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Boy NotanF1driver! You say you are not as experienced but you speak pearls of wisdom in terms of Management 101. I gather you are leading a team and based on the tenets you have mentioned, you are doing a fantastic job out of it.
My boss of the last 10yrs does the same and it's a pleasure working with an individual who is so considerate. I am sure you will do very well professionally and life in general!

Cheers

I wouldn’t call it a folly. You did exactly what tens of thousands of people are doing, thinking you have no control over the whole matter. You had a very close call, but you have survived it. Consider yourself very fortunate. You are finally taking decisions to control your life. All the best to you, wish you a very fast recovery.

My question did not really apply to doctors/lawyers where private practice is possible. I was questioning services/startup kind, where private practice is very hard to achieve. That means working in a team and you will have bosses demanding results.

Yes, that is why I said set aside what the employer thinks. Once enough employees start demanding it, even employers will start considering it. Demand has to come first, before supply is considered.

This is your German mindset speaking. :) In Europe, the employers have already implemented the idea, so it is a very normal thing there.

Are you under the impression that productivity:hours ratio is constant? Actually productivity decreases when hours are increased. If a person increases the daily hours from 8h to 12h, the productivity will decrease instead of jumping by 50%. I have personal experience in this. People are more productive when they work for short durations.

To quote an old post:
Therefore, attaching the number of hours to salary is pointless. We are not talking about construction workers here.

I have already done that. So I was wondering how people in bigger companies think.

That assumes huge market inefficiency in the labour pool. However, demand and supply aspects have to be taken into account.

Those who are making a lot less can simply refuse to work beyond 8h, and even quit when forced. So employers can’t demand extra hours when pay is less. The whole overworking comes into play when pay is very high compared to national average across all white collar jobs.

Ah, now you are asking the right question. As I already mentioned above, number of hours don’t correlate with productivity. So why do these organizations insist on the horrible practice of making people work for 12-14-16 hours which really destroys their efficiency?

Ok, let me hark back to the ancient times when crazy salaries didn’t exist. By crazy salaries, I mean much higher pay compared to the national average white collar salary. Salaries in the IT industry started rising in 1992 when TISL did this.

Prior to that I was working at a small software company, where salaries were well below industry standard and get this… not paid for many many months. This was quite the norm in plenty of small software companies. We worked 14-16 hours, even worked overnight sometimes. When I left work at 5pm once, the receptionist asked how I was leaving so early. I told her I came to work the previous day at 9am. Why did we all work so much for low pay, while not even receiving that pay? For work experience! Prior to financial reforms of 1991, the job scene even in the IT industry was very bleak unless you had a degree from IIT/REC or highly esteemed colleges. So grunts like me had to earn experience working like donkeys in small companies that exploited engineers without pedigree. After that it was possible to get into big companies and get some decent salaries while working sane hours. I did reach that stage when I joined TCS, and it was a wonder to see everyone leave by 5:30pm.

However, as salaries suddenly jumped by 2-3 times over the next 2 years, it put too much pressure on the companies. Obviously, customers didn’t start paying 2-3 times when this happened. Only the labour cost jumped steeply when revenue remained the same. This resulted in companies asking everyone to improve their productivity to match the sudden increase in salary. At first it worked, people worked hard and productivity went up. However, as the pressure stayed high, people started slacking. If one had to work 14 hours, no one could focus that long while keeping up the efficiency. However, no one in the management was willing to scale it back to 8-9 hours. The concept of micromanagers is nothing new. These were times when most people had no landline phones, let alone mobile phones. Once you walk out of the office, you couldn’t be touched until the next morning. Once managers knew they could have the team under their eagle eyes for 14 hours, why would they give it up? Now connectivity options have made it a lot easier. Most managers prefer control over efficiency. It takes a confident and secure manager to take efficiency over control. There is another aspect, the long presence. Even if the employee is twiddling thumbs at work, he/she will be readily available to join a meeting, answer emails/phone, handle a crisis, etc.

What about 40h/48h mentioned in the appointment letter? That’s just a pretense now. The jobs where people work 12-16 hours/day are also the roles where one is paid 2-5 times more than average white collar jobs. There are plenty of people ready to take your job at that salary if you don’t want to work those hours.

