Living a Dichotomy

Very recently, facebook has helped me get in touch with an Uncle of mine I have never met or spoken to in person. He is about the same age as my father and has spent close to 45 years in the US. This has actually presented me an opportunity to interact with someone from my father’s generation who has been long exposed to a foreign culture, raised kids in that environment and also has had a taste business and work environment.

During one of our online chats, I was discussing how upset I was for the fact that my brother is a workaholic. I was not happy that he was home after three years and still going online virtually every week to sort his work. I figured it as a weakness of not being able to manage personal time away from work. Going further, I was also feeling that he was not the person most comfortable in delegating work and having faith on his team.

My uncle was quick to point out that this was ‘Corporate America’- more or less like a norm. Add to it, this was like a must in times like today, when job retention was a key concern for most. What came for the next few minutes from him was revolving on how working in US was more demanding and called for sacrifice of personal time.

Now it is no secret that passing a bitter pill down my throat is not easy job- so all this time I had organized my arsenal. How different is ‘Corporate America’ from the ‘India Inc’?

Most of the Indian Corporate sector works from close to 50 hours a week with no extra perks. We adjust our working times to suit our clients from Australia to US. If we are unlucky enough to have work coming in from Nepal (Saturday working) or UAE (Sunday working), we end up 7 days looking after our clients. India is an outsourcing hub as the world knows that we are work horses. Corporate Governance is still a low priority function in India. So how is Corporate America more demanding?

My reply to uncle was simple. We live in an environment where technology, management systems and processes are replicated in India the day next to their success in any part of the world. The output quality from India is by no means sub standard to anywhere across the world. So the argument on work pressures and time to invest is not a US localized phenomena, we live it in India and still find personal space.

The whole discussion did not go anywhere since I was not in mood to convince him that his absence of 45 years from India has isolated his thoughts in the past. But it brought me to a certain revelation. We are living a dichotomy everyday of out life. We are somewhere stuck in transit between the World and India.

Think- we are all today global in out outlook, thought process and work culture. But being in India, there are some areas we are expected to maintain the Indian value systems. So if a girl in India cannot cook or a guy takes no offence to do the dishes- it can be greeted with awe. A girl or guy working till late and coming home, not having time for family will still be suspicious for our society. Do the same in US and see the same people up in praise for it.

What is disturbing though is that this dichotomy is most visible to people who are living it rather than people around us.