I started work as a Group Management Trainee in a reputed Multinational (MNC) firm decades ago. The training was supposed to be excellent. The work they did seemed to touch many lives in a completely consumerist manner of speaking. Their offerings were ubiquitous. The pay was good. The executive lunchroom dished out food of a completely high quality. And if you worked for an MNC, your path was paved with unimaginable opportunities ahead. I was therefore on the fast track.
Well, that’s what you got when you worked for an MNC. But then you had to give as well. You had give your best. You had to work hard. In the very initial years,the accent was on hard work. Intelligent-work was a buzz-phrase that happened much later. Everyone had to work hard. The GMT had to work hard, just as his or her every boss had to. You had to put in your hours beyond the call of duty. And you had a target.
The ethos was a simple one. The GMT was a rookie, just out of campus. Get him to work hard and learn the trade. Get him to fast track his learning by putting in all those extra hours. At the end of it, there was a pot of gold to win. A pot of gold of work-experience and surely a pot of gold that promised increments, promotions and attendant perquisites. In a manner of speaking, the treadmill was set to run. And it never stopped. If you got off it, you did it at your own peril. At the peril of your career and career growth.
All of us, therefore, worked very hard. We have all done 16-hour work days. And for many years. We have put in our blood into every piece of work, sweated copious buckets of the smelly stuff and have had tears flowing when those increments or promotions did not come. I therefore resonate with the 18-hour work day advise, recently made and quickly apologised-for by the CEO of a shaving company on a social media platform.
Right now there is a trending sentiment that is sweeping Tiktok and Instagram. This sentiment on the sweep is a post-pandemic reality that talks of ‘Quiet-Quitting’. What is Quiet-quitting then? A simple post-pandemic re-prioritisation of work versus all else.
The movement simply says that work is what you do and work is not who you are. It’s a movement that gets workers across the world to rethink their work-ethos. Do you take on more work than you must? Are you in a rat race? Are you putting in more hours than you must? And must you now quietly do less? Quiet-quitting to that extent is not about quitting at all. It is all about doing a little less at work, re-prioritising work versus life, and refusing to take on more to chew than you are mandated to and must. Nice.
EARLIER COLUMN | Towards a future that is freebie-free
The 16-hour work days that many of us have put in (and as many are even today) are out of fashion. The new age is all about balancing it all. And I like it. I spent an entire lifetime building my career and destroying my body. In many cases, we have spent a lifetime building our career and destroying our relationships. Even as many of us are busy evaluating whether it was and is worth it at all, the reality is that life has no reactive “Undo” button. I wish it had one. But the fact remains that there is a proactive “Do it the new way” button available for all to use. And many have decided to use it.
The Quiet-quitting movement in many ways puts work in its place. It says it all loudly, “Work is work. Work is not life. There’s more to life than work.” In many ways, employees across the globe are questioning the math of work.
Are you paid for the eight hours, the 16, or does your company own you for all the 24 hours that you have on offer? The math of work, globally, is on the morph. The new work hour in the developed nations of the world is all of 42–58 hours per week. In slightly less developed nations, it hovers around the mark of 70 hours per week. What’s it with you?
And the answer to that will define which side of the fence of “hard-work” you sit. The Quiet-quitter is actually questioning not work alone, but items that he engages with right through as an employee. The extra hours on training and development, the hours on networking internally and externally, and more. In many ways, the toxic work culture is out in the open, belly-up for examination. This QQ movement is all about a rebel movement against corporate burnout for sure.
Even as I sum up, I must say—each to their own. Work is worship to some. Work is a life-philosophy to others. Work is a reason to live for some. Work is a means to a salary to others. Work is a shot at making it big for others.
Whatever the reason, to each their own. Just as long as your boss is not forcing (overtly or covertly) you to do what you are doing (putting in those “above and beyond” work hours), all is well. Just as long as you are enjoying it, all is well.
The ultimate test of whether you are enjoying what you are doing at work rests in whether you are happy to get up in the morning and go to work. If, on the other hand, you just don’t want to get out of bed on a working day, something is surely wrong. Work that oppresses and depresses is surely part of the toxic work culture all of us need to fight.
From a pure business point of view then, every business needs a portfolio of workers. You need the 16-hour day types, the 12-hour day types and the 8-hour day types. To each their own. Everyone will define for themselves what they want out of life. And work.
The key question to ask is whether you are in a rat-race. Or are you in a horse-race? Or are you in a ‘Jallikattu’ of your own passion-making?
Harish Bijoor. Brand Guru & Founder,Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
(harishbijoor@hotmail.com)