The fairytale of drudgery…
As little kids, my brother and I were conditioned to imbibe a certain belief system. Conditioned because it was hammered into us and made a part of our very existence. The importance of slogging it out.
“If you work hard , you will have a good life.”
“Slog it out in your 10th boards and you will be good to go.”
“No, 12th boards are the turning point of one’s career. Do well there and you will be all set.”
“Oh wait, it is the entrance exam. That is where you need to prove your mettle. 12th marks don’t matter.”
“Give it all in your under graduation because you will be stepping out into the real world post that.”
“C’mon under graduation isn’t good enough. There is no scope in the market without a post graduate degree.”
“Go ahead, specialize more because you are only at the top of the food chain if you know a lot about very little.”
Literally the definition of a specialist as someone put it, ’ Someone who knows more and more about less and less.’
Now the curious me who likes a wide range of subjects and can never be satiated knowing a lot about very little decided to put a full stop after post graduation. My seniors, my juniors, my peers all went ahead to specialize more. I didn’t. They asked me over and over again, tried to cajole me into it but I had enough. I was sleeping less and less and was so stressed that I had lost all liking and motivation for the subject I had once dreamt of mastering.
During my forced sabbatical which happens every few years, I came to re-thinking my whole life and the fairytale of drudgery we are all sold as kids, more so if you come from a conventional background like mine where your parents are academicians and by default you are expected to excel.
I was always the carefree type in school. I honestly liked extra-curriculars more than curriculars. I did okay but never the top of class category. My brain I suppose had a mind of it’s own way before covid and brain fog became a real thing. It was all the more stressful because of the mountain of expectations back home.
Now at the age of 37 , it got me thinking. Even if you are a go-getter in school, where does it exactly take you in life? I am not talking about a stable 9–5 job and a decent pay cheque. How many of us exactly have a good quality of life? From being on your toes every second of the day to being answerable to your clients, peers, bosses and not being able to switch off even after you return home and then repeating the whole process again the next day, our tryst with drudgery is a never ending cycle.
One of my trek mates once told me, “I am glad my kids didn’t waste their entire life buried in their books.” She seemed genuinely proud that her kids were living a happy life irrespective of how it would be perceived by the world outside. That to me is a successful parent right there.
I know of individuals who take pride in working 24/7. I am not sure they have known a better existence. As far as I am concerned, I don’t ever want to feel burned and stressed out about something I was once so passionate about. I do not want it to be just an other day at work. I do not want to be taking calls at home. It is unproductive to be everywhere all at once.
You know it makes me think. In a country of 1.4 billion people where at least 1/3rd are in the productive age group(I do not have the exact statistics) why do we not have shorter working hours and more employees? I know there is a cost to company when it comes to employing more people. How about running the organizations 24*7 and employing a different set of people or paying the ones more who choose to work extra for the same or better ROI? Hospitals run 24*7, why not other sectors? Also, how about our corporate honchos, instead of making thousands of crores in profit, cut it down to a few hundred crores and help the society flourish as a whole?
Why doesn’t every employee that comes in, come in with the chutzpah to give it their all without dreading about how many days there are left for the weekend? How many IT employees have I met by now who are bored out of their minds. They spend most of their time on fb, twitter and other social media pages. How come no place has a culture where people look forward to stepping in and contributing? Why are we normalizing this kind of an un-productive lowly existence?
As someone rightly said, “The quality of a nation and it’s inhabitants is dependent on how enriching their lives are. As in how much of their time they can spend on their hobbies and things that nurture their soul. It isn’t on purchasing parity alone.” In our country and today in most countries where apart from the 1 percent, the rest are making ends meet, that sure sounds like a privilege. A privilege we all must ideally have.
I don’t understand why CEO’s and directors need millions and billions of dollars in their bank account. I get that they all worked their way up there and it is great to have money. All I am saying is it is sad to see employees hunched on their laptops 14 hours a day, sometimes more and others slogging away for 48 hours at a stretch and 80–100 hours a week in other sectors. It is plain diabolical and to think that they are the ones who contribute to your growth. I sincerely want some company to try this one day and see how it works out.
Also, something I have always wondered is, when an entry level employee walks into your office, do you have a structured plan for their growth in your organization? Or are all of them just cogs in this massive machinery grinding away doing the same old every single day? Suppose you asked a corporate honcho after pointing to one of their employees randomly as to what is their plan for so and so person, I doubt you will get a very convincing answer. Most employees are just left to grapple and fend for themselves. ‘Human resource’ as we term employees nowadays are much bigger a responsibility than just giving them a pay cheque. Do we care to evaluate our employees on the basis of how far they have made it in 5 years time or is the evaluation limited to the company’s net worth and how many new projects a team has acquired?
We have as a society now imbibed this mentality where we are scared to be happy, scared to be relaxed, to be passionate, to be ourselves. It is considered a bad omen to unwind and to be of extreme importance only if you are strung up every second of the day. Some even guilt trip you by labelling you ‘lazy’. I will let you on a secret. Even the big wigs who claim to work 100 hour weeks wish they had more time to do the things they really wanted other than just building a successful business.
You see, we have officially metamorphosed into high strung workaholics essentially wasting away a precious life and passing on the same fairy tale of drudgery to our kids who know no better.
