21st Century Employee

I catch a line from the movie “Into the wild” as – Career is a 20^th century invention. As much as it hits the brain cell, no wonder about its truthfulness. World is divided between developed, developing and under-developed countries. Thinkers and philosophers have interpreted the world and tried to understand the society in their own way. May be some of the words like Capitalism, socialism, communism, blah-blah-ism make some sense to you.

Indian fabric is slowly turning towards Industrialization. What does that mean? 100 years back, Indians used to live in joint families. There would be one patriarch who would rule their large family. Agriculture was the main source of income. Population exploded. Lands were divided and distributed in ownership. Machine were invented. Productivity was trended. People started to move out of their joint families. Urban societies grew in size and started to become the concentrated economic centers. Last 50 years in India, there is an increasing trend of the formalization in the economy. More people are opting to go for a job. More people are getting paychecks in the month-ends. More people are buying & renting individual homes and living with their families and so forth.

One of you reading this open blog may be a wannabe 21^st century employee. I am one of them and I list one of the few points that one of us seek in the job takeaways:

Ø  Good month-end Paycheck

o   It is subjective. For someone who is earning 20k per month, they are literally exuberated with the 30k per month, only learning that it’s the same rat-hole again.

o   We are living in the times of IT. They are the supermen of the era. They bag the highest unimaginable packages. 1 crore per year? Yes, they are setting the trend. They are forming the expectations in the market. They are the culprits!

o   You are 23 year old. You are the sole bread-earner of a 4-sized family. 1 lakh per month may add some meaning in your life depending on your lifestyle, your spending, your liabilities.

o   You are 25 year old. Your parents are financially independent. You have no dependents. You earn 50k per month. You will do ok if you are not an investment-oriented person. Three years down the line, you would feel uncomfortable and may want to break the cage.

o   You are 28 year old. You earn 1.5 L per month. You have no dependents. You are saving 1.15 lakh each month. That’s 14 lakh a year. Okay. If that is in Mutual funds. You have the potential to be a crorepati in 5-6 years based on your yearly increment & investment growth. Think about it.

o   You are 30 year old. You earn 70k per month. Your parents are doing financially ok. You look forward to your marriage, then the extended expenses of enlarged family, no health-insurance. You live in a 15k rented apartment. You are saving 30k per month. Where are you in 5 years? What will be your savings by then? VOLATILE. Wake up.

o   You are 33 years old. You earn 2 Lakhs each month. You have a kid and a non-earning wife. You are able to save 1.3 lakh rupees per month. You can still sail well.

Ø  Work-life balance

o   You are 24. You work 70 hours in a week. You have no external life except the to & fro office to home trip.  

§  You are working day & night. You are learning. You are enhancing your skills. You are learning about markets & people management. You are observing a change in yourself when you are seeing yourself a year back in the mirror. You are growing & you feel so. Remember, it's important to get that feel.

§  You are wasting time in politics. You are there at 9 AM dozing off at your desk. You are there eating lunch for 1.5 hours. You are leaving office at 9 PM you don’t know why. Reaching home you open your laptop & reply to your mails. Then you are part of whatsapp operational chats. In between, you watch crappy reels & laugh on it. You have no idea when you pass out to sleep. You wake up 8 AM to repeat everything you did the previous day. 

§  You are hard working. For some reason, you are suffering. You have responsibilities. You work out ways to squeeze productivity smartly & not skip the important steps that hurts your organization. You manage to do 70 pushups some days. You walk to the office. You drink water & avoid those friendly booze that they call fun friday. You are super-busy. You feel you can do better. One wrong step, you fall off the career trajectory. You fail at your plan. Mess increases. You get back again & work at it. Though, this time you are not 24 anymore. You are 29. Keep to the patience.

o   You are 25. You work 45 hours a week. You spend your other time in Yoga, reading books, starting a YouTube channel, going on road-trips, spending time with your family. You have learned a foreign language. You are evolving. You get time for things that matter to you. Work is a means to the end goal of living a fulfilling life. You are at it. You have a trajectory that seems ideal...  

o   You are 33. You wake up at 7 to leave your house at 8, to reach your office at 9 AM. You leave office at 10 PM, reach home at 11 only to wake up and repeat. You have random timings at eating hours. You are mostly sitting. Your breath catches you when you walk that extra hundred metre. You are growing a belly. You are losing at your temper. You are finding ways at gossips. You are having mood swings. You smoke a dozen cigarette in a day. You have no financial plans. 

o   OK. I am stopping this here. It seems to be very individualistic and subjective also… Just one more…

o   You are 28. You hit the gym 4 times a week… leave it.. You have got the point.

Ø  Job profile

o   There are introverts who are excellent salesmen. There are extroverts who are into core R&D. There are engineers who realized themselves at being great managers. There are doctors who are administering the district with the government. Many of us as a teenagers complained that we dint get a mentor or someone who would have counselled us for career. Things will happen. Let not regret juice our inner self.

o   Add the element of the 21^st century. What is happening right now? 5G internet, AI, Virtual reality -vis-à-vis- work from home, flexi timings, 5 hours work week, intense skilled jobs -vis-à-vis- you are into core manual work. What works best for you? What do you like to do? It’s simple. You know it better than anyone else. Extrapolate..

o   No work is small if you enjoy it? Someone's quote carries a meaning that it's never too late to realise that money in your pocket is one of the most precious thing. You can boss a team of 100 IITians if you have got enough jigs in your bank account, no matter your degree.

Ø  Work culture

o   Read the words carefully – Toxic environment, micro-management, 10 PM group meeting, 9 AM mandatory swipe-in, Sunday working, Saturday login.

o   You have colleagues you see yourself to be in their shoes 3 year down the line. They help you. They celebrate your success. They fill-in conveniently when you are home taking care of a diseased one. The place we are working is evolving from a dark crammed space into a vibrant & open space.

21st century employee can be a stressful person, or someone who is making his dream come true by remaing on-boarded in the train of their employment. We could very well be the modern slave, listening to suffocative managers or we could be lucky enough to get to follow that creative leader we meet everyday smiling & calmly working at his desk.

I rest the blog here. Let’s talk later.