Of Insensitive Bosses and the Indian work Sensibilities

I am angry, really angry today and the DH had to bear the brunt of it, for no good reason. The reason, a new head of operations for the Middle East in his organisation, unfortunately an Indian. Just a month into his job and he is already making my life miserable. There is a good reason why I am wary of any Indian in a senior management position. They take employees for granted, and have absolutely zero sensitivity and consideration for them and their lives. Office politics is a part of every office I believe, some more and some less, but the basic attitude of an Indian worker really scares me.

The two day weekend, which has been the way the past 10 years in the organisation is likely to soon be slashed to a single day weekend, nine hour work days have been extended to ten and a lot of benefits have been cancelled. Why do they work this way, why do they want to suck the life out of their employees, leaving them nothing but stress and misery. I have had the same experience, when I was working an Indian team replaced the existing top management which consisted of Europeans. Bonuses were slashed, the offshore allowances were halved, stationary was rationed and even tea and coffee in the office got rationed. The motto being, if I can get the same work at half the cost, why not? They believe in pushing the employee to their limits, to get the most for the least. I wonder if management education introduces them to the concept of satisfied employees being a lot more productive and loyal!

The average Indian worker on the other hand thinks its sacrilege to even think of a personal life at work! Come on people you work to earn and earn to live! No play and all work makes Jack a dull boy. I remember the initiation program we had in my company, it was a three month intensive thing , with 80% academic training and 20% behavioral. So in one of the behavioral sessions on team work, we were given a situation where, one of us was to be the team leader, facing a tough spot. They had a deadline to meet the next morning, and one of his female team memember was going through a divorce. The entire team is up, working late in the night, and the woman is not being productive enough, and she takes a break to ... well, sob. The assignment for my friend was to sort the situation. This is what he said , "Come on! Forget all this, we are low on time, come back to your desk and complete your work now. We don't have time for this." You could say fresh out of college, he was naive, and dedicated to work. But unfortunately this is an attitude I saw with most people in office throughout my work life. Stay extra hours, come to office on weekends if you want brownie points. Just doing your work efficiently in the allocated time was never enough! So it is the basic attitude, that an Indian worker can really be juiced, because he/she does not have a personal life, and does not need one either!

I don't blame the average Indian worker fully though, in a dog eat dog world, where at any given point in time, a thousand people are ready take my job for half the pay, I have to stick on, especially where I have no government support system or anything at all to fall back upon. Struggling and being used has become such a part of an average Indian's life, that one even forgets to feel it on most occasions. Sad, very sad but true.

As for the head in the DH's office, I hope he stops sucking up to his bosses, and gets into his senses SOON!