Wanted to post this on blogs in my office and not here honestly. But before that, can someone tell me would I be jobless if I do that?!
And fits this category to some extent .
What did you think straight away after seeing the title? Working hours? If you did, you are one of the branded ‘jolly’ guys around in the software industry. If you sneak out of office at 6; well, it is considered as sneaking out, and then you don’t have much work! How often this has been the scenario around your desk? The very same manager who might give presentations on work-life balance may expect you to work more hours and stretch beyond 6. Where does all this lead up to? How many of us have a feeling that it is just amazing commitment to keep working long, longer and longest of hours? There are things beyond that.
As the cliché goes, let me say the first things first. I am not against anybody here. And I am not saying it is bad to sit beyond 6. Yes, there would be one of those horrible days where you might have to patch up a crashing system or deliver that crucial document that might win millions. Stretching the work at such a point in time is unquestionable. With due respect and credit to the hard workers, let me just try to jot down few things which you might and might not have given a thought – “Bad effects of this hard working!” Most often, we fail to see the stretching hours beyond the perspective of a single person. Work-life balance getting disrupted is one common thing. And the additional hours a person puts in is accounted for his sincerity, hard-work and so on. While I am pretty circumspect that I might sound like a rebel in the coming paras, I do have few things to convey!
First, let us have a look into the physical drain that we bring about on to ourselves. We created machines to work for us. Now, we sit longer hours to make the machines run for us. What an irony! We work longer, grow tummies(!), become unhealthy, stressed out, and everything. Ok, let this be point number 1 - Fatigue. When we work for longer hours, a task can be accomplished in lesser days. Each time when we keep completing tasks in shorter no. of days, expectation is set to the same number of days for a similar task that comes up next time. So, we have to do it quicker each time. Let this be point no. 2. Point 1(fatigue) and 2(hurriedness), together bring down the quality of the service we do. Doing things in hurry and during fatigue is not a great way of doing things. In a professional world, where a small mistake might cost heavy losses at some unknown corner, involuntarily we cause this scenario.
Next, by working additional hours, we bring cheap labour to cheaper labour. It is not a secret that the concept of ‘off-shoring’ and ‘outsourcing’ means hiring someone to work for a cheaper cost, than it would to recruit a person in-house to do the same work. It may be irrelevant whether I have correctly understood outsourcing, while it is a fact that the client pay some money to my company for the work I do! Ideally, for all the ‘hours’ you put into your work, you should be bringing in money to your company(And in-turn the company should compensate the individual for the additional work). If this is what that happens, I have no qualms! And I write this because; we do not live in Ideal world! When you see the other side of things, does this not bring down the image of the company as a whole? Being available in crucial times is a different thing from being available all the time servicing! If off-shoring is selling your service, you would not want to sell your service for a cheaper price, would you?
If that is not enough, let us have a look at a larger picture. Let us assume a person is intended to work 8 hours a day, and he works 2 additional hours. If 4 persons do the same, it is 8 additional hours i.e. a day’s work for someone else! 16 more persons doing the same thing means 40 hours of additional work. Translate that to days and another person could work for a week. Forget unemployment, give some work for guys on bench! It means more productivity as well. I am only surprised as to how most managers fail to see this or see this and still not react. Especially when efforts directly translate to money. It is not magic, just math, isnt it? Let me just hold myself back at company level than sounding like a crusader, trying to save the country from unemployment!
However, for this to work, we have to be what we want to be in the additional hours i.e. sincere, dedicated and work with all the skills that we have. Using windows ability to multitask for activities like a chat window in parallel will not help the cause.
Just imagine this – We come to office well before 9, sort of the day’s activities with priorities and allowance for some urgent unforeseen tasks, enjoy the days work till 6, get back home and be happy for rest of the day; Come back the next day, smiling. Consider this against a tired days work till 10 or 11, a quick sleep, sunken eyes the next day. Bad isn’t it? And what we bring about? Bad quality work, unnecessary pressure, wrong expectations, bad health and more money to someone else which that someone does not deserve.
Sticking to a proper work schedule, the quality in our work will improve; opportunities would be even; the brand image of the company improves; world would be a better place to live in(Please, let me sound like a peace messenger from heaven)! If there is someone who wants to argue that 9 – 6 is not practically possible and I am only talking rubbish, I might just ask to give this a try. This is just comparable to the black money concept. There you need to declare your income(or not earn it), here you need to declare your efforts(or not put in those efforts). [Yeah, you got it rite, not long since Sivaji got released! J* ] If you say we are too far down, and cannot revert back to 9-6, then think you are starting afresh [Someone said I get extra points for persuading J*]. Not convinced yet? I still maintain, universal remedy for all software company issues, work from 9 to 6!
Smiles,
Envyram