I know acquaintances with drivers, who complain that the driver is not available after 7pm for taking them to late dinners. Keep in mind that the driver already finished his 10 hours between 9am to 7pm. Ideally they want him till 12am, to act as designated driver. But drivers demand double pay for those extra hours, and rightly so. Companies are actually paying that premium for the extra hours without mentioning it explicitly in the appointment letter.

Basically, there are two reasons why this will not go away:

1. The companies are happy with micromanagement and presence, and are willing to pay highly for it.
2. No matter how badly the employee wants to go back to 8h/day, most are not willing to accept the pay that 8h/day jobs usually bring. Extraordinary pay comes with extraordinary hours, not otherwise.

The companies are fine with the status quo. So it is really up to the employees to take initiative here. Just like the demand for WFH has forced employers to provide more WFH options, demand for sane hours could also force employers to provide that option. But they can’t demand 8h/day at the same salary. They are already making 2-5 times the average white collar job. They could still be making a lot more than average salary even at half their original salary.

You could continue to blame the managers. While paying that kind of salary, the companies have no reason to feel guilty.

Short answer: It's a cultural issue with socio-economic ramifications.
Some might try to blame capitalism but I would say they are wrong and there is not one Indian problem that I cannot trace back to being a cultural issue.

Long answer:
Let's start with the basic idea of employment in India. The word for employment in various Indian languages is 'naukri' or 'chakri' which are related to the word for servant - 'naukar' or 'chakar'. To be employed in India is to be a servant and unquestioning servitude is what is expected of the servant. This is the cultural belief on which managers/employers/promoters operate.

In the organizational hierarchy, people feel they are entitled to make unreasonable demands of their subordinates and unquestioning compliance is expected. Most employees, being infected with the same cultural beliefs, are accepting of the exploitation - they suffer and in turn make the subordinates suffer. And if anyone wants to fight back, they generally have no recourse because there is no functioning justice system - again, a product of our cultural, political rot. In a competitive employment landscape, thanks to over-population, employees in service industries are easily replaceable - a fact both the employee and employer understand well.

The chain of exploitation in the services industry starts right from the point when a sale is made. The sales people generally make unreasonable promises or entertain late changes or other shenanigans and then the delivery team has to cope with having to deliver a project which is out of their depth. This results in a poor experience for all parties involved - the clients suffer due to poor quality of service or buggy product, the sales people suffer having to deal with upset, irritated clients, the delivery team suffers because they have to redo parts of the project etc.

Our barely functioning education system is a product of our culture and this education system churns out people who are just not very employable right out of college. Most of the freshers need hand holding and show a huge propensity for not using common sense, thus becoming a liability for their managers and teams. These slow, often-incompetent, grunt level employees delay project execution and affect the quality of service/product. Even the Indian IT industry is now increasing hiring eastern Europeans because of the lack of qualified people in India.

Finally, because of our culture and ingrained pettiness due to said culture, spending more time at work equals hard work, that and being a sycophant who works late is seen as a hard working loyal employee deserving of promotions. And when the wrong kind of employee gets promoted the problem continues and corrupts the entire organization.

I just add to the above.
Most of Employees nowdays wants to own a apartment in a city very soon in there work life. House is really required at young age or not is different question, this situation of long term debt piles up, to put pressure to naturally aspire for higher salaries, only realizing later not all can cope up mentally and physically for long and concentrated work hours that come along with higher pay checks.
Ultimately, human body has a limit, that limit is different for different persons both physically and mentally.
Also, many people want to blindly imitate others like buying an expensive car. Nothing wrong, if there is only a need and requirement.
All these purchases naturally piles up long term debt and puts pressure on individual.
When Salaries are being compared against peers and colleagues, do note everyone has different threshold, not all are same. What works for me, may not work for another person and vice versa.(about taking pressure physically and mentally).
By the way, i,am still having 12 Yr old car, and don't want purchase new one even-though i can easily afford it. Rather choose to invest into my long term financial goals.
Importantly, two important terms health and time. once gone cannot return. Money can be earned any day provided being at right place at right time and of course effort and luck.

Your opinion assumes there is a monolithic culture in Indian work place. I find the opposite to be true, every company culture is the result of that company management style. Capitalism or economic reality is something no one can escape.

