Deprived Indian souls

I came across the article in Times of India 'Indians 5th most vacation deprived' at a time when I had a squabble with my manager regarding me taking 3 days off for holidaying. I took it combining a weekend and later realized that I had never taken 5 days off at a stretch except for some medical emergency. He highlighted the losses the company would incur because of my absence.  The truth is I do not gain anything by not going ahead with my holiday plans.

The article was comforting in a way because it gave some statistics as to how truly deprived the Indian employees are. Of course this does not mean all Indian companies are like this but a vast majority is very much of what the article had reported.

I agree to the point highlighted in the article that the Indian bosses consider a ‘vacation’ as a luxury. As a result, they tend to associate an employee holidaying as ‘not hardworking’. Recently, I was chatting with a friend of mine who was looking forward to her holiday that she had planned out well in advance. She works outside India and the work culture is such that a vacation is considered as a necessity for an individual.

In the West, everyone talks about their holiday plans and is given so much of importance and here we have bosses who would try to convince to reduce the duration of our holiday if we plan to take more than 2 days.

In this day and age where all companies are aiming for high productivity, somehow the Indian managers fail to realise that proper rest for the brain is a contributing factor to high productivity. Results achieved by a stress free mind would be like finding gold in a gold mine. A vacation would prompt all employees to work their asses off when at work and look forward to a relaxing vacation. And they would be back in office with a rejuvenated body and soul.

Another aspect that is common in the Indian work culture (specific reference to the IT world) is that working late in the evening or staying up the entire night is considered to be some kind of an accomplishment. Of course, I am not referring to people who work in night shifts. I am talking about people who are supposed to work from 9 am to 6 pm but still end up in office beyond 9 pm.

It is strange but true that many a time, you get praised or noticed for the work that is completed by staying late than the work that gets completed within the official working hours (9 am to 6 pm). Shouldn't it be the other way round because wouldn't that indicate the employee is efficient in his work? Many a time, I have noticed that if you submit your work (say by email) by 5:30 am which is an indicator that you are done with your day and would leave soon, your lead/manager will almost definitely be at your desk the next minute asking random questions (visualize shooting aimlessly into thin air) and some work would be given so that you can't leave by 6 pm. Or sometimes you would be assigned some work at 5:30 pm that needs to be completed urgently almost on a daily basis. Don’t you think there is something amiss here? Isn’t management supposed be all about proper planning and fore vision?

Some people however play a smart game. They would send the updates on their work just 5 to 10 mins before leaving (read as fleeing) for the day. Situation is such that 'fleeing' seems to be the solution for now to deal with the Indian bosses.

For the overworked Indian IT professional, a vacation is a must have. I felt so rejuvenated after a week’s vacation and my mind was so fresh and energetic. I am looking forward to my next holiday.