A Country of Late night workers

'9 to 5' job is a term we hear a lot but do not often relate to. I don't recall ever leaving the office at 5 p.m., and I don't know anyone who does, at least not in the IT industry. The term, I believe, originated in the United States and is also applicable there. People in the United States go to work at 9 a.m. or earlier and leave around 5 p.m.

While we do not usually start this early in India, and even if we do, we certainly do not end our days at 5 p.m. or even hour after that. People in India would leave their offices at 7:30 - 8 p.m. in the best case scenario. This huge disparity in timings makes me wonder about the current state of the working population and what it will be like in the future. Because they do not sleep on time, our working population is not accustomed to waking up early. Because our work usually ends at night, most of us do not have time for our personal lives after the work day ends. We put off taking care of even the smallest chores until the weekend. We are becoming a country of young people with health problems such as insomnia, obesity, and stress, and one of the major reasons for this is the work schedules we adhere to in our corporate jobs.

We've made working late a norm, and we're proud of our culture of starting late and finishing late, or starting early and finishing late. And that, in my opinion, is the most serious problem. When we begin to normalize a problem, it becomes a culture. The fault does not entirely lie with us; circumstances and limitations play a significant role. One of the main reasons being that the businesses the corporates do come from Oversees and they prefer to hire us for the work(Duh! Great talent and Cheap labor) . The time zones do not match and thus the work timing issues. This is a valid argument and justification for the timing issues, but it cannot be held solely responsible for the culture we have created. The people sitting oversees needs to get more considerate and less ignorant about the fact that there is someone working out of their working hours. And no, not everyone gets compensated for the overtime or the extra hours that they put in. The concept of Overtime pay is almost non-existent in our country where the basic pay itself is at suboptimal level compared to the work that is put in.

One of the other reasons we don't do anything about it and just accept things as they come is the scarcity of jobs and opportunities available here. A person would much rather have a job that requires late-night slogging than no job at all. I personally used to work at a place where I was needed to slog for more than I was getting paid to meet deadlines. It came with some perks like depression, poor health and absolutely no extra money for the overtime. Because of the same fear that most of us have, I was hesitant to quit. Fear of not being able to find another job.

While this is a very problematic subject, it continues to be ignored because we have somehow made working until late a sign of some sort of hustle heroism, which is exactly what businesses take advantage of.

This has now become a part of our way of life, and it will, unfortunately, have a long-term impact on our physical and mental health, as well as the amount of time we spend pursuing our hobbies and maintaining good habits in general. As a developing country, we will be reliant on international trade for many years to come. We can, however, change our culture and mindset in terms of how we treat our employees and ourselves. Otherwise, we will continue to be a country of the call centers and an outsourcing destination for all late-night slogging work. In light of this, we are unquestionably more than that.

If you are here for the first time, also check out my other posts!