This was true in all Indian industries until the early 90s. However, it stopped being true for IT industry when job opportunities exploded. In an employees market, no one can expect or will give servitude because of a job. Folks can resign at the drop of hat and find another job with a big hike. Only when there is a huge recession, and jobs dry up, it temporarily becomes employer's market, where they set the terms. These days servitude is achieved by golden handcuffs, which is high financial compensation for sticking around despite all the hardships and torture. It is hard to complain when the employer can justify it with high pay.

Very few will give unquestioning compliance when the pay is low.

This I agree is a big problem. Somehow accountability is never with the sales team. But this is a different problem, which can be addressed by the company if they want, by keeping delivery managers in the loop.

Again, I have decades worth of rant about this in another thread. It doesn't directly translate to overworking or overpaying.

True but the management style is shaped by the cultural beliefs of the promoters/managers. May be that attitude is changing with more western exposure but I do not see the change in most Indian businesses. When the going gets tough all the pettiness and the cultural biases come out. Case in point.

I was talking about the services industry in India in general. Even in IT it is an employee's market only for competent people - people who can actually do more than fizzbuzz without stackoverflow. Your run-of-the-mill analysts or KPO/BPO people generally do not have enough bargaining power.

High pay is not really a justification to put people in such stressful jobs that they drop dead. But that I guess is capitalism everywhere. Given the discussion in this thread I don't see why IT should be this stressful if organizations and business processes are well managed. May be for law firms the golden handcuffs, punishing hours etc. can be justified due to the nature of the work, but for Indian IT... it just doesn't make sense unless you account for culture.

This I will disagree with because I have seen freshers from degree farms bend over backwards to keep their managers happy, try hard, and fail. They just don't have the necessary skill set to survive and this leads to a lot of stress.

Stress is a product of the mind. Stress builds up when employees do not have the necessary skills or fail to acquire new skills/knowledge due to poor quality of education. Misrepresentation in CVs is a very common thing in India and IT demands regular up-skilling. So, I think there is a correlation there.

Philosophically, sometimes wonder what do we want in life. Life threatening experience usually gives us this perspective, Most of us are lucky enough to survive such experience and given second chance in our lives to live again. Not all are lucky though. I was diagnosed with PE long time back with no previous history of any medical event, I got second chance to live.. It always give me thinking what do we actually want... i guess core of life it is happiness, humbleness,content and being friendly to everyone..try to help others who sometimes cannot help themselves...Capitalism and Materialism has no end goal and one fine day..We are all dead..everything in us goes blank..people who are close to us suffer a lot due to attachment...As saying goes.."Attachment is root cause of everything".

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for this post. It is an eye opener for all us professional who are working tirelessly, especially in last two years to make ends meet.

Last January, when it was time to receive our bonus, I pinged my boss to ask about the same as I had not received any details from him. to my surprise, he mentioned that it is not right on my part to be expecting any bonus. I should be thankful that I have a job at such times. This was when our CEO was sending company wide emails stating top company performance, on-time deliveries and revenue beyond expectations.

There is no point dying for an organization which would replace you the moment you become incapable of doing the work.

Invest on personal health and fitness. Please take good care of yourself and family.

Read almost every post and felt very compelled to share my experience. I'm a 48 year old guy who is an electrical contractor doing solar plant commissioning all over Tamil Nadu. If there is one leveller in the last 2 years, it's Covid and it has claimed every one of us as it's victim. Some have been directly affected by the Virus and gone too soon, while the survivors are left to collect the emotional and physical morsels which are left behind. Talk to anyone and they will share at least one emotional trauma which has impacted them deeply.
As lockdown was announced I was neck deep in debt as business ground to a halt. I cleared all my dues to my creditors whereas my debtors hid behind the Covid Shield (Innuendo very much intended). Soon I started losing sleep and in May 2020 I got Covid. I was alone as my family was with my in laws during the first lockdown and there was no one to even physically look after me. Here I was, neck deep in debt, with Covid, no sense of smell(Trust me it's very unsettling) and no clear idea about where my life was headed. It was then that my panic attacks started. Until then, getting to sleep was never a problem for me. I had no medical complications which afflicted many in my age group. BP was normal, no sugar and even though my weight was mildly on the higher side, it was nothing to be worried about. After May 2020 I had to take medications to control my panic attacks, my sleeping schedule went for a toss and my body just wouldn't be as strong as I expected it to be. Long story short, I let my circumstances control my life as covid ravaged on claiming victims left, right and centre. I felt really trapped and helpless as if we were just floating on aimlessly through this cycle of life. I put on weight exponentially and now I have high BP. The solution was however very simple. I say simple but not easy.
Walking. Not just exercising but walking. I started walking from 2022 as a new year resolution and now my BP is in control. All my joints are really paining even now and my mind keeps on giving me negative vibes but I choose to ignore and walk. The best part about walking is that I'm sleeping like a baby for 7 hours straight and trust me, that's the greatest blessing that one could aspire for in these uncertain times. We all have lost so much/ someone and what has passed has passed. It's in our hands or rather our legs on how we choose to spend the reminder of our quota on earth.
My inspiration.... Forrest Gump.

