Hemantha Kalam - 109 "40, 70, 90 or Insanity?"

On the 4^th and 5^th January, 2025, my past colleagues, 20 of them, chose to meet, as a reunion, at a hotel near Bhongir (Bhuvana Giri) near Hyderabad, Telangana, for old times’ sake. I had to give the meet amiss, as I could not manage the train tickets in time. The organisers planned reasonably well, picking the accommodation, the array of drinks, food menus and even a T shirt for all, with the insignia of the company, where we all worked together.

Two interesting things to be noted in this are, for one, none of the participants are working in the same company anymore and many like me have left the company some 35 years ago. For the other, not a single paisa has been contributed/sponsored by the company. In fact, the company, perhaps, is not even aware that such a meet has been planned and executed with fun and fanfare, just with the contributions from the former employees themselves. The T shirts given and worn by the members bore the insignia of the company and all were very proud to wear the same, years after they left the service in the company.

Now why was so much love and affection extended to that company? The answer is simple. Because the company took care of all the employees seemingly fairly and that the employees are proud to be/have been a part of that company, even after leaving it. Most of them, including yours faithfully, attribute most of their professional grooming, to this company. 

My experience on the facilities offered by the company were, good salaries (as a clerk, my salary was higher than that of a bank manager), good benefits like incentives and bonuses, and most importantly, a broad outlook for the welfare of the employees.

The offices ran on a five-day, 40 hours week, even half a century ago with Saturdays and Sundays as weekend holidays. As technology did not grow and many did not have telephones in their houses, no one was ever disturbed from their family lives, after office hours or on holidays or on leave days. Even those who had the luxury of telephones were not disturbed as a token of respect to their personal/family time.

Apart from the 104 weekend holidays/offs, in addition, there were 13 national holidays, 10 days casual leave, 15 days sick leave and 30 days of earned/privilege leave in a year, totalling 172 holidays/leaves, and all paid for. Beyond this, if any wanted to take leave, it is still available, but not compensated. Excepting sick leave, the rest could be accumulated and encashed against full wages, as a perquisite. 30 days salary was given as a yearly bonus and 15 days salary was given as Leave Travel Assistance (LTA). Effectively, assuming that one has used all the holidays and leave, the effective working days reduced to 193 or 194 days in 365/366 days.

If there was work pressure that required working in after office hours or on weekends/holidays, overtime was paid. If the work was after office hours on weekends, the overtime was something like 1.5 times of the wage/broken into hourly basis. If the work was on a Saturday/holiday, the payment would be 2.0 times and a compensating holiday. If on a Sunday one works for 5 hours, the salary is 2.0 times for the day, a compensating holiday, conveyance and lunch allowance tossed in.

Casual and Sick leaves are broken into quarter day leaves (2 hours of leave would be a quarter day) so that people can choose to utilise the leave for making their electricity/telephone bills payment (that required personal visits to the respective offices), visit a clinic etc., which may not actually require a whole day. Permission requests are totally NIL. This gave the employees a dignity to utilise leave, their leave, instead of begging for permissions, and in an economic manner and also the productivity was not lost for the company.

For the Field Staff members, for whom the working hours were 48 were compensated with higher salaries and benefits, especially possible promotions.

Employees, mostly, were well knit as families and had scope to study further and improve their knowledge, skills and talents. The debate on work-life balance hardly existed.

After leaving the company, many of us have settled as advisers, advocates/lawyers, consultants, entrepreneurs, trainers etc., since they could continue growing their talents, while working and contributing to the growth of the organisation.

And the organisation? More than a century old, tradition blended with modernity in approach, into many fields including real estate, highly visible and more than that; highly respectable.

Now let me talk about a small household employee.

Mrs. L, who comes in to help my wife with household chores, takes leave on every Sunday and on all holidays. She taunts to stop working for us, the moment we protest on her leave taking. But we are happy with her services and she has been with us for over 16 years or so. She is a member of our family now. Our children have an emotional bonding with her. A total illiterate though, she brilliantly managed her life (much more than I could), got her children married off, she fulfilled all her familial duties.

This goes on to say that what is required is smart and dedicated work and not slogging for eternity, in the name of nation building, actually spoiling the health of the nation by creating zombies; well if one has time for creation or recreation, under the new suggested proposals.

