Need for speed — Hustle Bustle or Crumble
In the recent news about EY employee who crumbled under pressure of employment. She was just employed for few months, and her parents comment or allegation on the employer did sent some triggers and thoughts through all of us. here what to be noticed is the ever glorified urgent culture we all subscribe to.
I might come across as a fossil, when I regale my stories when we all started working and was slowly introduced from a very small town to this hustle culture of big cities. 1999, only one among my engineerting classmates got employment in a “startup” and it was considered great. All others got employed with corporates, which came for campus selections. First initial years were the years when India was also getting introduced to the ways of silicon industry and thus was deciding which work culture to follow. It was a deadly mix of old world corporate which Indian companies were used to with new-age gig culture. So when work needs done, you are part of gig culture, strech and get the best out. When the work culture was considered, we mostly stuck to old world ways. I have had managers who used to take physical login registers to their cabin from the reception after 15 min of start time of work, that used to be 9 AM, or some days when I sneaked in at 9:03, the manager was standing near the punch machine. Its ridiculous to start days with that fear and shame which used to ensue with these episodes.
As per the world, you are working on cutting edge new world technologies, but with Stone Age people, who still thinks, 15 hours of workday is a normal and you cannot have any other pursuit than have a career. No one was even interested in knowing what you did in your free time, and for that matter from those years only free time I remember is the sleep hours which was available, after long hours at work. I am glad I was exposed to such a culture, to know what not to do when you get to position where you work with people and there is power to change things around to treat people as humans and not as bulls who just need to toil. I could see many of us crumbling in these pressures and instead of creativity, most prevailing thought while doing work was of just getting it done, so that there is money at the end, to spent at a pub, to numb from the realities.
Sadly this hustle culture seems to be continuing, from what is gathered from the corporate culture. This always trikkle down to your immediate manager whom you work with and the leadership team whom he needs to emulate or recieves delegations from. Interesingly I have had amazing or better work life balance when working with female managers than males. In fact on my first trimester, I have heard my male manager telling my peer that anyways she is not gonna be functional now, so lets not give her any significant work or neither the apprraisal. Which actually disoriented me and made me hibernate during my rest of pregnancy, as I realised, I cannot moving teams then and It would be detrimental to my offsprings’ health if I remain in that toxic environment for the rest of his formative months. Just another lesson learnt of kindness and sensitivity from those early years.
Gladly could break off the hustle corporate culture and be part of startup world. Not that its different there in case of pressures, but here leadership team is more sensitive to the needs of the employees as it is a smaller team to manage. Not sure if better HR policies is the answer to it all, or the mindset change from the roots itself. We all want employment once studies are over, is it in a field of interest or passion is never thought of. May be we veer towards pursuing passions as job and thus levitate towards similar kinds of people doing it a groups which makes companies would make work enjoyable. Thus the work hours arent the offical clocked hours, which is wiled away in coffee or cigeratte breaks, but effective work “hours when you are creative” and after that its wrapped up.
The crumbling of great minds needs fixing. Hustling with mindfullness, how is that implemented?