Get well soon mate and hope you find a great balance in life from now on.

Please take care.

Best Regards.

Hope you are feeling better already, surely you are on statins and DAP. Well, on the bright side, lucky it is a TIA and you did not further pursue the medical field. Do not want to enumerate reasons here but I am sure you are already well aware of them.

So concentrate on the brighter side of things and life eventually sorts itself out.

regards kaps454

Good to see that you're recovering. And kudos on having the courage to talk about these things on a public forum.

I think most of us have been running this rat race far longer than we care to admit. And the hedonic treadmill we're all conditioned to run on only makes everything so much worse.

Hate to sound like a hippie but sometimes, it honestly sucks that it feels like the very point of existing just feels soo... pointless? As children, we had our noses pressed to the grindstone for good grades and then admission to a good uni, and then placement, and titles and hikes. Bah!

The point of work is to fund your passion and hobbies. (Yes, your family too. You know what I'm talking about.) Your health and family has to come first. End of the day, regardless of how much your managers tell you that you're all family, work is entirely a transactional affair. Please let it take a backseat for a bit while you recover further.

Get well soon. Glad to see that it was just a mild wake up call.

Though all of know that work life balance is very important, it is difficult to make the balance when working with multiple time zones and increasing responsibilities. I have come to realize that it becomes more difficult as we climb the ladder. The irony is our health is deteriorating with age, where as the demands are increasing - professionally, personally (ageing parents, children), and financially (major life goals like children's higher education, marriage etc).

The courtesy late night meetings once in a while could easy become the expectation with limits stretched even more. Unless we draw the line and say 'No' (something we indians are bad at), it could reach a break point soon.

The only way out is to become financially independent or take up a less demanding, more purposeful work with more off days for lesser pay (as pointed out earlier).

Hope you get well soon, it's heart wrenching to see your family's situation. Good thing is you have decided to change, life is all about priorities hope you get yours sorted out soon.

As a silver lining to the entire story, you are a qualified doc, you have a skill to fall back on in case you decide to press the restart career button. clap:

Very True. I have also been through both the scenarios. 2016-2019 I setup the complete process and a centralized team for Customer Support for the first time in my organization (I had rejoined them after 10years). Was very successful and well respected. I used to work my bottoms off and be available whenever I was required. Thought the whole service was running off just my shoulders and I was the Hercules for the business. A reorg happens and I get some team members who were not happy to report to me because they were my counterparts elsewhere and then one bad project leads to another and my castle crumbles. I end up on the wrong side of my Super boss and try everything possible to regain his trust. Then comes Lockdown 1.0 and everything goes further south. 01 Oct 2020 - Am told I have 30 days to find another job and 04 Oct my wife, an asthmatic gets COVID and is sent to Hospital tagged as a high risk patient. Next 2 weeks were just a nightmare - Worried about wifey's recovery and the deadline to find a new job. Luckily for me I had a well wisher in the organization who helped me move into his team much to the displeasure of some of my old team.

Cutting the story short, it has been 1.5 years in the new team doing the same role but am happier now because it is similar to your Scenario 2. A boss who acknowledges my contribution and a team that looks up to me because they know am there for them and customers who are equally demanding but very understanding.

I also realized that you are not the Hercules for your team. If you think so you are a fool. And I have also learnt to take my time out from work and spend time with Family.

I have also realized that when you are doing something you really don't enjoy you get stressed. So these days I have learnt to say both at home and work that I will not do something if I do not like doing it.