After a hardwork and serious studies of 4 years, my friends and I got our Economics degrees from the University of Karachi. Before jumping into the job market we were all afraid of our future because we had heard stories that in Pakistan, good jobs are only landed by using bribery, influence (sifarish) or other unfair means.
On the contrary, soon enough, most of my University buddies landed themselves good jobs in banking sector which paid them handsomely with attractive perks and all on merit. So it came as a blessing and good surprise that most of us got decent jobs without any unethical means.
At present, most of my friends qualify as part of the burgeoning middle-class, which has been progressing decently by earning good money. They live in comfortable houses, their kids go to good schools, they travel in cars leased from the loans from their banks and they eat fast food. To sum it all up they have the status and the lifestyles that remains a dream of millions of other Pakistanis.
Life is imperfect though. My friends also have their share of problems which is affecting their lives in one way or the other. In most cases, these problem occur due to creeping work hours. In the begining they look harmless and go unnoticed, because they are accepted as a norm of corporate life in Pakistan. But slowly but surely cracks began to appear in the fabric of family life. Earning men and women in Pakistan now find themselves spending more and more time in office and less and less time with thier spouses and children.
Some say it is the norm of corporate culture; Some say it is the way their bosses want them to live their office-lives and some say it is nothing but the way things work in a salaried society. But I want to call it exploitation. Exploitation of making employees sit late in the offices to work like a bullock in fields. The work hours now go well after their scheduled 9-5 timing.
Sitting late in the office is making people perpetually tired and irritated. Wives are getting enormous burden of caring for the whole family without due support from their husbands. It is disturbing the balance at home and can lead to lot more severe repercussions. More and more, wives alone are helping children to do well in studies in stiffer competitions at schools; they do shopping for the whole family including their hubbies alone; they drive cars to pay utility bills and look for plumbers, electricians and what they get at the end of the day? A sleepy and tired husband irked after long and tiring day at job which usually spans around 12-15 hours.
I have come across several people in private companies who work untill midnight just because their companies look to get bulk of work done with the lean work force. In some offices, bosses like to sit late in the offices just to show how efficient and effective they. This puts extra pressure on the staff who also tend to stay late and don’t want to appear as those who dare to leave before the boss.
My brother works in a renowned Pharmaceutical Company where work hours stretch to days. My family has seen him spending nights in the offices sleeping on the office desks because they have to finish a project no matter how and no matter what. Recently, I heard from my brother that one of his colleagues quit the job because his parents, and especially his sick mother couldn’t bear his late sittings after what happened with peace and law in recent months in our country.
Money is important. There is no argument against it. But one should not get so blindedsighted in the greed of it that we fail to understand that money is good only when we can have time to spend and enjoy it.
As increased numbers of heart diseases and heart attacks in Pakistani males has something to do with the kind of culture that prevails at our workplaces. Enormous pressures of getting the most out of our jobs to give better futures to our children are making men and women of Pakistan, money-making machines. Our marriages are also getting disturbed by this trend because wives think of themselves as maids who were brought from their parents houses to tender to husband and his family single-handedly. Children are also getting used to the fact that they have only one person to tell each and everything and that is their mothers because their fathers are always in the office.
We need to understand this and stop this exploitation at the hands of our organizations because we are their employees not their slaves.
Photo Credits: Flickr.com
ATP post on Similar topic: Job Security in Corporate Pakistan
The people who work too hard and stay late at office need not worry about their personal life.
I worked late at night and thought to reduce my hours. Then I found out that my wife is not happy for me being home early. My driver was even more upset than my wife. Give some privacy to your wife and servants. These are perks of the job!!!
All,
I’ve been in U.S. for 20 years and work for a major corporation. I’ve very seldom worked more than 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week…so I don’t think it’s fair to say this is the “americanization” of Pakistani society nor it’s fair for some people to say that Pakistan youngs should get used to it…just because only “hard work” will get them there. I fully support the author that there should be a good work-life balance and working for more than 50 hours/week must be very strongly discoraged and fought against.
I think one must have his own choice and right to decide how many hours he wants to work (besides the 40 hours requirements)… and not forced by his managers or peer pressure.
So, in the end it’s all about individual choice, right? No one is being forced to work long hours (in the sense that you’re fired, not killed for not doing it). Rationality would suggest that people choose to work long rather than getting fired, because life after losing that particular job that makes you work long is unacceptable. So why is the blame shifting to corporate greed, the Americans, and the other usual suspects? Seems like a case of having my cake and eating it too! If nobody like’s to work long, then everybody would choose to not work long hours, which means no corporation would be able to hire any people if it requires them to work long. Seems like the problem is all those party poopers who happliy put in the hours.
Being a director of an IT company, I’ve experienced similar kind of situation. At beginning of company operations in Pakistan we were working 12 – 15 hours a day but results were crappy. I shifted it to 8 hours with 15 minutes brake after every 2 hours. Results are awesome. Production is a little less but sure our quality has certainly improved more then 100%.
In capitalistic society quality is more important then quantity. Pakistani companies should think about it.
Any way a very good post.
I’ve spent most of my time at work from 11am to 12am/2am only because I wanted to. But there were times when our managers (faujis) promised something to their bosses that at first we thought was ridiculously impossible, yet we ended up finishing it.
This happened not once but many a times and that’s how we helped our managers realize that no matter how much they throw at us, we will help them realize their objectives. Upon which they grew overconfident in our abilities and started expecting miracles.
There are two aspects to this issue, one is the hierarchical organizational structure and other is lack of communication.
The organizational structure means you cannot, in any circumstances, get ahead of yourselves. i.e approach the manager’s boss and let him know of any issues in case you really do have a bad manager.
This hierarchical structure also results in a reduction of time needed for a project by a certain factor down every rung of the ladder. The managers are playing it safe but then they don’t know how long a task will really take to finish.
Which brings me to communication. You are the person who is going to complete the task and you have been hired because you are good at what you do. So technically you are the expert in that matter for your company. Know how long it takes to finish a certain task assuming a good 8-hour work day and let you manager know if there is not enough time. It is their job to figure out how to get you more time. If they cannot… well you have a tough time ahead.
As for those older than us and admonishing us for complaining of hard work… sirs respectfully… we’re not afraid of working hard. We’re willing to spend more time if you wish on our work, but there is a reason why there is an 8 hour workday. A happy work force is a good work force. You cannot expect to make this country a better place with 12 hour work timings. We need to work efficiently and it would be a great help if you guys can plan a little better.