LinkedIn feed has people hopping on to it like a cat on hot tin roof posting knee-jerk reactions and harping to the pillars of experience. For me, I humored it until after a couple of pro and con litany of the good counsel by Mr. Murthy of Infosys, it left me wondering, where the rage is?
I posted the following text in LinkedIn portal much to my misgivings.
A take on Mr. Murthy’s counsel for Today’s youth working in the IT Sector to get into the mode of working 70 hours a week.
Choice between family and work is personal!
70 hours per week mean, 14 hours per day would be (reg 8 + extra 6 hrs). These hours are exclusively dedicated to work and progress. This means, don’t account any excess requirement of time for commute and other personal and family time requirements.
First off, citing Japan and Germany though speaks for statistics but doesn’t take into account the Indian demographics.
From personal experience, I had done a lot of random works which was not related to my line of study. But one single element that stuck around for me was the Language English. I am seriously passionate about writing. I have for decades written trash before I could get out a straight sentence.
In order to write, you need to read at a lot. So, the amount of hours that I spend during my youth to just gather knowledge that I was random picking was more than 18 hours per day. Of course, I had been lectured, reprimanded by my mother for the hours that I kept for sleeping and waking up to pick up again where I left my yesterday’s reading.
One important thing is that passion for your line of work can be borderline craziness and maintaining inhumane hours. Whether you have an altruistic outlook, or patriotism or just plain greed to know more… I think that is the factor aiding in the life and career choices we make in our life.
I would like to take Japan (partial Moi!), ‘la Meilleur culture’ that begins at school level then spills over into their Japanese children’s adult-life and thus is reflected in their personality and work attitude.
I don’t have much information about Germany but my late uncle who lived his formative year as a young man in Germany was a technician by profession and a skilled worker, especially in problem solving. This is an observation after watching him solve a semi-technical problem in the family home.
Here is the thing that I see, sometimes, for me at least, pay packet never mattered, as much as what mattered was to check if I learnt something new in each job that I held. I absolutely loved working in all my jobs even those that were not mentioned in LinkedIn. If need be I would have happily put in 17 hours of work per day for the entire week. Subsisting on short breaks.
That kind of willingness is a personal choice and has nothing to do with the compensation that I expect from the company. Wait, I am not your regular employee, I have baggage and super charged if my mind picks up an idea or route in the course of my work which is writing.
The question here is not about compensation, commute ease, conducive working environment, none of these matter. My personal choice of working for more hours and at random times during the day or night is my own. My carrot was not cash, career, compliments, or accomplishment ! It was beyond that, it was more a life goal!
Mr. Murthy is right, but then, so are others! To choose family over work. Is a Perspective!
The above post doesn’t answer the question that is hidden in the 70 hours work. Let me try to address it with my limited knowledge base.
Early Days of Work
For many years during my early employment, I could never stay in a job beyond the three months. It was like I was suffering from some inconsistency ailment. The novelty of the job after three months will wear off leaving disconnected and lacking motivation to go on. My father fretted over my inability to stick it out in the job and my mother felt it okay since marriage was the final destination for girls anyway!
It took me nearly five years to find a job where I would stay for a long time. As Proof reader and later as a staff writer and article researcher. I had one of the best mentors in my work-life experiences. Late Mr. K Ramakrishnan sir and he had the patience of a wise mountain. He was my mentor and life-Coach.
My life’s journey feels like a flutter of the butterfly wings. The fact that I couldn’t stay put in a place for long if my interest is not perked like the percolated cup of morning coffee. This sense of restlessness and need to be excited constantly for motivation became a narcotic necessity of mine over a time.
That is when I understood that I get excited to create content for children and adult alike. I disliked pressures and minus that would be to be a blogger. These days, I write when I feel like and record stories, CNF, and other reviews at my leisure.
Discovering One’s Passion That Synergizes Life’s Goal
It takes a long time to discover, that which we aspire for, which is our reason to be, and a synergizing match of employment. My passion was not towards employment since I rarely work well in a team. But alone by myself I quietly work unrelentingly.
My interest for stories in any format, oral, written, and visual seem to be an all consuming thirst. The past few years post my last employment and a handful of freelance works, I got interested in visual story consumption at great quantities.
This interest gave rise to seeing similarity and disparity in cultures of the Asian side. Something eggs me on to learn languages by consuming dramas. It might seem futile to spend expensive time over something that is trivial. But there lies the difference in perspectives.
Changing and Charging Perspectives
There is much to learn from mere observation that is one sided. Reading, Writing, and Viewing becomes a way to understand the diversity and similarity of world culture. So, in this fashion, one is able to learn about the mental steel of the human beings’ resolves in the face of adversity.
There have been many moments of acute understanding that I felt in the various content that I worked with in my work-life. I have been working on my writing nearly three decades and my jobs gave me the perspectives needed for improving my writing skills.
The changes helped me to charge up my skills with the right attitude. A year as a SEO Content Writer catering to all DM team’s need gave me a discipline that I had lacked so far in my life. Around that time, I was in disagreement with my mother and my only way of protest was to keep working non-stop in isolation.
Of course, my mother would still look out for my awake time and by the time it was ten o’clock she would be behind my case. For me the fact that I gave up my personal entertainment and not my responsibility of cooking diabetic-friendly diet. Until my father asked for a change in menu.
The change in the way I do certain task almost borderline repetition can lead to sickening feeling of similarity. This is the same factor that makes me bored of the work that I am doing. The interesting thing about growth is the changes and charges of experiences of work-life collides with personal-life resulting in a changed personality and charged person.
70 Hours or More – Is A Personal Choice and Subjective!
So, I feel that when you love your work then you don’t work for a day at all or calculate hours. The fact that the work is powered by love and affection for what is done. The need to hold on to that thin but strong connect of the passion gives the needed boost to find your calling in all that you do. Then, the question of calculating hours is not essential at all. I have found such joy and happiness in all the work that I have been doing as a Course Counsellor, Typist, Writer in diverse fields, and Storyteller. Nothing is more fulfilling than when what you write gives you all that you emotionally need in life.
Itinerant Storyteller 