Team-BHP - Working hard can kill you

I work for a startup and I have done umpteen 14+ hour shifts in last 1.5 years. Actually I have lost count.

I have started to now come late to office at 12:00 PM and leave early at 6:00 PM if everything is fine. If some urgent work comes up, I know I cannot leave before 11:00PM( sometimes 1:00 AM or so) so there is no point of coming early to score brownie points.

Not to mention countless weekends too which got spoiled because of work.

I am planning to change now and avoid giving a damn about work.

guys, the real killer here is something else not hardwork.

I work in london city in finance and have first hand experience of what happens here.

There is everything involved in parties, drugs etc and then they drink like crazy, no food nothing like us indians, just pints of beer and keep till late.
Next day when u show up in office, you are a zombie, then all this drama abt healthy lifestyle, working out, no fat food.

Then people go to gym and try to kill themselves and then eat food which is so less in calories.

So how come ur body will cope with all this on regular basis.

Its the lifestyle thats the killer here not Hard work. Of course exhaustion can take a toll on you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by avisidhu (Post 3216702)

Another thing desperately required in our country: acceptance towards taking a nap for 20-30 minutes any time of the day by an employee. It really does boost productivity and alertness specially in the second half. I'm quite sure it should be a good antidote in case one has to strech in office.

Have heard that most people do in fact take a nap in China and Japan post lunch. People who have been there can shed more light?

I don't know about China and Japan but I have a seen a bunch of developers in my company do this. :)
I work in large IT MNC.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger :)

Since this discussion is inching towards work-life balance, let me share my favourite video on this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpIKXLLYYM

Now getting back to the topic of working long-hours. Quite honestly, most of the employees that I have seen stretching (the time not body) in office are due to personal choice. Now, some choose to work more and others choose to work only when the deadline has approached. For the ones that choose to work more, it's a simple trade-off. They want to get a promotion/hike faster so they work more than their peers and reach the burn-out faster as well. I doubt there are too many managers that love making their team work extra for just the fun of it. There's a person that reports to me who has a habit of wasting his time on gossiping, tea-breaks, sutta-breaks, etc and then stretches beyond his normal shift to complete his regular tasks. His family and friends can only see the 12-14 hours he spends in office but the fact that he works 7-8 hours out of those 12-14 hours is not known to them. It's extremely important for people to sort out their priorities and then put the effort that's required to achieve the items at top. If one's priority in life requires her/him to work for long hours, then it should be done happily. At least one won't die of stress. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsk1979 (Post 3216266)

I wonder how many patients died because the 48 hour shift doctor was not alert enough... Your your premise is false. Just like an overworked bus driver can kill others, so can an overworked doctor.
NHS in UK even put forward some guidelines to this effect when it found severe lapses in treatment due to overwork.

I agree one hundred percent. And I do wish the old guard in India would think the way the NHS does. You simply cannot reason or recall the way you should if you're overworked. Burnout would make things even worse for surgeons, who need their hands as much as they need their brains. It surely does bring down quality of care by a great extent.

I suppose this is the same whatever your job is.

I find a difference in the way we work in India, vis a vis the way people work in say Australia, UK, the US or Europe.
Here we tend to socialise a lot at work, over endless cups of coffee, chit chat, cigarette breaks and whatnot.

In consequence many people here start their days at 0900 and end up working until 2000 or longer. If you add in the endless, unbearable commute, then the day can actually end at 2200 in some cases. That is really not a nice thing.

On the other hand in some of these developed countries, and in enlightened companies, the people work smartly and sincerely and solidly between 0900-1730 and importantly, they leave on time! Add to this the fact that since most people use public transport, they are saved endless hours of sitting in traffic on the commute. The usage of time overall is more efficient.

Yes, in Europe especially in France, Italy and Spain, they love their long lunch breaks but nowadays all the executive folks in the bigger cities dont tend to spend too much time on lunch during weekdays. The bottom line is that they are more efficient overall in their usage of time than we are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shankar.balan (Post 3216970)

I beg to disagree that Indian workers are not efficient (i.e they spend too much time on cig breaks etc) and do not work smart.

We are a multibillion dollar software MNC.
In our company, if you are only doing 100% of work assigned to you, you are only good for 3rd bucket rating out of 4.
There are endless streams of value adds, innovations etc which are expected from a person for him/her to be eligible for better ratings.
My current client is not exactly what you call process oriented (multiple attempts by us to educate them have been stonewalled), and ad hoc tasks are the order of the day.
People are actually expected and have, forgone national holidays, multiple weekends etc for overall process incompetence.
Yes - the attitude from client is 'as long as we are paying them, don't need to know any inconveniences that are caused'.
In fact I am going to the office today, not to catch up work which was left incomplete, but to supervise and complete work which was planned to happen today.

