Comment on Man Resigns on First Day After Indian Boss Expects Overtime Without Pay: Work-life Balance is 'Western Behaviour' - News18

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Yeah, I quit one of my MSFT contract jobs a decade ago after 2 weeks. Team Lead verbatim told me he expected me to work overtime without pay, which is actually a breach of the contracting firm’s terms.

  Applied as a DB admin and data analyst.

  What this guy wanted me to do was make perfect little graphs in powerpoint for his slide deck meetings with superiors that were not actually possible to do with the visualization software provided.

  So use paint! Use photoshop! Ok, follow his instructions verbatim. He comes back 2 hrs later, oh actually I think this minute detail should change and this color should be slightly less ‘bright’.

  Ok, do that. 2 hrs later: No no no that’s too dark! That other change I asked you to make doesn’t look good, put it back!

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• nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The battle for work-life balance is in a far better state in most western economies (including the US) than it is in many developing economies like India. The middle class in India is like 2 generations old. The grandparents of the current middle class are still around and they remember how poor they were and how much has changed. Basically , for many Indian workers, hard work and perseverance on its own (from their perspective at least) had actually been a path to a better life. That social contract hasn’t yet broken the way it has in the west.

  The problem with this is that it results in the workplace culture in the private sector in India being utterly abysmal. Somewhat comparable to western economies a century ago.

  There is awareness of this of course, but change on this scale takes time.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    The battle for work-life balance is in a far better state in most western economies (including the US) than it is in many developing economies like India.

    Easy to say from an office suite in the downtown financial district than a slaughterhouse in Iowa or an Amazon Work Fulfillment Center or a prison farm in Alabama.

    The problem with this is that it results in the workplace culture in the private sector in India being utterly abysmal.

    Bosses will exploit their workforce as far as the workforce tolerates it (typically with the assistance of “business-friendly” state officials to compel obedience through debt or bondage). One of the major conflicts in India today is in the northern districts, where the Hindu nationalist state is trying to break the agricultural workers unions that date back to the 1950s when India was aligned with the USSR. If conditions are deteriorating abroad, it is largely because of the expansion of the police and military and the functional enslavement of working people under their domain. If they’re deteriorating at home… gestures towards the suppression of BLM street protests and the mass imprisonment of migrant workers… it’s the same picture.

    change on this scale takes time

    Conditions can change for the worse, and regularly do. But people quitting day one and making their outrage known is a good first step towards reversing the trend.

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• Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  In my experience working in several countries in Europe and several industries (most of my career was as a Freelancer), it depends on the country an the industry.

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