at vantage points have terrible aim and they are in fact, the first to fall. The others blaze a trail of bullet fire where the hero has recently been and seem to suffer from a time lag of a few seconds. There is also complete lack of coordination among the VAs which is seen from their approaching the hero one by one even when they have him cornered or surrounded.

Perks : VA's usually have access to a large number of multi-purpose vehicles (bikes, cars, lorries) but these incur the wrath of the stunt choreographer, who while allowing a hero's vehicle to land safely after encountering an upward slanted cart, in the same circumstance would let the VA be bounced into a pool and killed and let the vehicle itself be mauled and mangled.