Since left TCS after two months there as a fresher, and I received a bill regarding final settlement charging me for the bond amount of 48,000, so should I pay it?
You don't need to pay anything.Just because an agreement is notarized with a stamp paper attached, doesn't mean that it is defensible in court. In layman's terms, the stamp paper merely says that an agreement did take place. But if TCS were to take you to court for breaking it, the court will rule that this agreement is unconstitutional because it is in violation of your rights. Courts have already made this ruling before in the past, so a legal precedent is already set. The case would not last long.This is similar to how a law can be passed in the parliament but later if a petitioner challenges it in court, and the law is found to be in violation or in contradiction of other legal tenets, then the court can strike it down.TCS knows well that these agreements cannot be defended in the court. They are never going to take you to court, because they already know they'll lose. But making an agreement is not illegal, so they do it anyway. Simply because it scares and discourages less-informed employees from leaving before 2 years.What the government needs to do it make this agreement bullshit illegal and make people more aware about this widespread scam.I left my first company without paying my bond. In fact, I challenged them to sue me. Ofc, they didn't. At my next job when they wanted me to sign a bond, I told them, "You know as well as me, that these bonds don't hold in court". You should've seen the look on that HR person's face. But that wasn't a win for me... They reduced my monthly salary and told me that I would be paid 2 lacs together after 1 year, thus ensuring that I would have to stay for a year if I want my money. In fact, this is what most companies do now. TCS can't because they don't want to pay so much in the first place, which is why they resort to these empty legal threats.
She’s just channelling her inner Marie Antoinette.
How should I respond to my boss who fired me via email and let him know that I’m very disappointed that he did not have the courtesy to do this face-to-face (we work from different states, but always communicate through video calls)?
Let’s see. I run something between one and three software companies (at one, I’m the chairman but not the CEO; at another, I’m the only employee). From time to time, I have to fire people.I hate it. Firing people is far and away the worst part of my job. The people I have to let go are generally nice and hard working. They just don’t have the skills I hired them for.But sometimes, not so much. We had an employee once who talked a great game and did nothing. When I would have a conversation about the fact that he had (yet again) failed to deliver what he had promised to deliver, I would get an hour-long lecture about how while he hadn’t delivered what he had promised, he had (a) tried and (b) done something that was better than what he had promised anyway. This happened over, and over and over again.I eventually ran out of hours, and made myself inaccessible to the guy by phone (he was a remote employee). I gave him yet another deliverable, and told him if he didn’t deliver it, he’d lose his job.He didn’t deliver, and I fired him by email. And then I was so stressed out by the whole thing that I took a month off.This happened about a decade ago, and I’m different now, but I don’t know if I’d behave differently if the situation arose again. But I think you should at least admit the possibility that bosses really hate firing people, and if they do it by email, it just might be because they’re finding the failed relationship as troubling and frustrating as you are.