Break the toxic work cycle, grant yourself the much-needed breather
Recently, 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil, an employee of Ernst & Young passed away and her parents alleged that she died of overwork and work-related stress. Though the company issued the standard denial that the HR departments of most corporates specialise in, anyone who has worked in Indian firms would know who is speaking the truth. Most Indian companies have toxic work environments.
Having worked in various corporates for over two decades before quitting and escaping the rat race, I have personal experience of being caught in this vicious corporate culture. Many Indian bosses think their subordinates are their slaves and the little department they are running is their fiefdom.
It is never about the quality of life or even the quality of work that matters but the quantity of time you are in the office premises, pretending to be busy. The ‘work-from-home’ culture that the Covid period induced has made the situation worse. Ask any middle-level employee of any firm and one can find that most of their time is spent on conducting meaningless meetings, reviewing past performances and making action plans that are never actionable.
The employees’ private time, if they have any left after 14 hours in the workplace and spending time commuting through pot-hole-filled, chaotic Indian roads, is spent preparing presentations for such endless meetings. Mostly, these meetings are powerplay and abusive in nature. Many of the managers who use such management style are also victims of such abuse from their superiors.
It may perhaps be the reflection of Indian society where strict caste hierarchies ensure each caste, from top to bottom, remains subservient to those above and abusive and oppressive to those below. ‘Suck up and kick down’ could very well be the real mission statement of many Indian managers.
When the Industrial Revolution began in Europe, for many decades, the workers were exploited and abused. It took years of struggle for workers to earn the eight-hour work day, weekly offs and vacation rights. In the era of neo-capitalism, the brutal exploitation of the Industrial Revolution has been replaced with a subtler, yet equally pernicious form of servitude.
This contemporary brand of exploitation, embodying long work hours, incessant performance reviews, and the encroachment into personal time, is a grim manifestation of corporate greed. It is essentially a modern form of wage slavery, negligently endorsed by the corporate culture of India. This insidiously pervasive culture plays on the fears of job security and professional stagnation, driving employees to work themselves to the bone.
What more can be expected from a country, whose finance minister comments that it is for the parents to teach their children how to handle the stress of modern Indian corporate slave-work culture. The implication is that it is the fault of the Indian parents that their kids are breaking down with stress when forced to work 70 hours a week to make the celebrated industrialists and software tycoons a bit more rich. How will they earn their next billion if their slaves take some time off?
This is in a world where developed countries are bringing in four-day work weeks and right to disconnect. Labour unions have become a bad word in India. India is supposed to reap the demographic dividend in this era as per economic experts. Ironically, the country is reeling with the highest unemployment rate in history. The employees are often left to bear the brunt of the ruthless corporate exploitation, a by-product of lax labour regulations.
Strikingly, the Indian government seems to be turning a blind eye to this ongoing crisis. As long as the GDP chugs on and a few corporate tycoons earn their billions and retain their places in the world’s richest list and as long as the common people can be squeezed with all form of taxes to fill the coffers, India will keep shining for these politicians.
In this context, one should be wise to know that you are all alone in this battle for dignity of your life. You need to organise yourselves and fight for your rights. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda that fighting for the rights to live a dignified life is bringing back Marxism or any such authoritarian system. The greatest capitalist countries like the US, European countries or Australia have the best labour laws.
It is the autocratic communist countries like China or North Korea that flaunt all labour laws and exploit the workers. Unless you fight for your right to disconnect, right to vacation, right to take regular breaks from work, right to decent wages and other human rights, no one is going to come to your help.
You don’t matter to them as long as they can fool you with a few doctored Instagram reels and gather your votes. If they think they can get away with it, they will bring back slavery too. You have one life and that should not be sacrificed pleasing the ego of some corporate monkeys or politicians scratching each other’s backs. For a start, leave your office and switch off your system after eight hours of work.
Anand Neelakantan
Author of Asura, Ajaya series, Vanara and Bahubali trilogy
mail@asura.co.in