I could rant for hours, but the bottom line is yes - we do work smart, we just have to work so much more to stay competitive in the market. Otherwise next year, a ABC or XYZ MNC just might take the project.
It's just that expectations are so much different from workers from the countries you stated and us Indian 'IT coolies' !

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackasta (Post 3216995)

I beg to disagree that Indian workers are not efficient (i.e they spend too much time on cig breaks etc) and do not work smart.

We are a multibillion dollar software MNC.

It's just that expectations are so much different from workers from the countries you stated and us Indian 'IT coolies' !

Now don't get hassled. But I've only stated what I have observed over the last twenty years.
I agree that the regular Foreign Consultant, Manager or Exec or whatever, in a typical International Scenario and MNC gets treated better, looked after better and in general cared for better compared to the Indian counterpart who may actually have better credentials and qualifications!

Yes, it is indeed true that we Indians are generally treated as IT Coolies, but I would have you bear in mind that it is to an extent our own fault. We allow everyone to jump on us and ride rough shod. We have no respect for 'personal time' often disturbing each other on weekends and holidays. Taking calls on the mobile in the middle of meetings, on weekends,late evenings etc.

We generally bend over backwards to please the 'buyer' - take the case of Infy and TCS and Wipro who are constantly at each others throats underbidding each other for outsourced work.

Our Top Management culture tends to be highly political and crony capitalist in nature and this percolates all the way down the hierarchy. In general we are not fair nor transparent though we pay tons of lip service to the ideals of fairness and transparency.

And like it or not, it is certainly true that we are generally a bunch of indisciplined creatures and have very little respect for time, often indulging in corridor conversations and disrespecting planned meetings - managing a bunch of us chappies is like herding cats!

Lastly don't forget the common 'Hari Sadu' type 'Evil Boss' culture..causing deep stress by making the poor reportee sit late and work late just because the blighter feels insecure about something or other...

Quote:

Originally Posted by pratyush6 (Post 3216496)

Unfortunately in India it's the time spent in office loitering around that is still captured rather than how productive you are. Some of the companies understand but most don't. And God forbid if your manager happens to be one from the old school. A very famous dialog in my team right now is 'Thora Strech Kar Lo Yaar' (Translation: You can stretch a bit).

Sad to say that people in my office also think like that. People should look at productivity instead of time spent in office!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shankar.balan (Post 3217010)

We generally bend over backwards to please the 'buyer' - take the case of Infy and TCS and Wipro who are constantly at each others throats underbidding each other for outsourced work.

Agreed - but what to do? losing a fat client ultimately hurts everyone in the company!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shankar.balan (Post 3217010)

Our Top Management culture tends to be highly political and crony capitalist in nature and this percolates all the way down the hierarchy. In general we are not fair nor transparent though we pay tons of lip service to the ideals of fairness and transparency.

Absolutely !!

Quote:

Originally Posted by shankar.balan (Post 3217010)

And like it or not, it is certainly true that we are generally a bunch of indisciplined creatures and have very little respect for time, often indulging in corridor conversations and disrespecting planned meetings - managing a bunch of us chappies is like herding cats!

Agree to some extent - discipline is a tough pill to take for a majority of Indians.

I would rather point to another killer disease in the industry now a days (I am perceiving it right now in my current project) - lack of seriousness and ownership towards the given task. The attitude is to just finish up work as soon as possible in any way that is possible, making a mess in the process, and ultimately costing someone else's time & effort to redo it again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biraj (Post 3216736)

There's a person that reports to me who has a habit of wasting his time on gossiping, tea-breaks, sutta-breaks, etc and then stretches beyond his normal shift to complete his regular tasks. His family and friends can only see the 12-14 hours he spends in office but the fact that he works 7-8 hours out of those 12-14 hours is not known to them.

I have seen this a lot - especially with young bachelors. The rented shared flat is usually bare. The office has airconditioning, computers, fast internet connections, a nice canteen, TVs, XBoxes, friends to talk to etc - so they spend most of their time in the office and only return to the flat to sleep. The productivity is not much different from those who work 10-6 - only that a lot of people think that they are workaholics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsk1979 (Post 3216266)

I wonder how many patients died because the 48 hour shift doctor was not alert enough... Your your premise is false.

This is actually a known fact. According to a study in USA the patient mortality rates in Hospitals are highest in the months of July to October because this is the time when the whole work load is literally shifted on to the fresh batch of residents who in view of there ungodly work hours are bound to make crucial errors and mistakes.