I wrote all this because of the debates that are happening in recent times, in the country, on the working hours of the employees, whether the weekly working hours should be 40 or 48, or 70 or 72 or 90 or 100 and above etc.

And I am of the firm opinion that working long hours and that too on the pretext that it is for the nation building is downright bull!

Especially, when many leaders have been trumpeting that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to snatch away almost all existing jobs, what do these leaders want the employees in the offices for, for such long hours? 

Insanity or is it senility that is making these old leaders make such averments, or is there some other agenda?

I am writing this blog of mine on an ECA mode (Effects, Cause and Aside) with a strong premonition that the future for the young employees in the country does not seem to be promising and rosy. Either they may not find jobs due to AI, or if they find, they now seem to be running the danger of becoming corporate slaves, well if they want a job. Either way, they need to be wary.

Now, let me substantiate my assumptions as below.

First, the Effects (E) of this Tughlaqian elongated working hours demands / proposals / suggestions:

1) Some employees will not be able to go, and stand in the queues, to get their periodical ration, visit clinics for health checks etc. After all, not all employees get their annual salaries in crores of rupees,

2) Work cheating may happen,

3) Sleeping and/or fighting (familiarity breeds contempt) in the work area may increase

4) Varieties of new relations may form (more than now) within the work areas,

5) Eating healthy home cooked food may become a luxury/premium

6) Hospitality business (including sit-in-eat restaurants, tourism, etc.,) could take a major hit as also the commuting (aggregators, omni bus services, even flights) may see a significant downfall, since employees won’t find time to travel or take a holiday and relax

7) Gig workers will have to increase in multiple folds leading to poaching and quick attritions too, in that sector. They may be asked to work 30 hours a day by their bosses, to meet the demand and to increase their (bosses) cash coffers.

8) Hospitals, especially psychiatrists, counsellors may see their business suddenly going up and even booming, with mental health of the employees and their families taking a tumble,

9) Marriages may be further delayed and existing marriages could be on the rocks,

10) Newly born children will be guideless, without the care and guidance (whatever amount) of the parents. If care has to be given to them, one of the genders is likely be deprived of financial independence,

11) As people would be busy on all days, working, and working and working, they may not find time to think of buying houses and if at all, they may not be finding time to visit the real estate offices, leading to a fall in the real estate business and loss of jobs in that sector,

12) People may choose agriculture as an alternate income source,

13) The word joy may be taken out of the lexicons for many of the citizens in the country,

14) Employees may die faster,

15) Needless to say, arts and aesthetics may also die a natural death,

16) Joint families could be revived?

And

There could be a myriad other fall outs, because these are only some, which came to my mind quickly.

So, what exactly is going to be really achieved by the dummkopfs suggesting the increase in working hours?

Now let’s surmise the cause/s (C):

I have this strong hunch that this steady rhetoric is not an off the cuff outburst, but a well-orchestrated programme, either voluntarily or under inducement. If, in the near future, one more CEO/Industrialist comes out of the cupboard and say that s/he prefers a 100 or 120-hour week, rest assured that there is a definite programme behind.

It is as if the waters are being tested before changing the policies and rules, to be made favourable, yes you guessed it right, towards more profits for the corporates, even at the cost of betraying the health, wealth and the trust of millions of people in the country and enslaving them as corporate slaves, much against their volition.

This hunch of mine is also strengthened, when the loudmouth, sycophant anchor, of a TV/YouTube Channel, has been conducting debates in favour of the increased work hours and also postulating why working less doesn’t work for the country, even if/when the nation does not want to know.

And ah, yes, it’s time for the Aside (A):

While on the subject, may we also look forward to someone suggesting the increase in the working age for retirement, so that there will be more hands on the deck for more hours, for profit ploughing (if at all) er, for nation building?

In any case, the gentleman, who recently suggested for a 90-hours work week, seems to be holding interest in cricket and music, but now in the dusk of his life, and also since he claims to be working on all days, including Sundays and holidays, he can’t play cricket anymore. So, apparently, he is not very concerned about others’ concerns or interests. How sweet? 

Picture Courtesy: Mom Junction

And he also indicates that one can’t stare at his wife for long. Sounds more like a personal issue, but if so, staring at a blind future, with less of nature in it, could suit better?

You tell me.

Until the next, I remain with,

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian, Bahasa Malay and Singaporean) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India