9 to 5 Jobs becoming a Myth!

As budding, highly competent employees ready to enter the equally highly competitive corporate world, we are often prepared by the faculties of my Institute to tackle the challenges of any kind which we may have to face in future as managers. Often I have heard some of my faculties say, “You need to spend maximum number of hours in the Institute and consider it as your home and there will be a time when your own home will be your second home! If you spend 10 hours here, then you will be easily capable of spending 12 hours once you work in the corporate!” I was quite flabbergasted and shaken to hear that. In my school days, we were told, “School is your second home”. I chuckle when I hear these contradictory statements. Well, either the definition of work life balance has changed or I am simply a person who loves reminiscing the past.

Recently I read an article in The Economic Times which said that the traditional or I would call it the ‘ancestral’ culture of 9 to 5 is dead. The article was thought- provoking, with lot of pun and intended humour. I asked my classmates to read that article. Some of my classmates were of the opinion that because we Indians work for longer hours, we are better than our foreign counterparts and are flexible and not time bound like them. I argued that the rat race to get quicker promotions and pleasing the immediate boss by working after the office hours drives the employees to stay back till late at night. But my friend, I would say, who looks too much into the bright side of things, says that the rat race is only making us better. Well, what can I say? Human psychology differs!

Why do we Indians believe that longer working hours are the measure of one’s sincerity towards work? If that is the case, then according to Indian working professionals, European employees must be extremely inefficient malingerers who leave for home when the clock strikes 5 pm! When I was doing my fifth level of German, also called as Deutsch für den Beruf or Business German, we learnt about the work culture of Germany. Germans work for 35 hours a week and get 24 days paid vacation. For them, working hours are actual working hours. Employees are denied access to Facebook while at work. They don’t squander time gossiping and doing other frivolous activities. Germans work for fewer hours but produce more. They work hard and play hard. Since the working day is focused on delivering efficient productivity, the off hours are truly off hours. They demarcate their professional lives from their personal lives and hence colleagues often are not seen hanging out together after work. It was interesting to read about the working hours mandate in France and the Scandinavian nations. In France, it is illegal to work beyond 40 hours a week, and receiving a mail past 5 pm is punishable by law! The Scandinavians have eight weeks paid mandatory leave, the failure to take which, can lead to punishment. Bless these countries!

Completely opposite is the Indian work scenario. Here there is a different kind of pleasure to work or schedule meetings after 6 or beyond that. I wonder what exactly happens in the daylight hours! Here’s what happens most of the times. People ‘punch’ into the office strictly at the given official time (with the fear of a memo or late mark). So far, so good. Kudos to punctuality. Then like the downward sloping Learning Curve, employees undergo a litany of unproductive activities; say logging into Facebook or browsing through the online shopping websites with a hope to get exciting offers, having ‘n-number’ of coffee or tea breaks, gossiping about a colleague or political tactics in the organization etc., before actually starting with the work. These are the people who are unable to finish their work in time and will stay back after office hours. In fact, I feel that people who stay late in the office, are inefficient as they cannot complete their work in the stipulated working hours. Then these same people will come to office on Saturdays and Sundays to finish the backlog of work which was supposed to be finished during the week itself. Weekends are supposed to be meant for relaxing and spending time with your family. I fail to understand why we Indians are so languid when it comes to using our time resourcefully. Why do we want to showcase our talent of being spontaneous, when we can give out the best quality, when the activities are well planned? Aren’t we Indians gifted with immense intelligence and talent, that we need flexibility and spontaneity as our supplementary skills? We often read in newspapers about students bagging salary packages of crores of rupees. We hold these students in awe and appreciate them for their success. In reality, such highly paid jobs not only mean positions of high responsibilities but also unspecified number of working hours. Quite tautological with the adage, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”. Something similar to the characters in Ravi Subramanian’s novels.

Work is worship, which one has to do with full dedication and devotion. We work so that we earn a living and lead a secure future. Monetary and non-monetary gains should not always be the motivation to do a particular job. When you worship work, at the same it is also necessary that you spend time with your loved ones. Your reward in form of salary should also be spent on your family, rather than just piling up the bank account with huge amounts every month. Earning huge sums of money would be futile if you are unable to get the taste of your hard earned success. Unnecessary long hours of work, too can help you to spend money, sadly, to pay your hospital bills when you health is severely affected due to unbearable work load. There are many professionals who leave early in the morning and return home late at night and have absolutely no time to look after their children or their studies. There’s a fear of such children going astray due to lack of parental attention. So it’s high time to revive the 9 to 5 culture so that the well planned work life can also be as ecstatic as personal life, which most people forget that they have one, in the process of working like machines. I’m sure if that happens, no working professional would wait for a Friday or frown on a Monday. Weekends would be truly family-and-rest-oriented. Work will be fun then, right?