Leher Kala writes: After decades of believing die-hard ambition and hustle culture was a worthy aim, quiet quitting, the trend of doing the bare minimum at work, and having a meaningful life (guilt -free) outside of it, is a mainstream choice. (Representational/File)
Leher Kala writes: Similarly, Bombay Shaving Company CEO Shantanu Deshpande was widely criticised for a LinkedIN post that seemed like he was poking fun at young executives who talk of “work-life balance, spending time with family, rejuvenation bla-bla”.
Written by Leher Kala
Updated: September 18, 2022 9:15:07 am
That the post-pandemic workplace has evolved to angrily question a globally accepted culture of overwork was made amply clear by the unflattering responses to two CEOs’ social media posts recently. “Stop whining and put in 18-hour days,” advised Harsimarbir Singh, founder of Pristyn Care, a health-tech startup valued at $1.4 billion. Singh also shared his “interview hacks” for employers to filter through CVs to find “Special Driven People”: conduct in-person interviews at 9 pm and schedule meetings on Sundays to identify those with “extraordinary commitment”. Outraged Indian millennials called Singh a slave driver, likening him to a “petty, ruthless, village landlord in a skyscraper”.
“Our hirings take just 48 hours disregarding traditional HR practices in MNCs where shortlisting candidates takes two months,” countered Singh on NDTV, adding, “We don’t track holidays, there is no system of clocking in, employees have full freedom to come and go as they please.”
Similarly, Bombay Shaving Company CEO Shantanu Deshpande was widely criticised for a LinkedIN post that seemed like he was poking fun at young executives who talk of “work-life balance, spending time with family, rejuvenation bla-bla”.
At this stage of my life, well into middle-age, I would prefer to shoot myself than work for either of these driven and wildly successful CEOs; but other than the somewhat mocking tone of Deshpande’s words, there are some unassailable truths in what he says.
Early-to-mid 20s and 30s is the time to make use of an education, skill up and gain experience in a chosen field. There’ll be plenty of time for navel gazing later. Whether it be law, medicine or an unconventional career in film, food or music, it takes patience and painstaking effort to become (confidently) excellent at something. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good, it’s the thing you do that makes you good, noted Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, where he propagated the 10,000-hour rule of relentless work to accrue the benefits of mastery. It stands to reason that unfettered youth is the ideal time to build muscle memory because you are free from other responsibilities. People from my generation were acutely aware that if they weren’t up to the task, there were plenty of others who’d bulldoze ahead, leaving them trailing behind. Perhaps it’s progress that the young can afford to take opportunity so much for granted except, post Covid, disillusioned youngsters are rejecting the idea of work is worship, the abiding mantra of middle-class India.
After decades of believing die-hard ambition and hustle culture was a worthy aim, quiet quitting, the trend of doing the bare minimum at work, and having a meaningful life (guilt -free) outside of it, is a mainstream choice.
The backlash to Singh and Deshpande’s work ethic is, more than anything else, indicative of the huge changes the pandemic has wrought on mindsets. Twenty two-year-olds expect to find work that’s “soul satisfying” and aligned with their values, not realising that it’s a meandering path, full of missteps, to discovering what that might be. The best bet to figuring out what you really want to do is by actively engaging in a variety of interests, before zeroing in on what finally fits. That means seizing every chance fate throws at you, and hopefully, you may stumble on “doing what you love”. Young people need to be meeting people and exchanging ideas, not sitting at home in front of a computer in pyjamas.
Socrates noted the unexamined life is not worth living but logically, the internal journey should only begin once there are enough experiences to examine. Besides, if finding yourself is a priority at 30, there’ll be alarmingly little to do at 60. Being excited by work is its own kind of high, it’s a pity that so many are determined to never know it.
We all owe it to ourselves to being excited about what we do.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd