The Search For Joy and Purpose In The Corporate World

“Sometimes he falls or trips over something and gets himself hurt a little. My eyes immediately tear up. It’s just…..I am so sensitive when it comes to him. I don’t know why……I have been mulling over which school to enroll him in for the past month. Everyone says something different. I don’t know what to do,” a thirty-year-old ex-colleague told me over lunch one day.

“It’s just a play school, Akka. He’s just three years old. You can transfer him to a different school later too, you know,” I said, laughing.

I, the man-child who just about had the word ‘teen’ removed from his age, was advising a woman with a three-year-old son.

“I just want him to make strong and long-lasting bonds…..If I keep changing schools, how will he make proper friends? Life is hard enough for me with close friends. They make my life so much more bearable.”

The employees in the firm I was a temporary intern were all, except for a handful, in their early or late middle ages.

I knew how much her son meant to her from the first day I met her. She had him in her phone’s wallpaper. I saw her scroll through her gallery once, and every photo in it was her son at various locations and angles — at the park, at the salon, at an exhibition. It was almost impossible to talk to her for more than twenty minutes without her bringing him into the conversation.

It was not just her. Almost everyone I met there had kids of their own. Every one of their phone or desktop wallpapers had their sons and daughters in them.

When I first joined the firm, I was curious to know what gave joy to these corporate employees. There were very few who seemed to like what they were doing. Most of them were neither excited to be in the office nor looked like they enjoyed the company of their co-workers.

One of the reasons, I figured, was simply a growing realization of their own age.

I could see their lack of knowledge of contemporary technological innovations and culture. They understood they were getting old and that their knowledge of subjects was getting increasingly outdated.

The majority of them, however, had no interest in trying to update themselves. They found contemporary thoughts and ideas repulsive.

Another aspect that seemed to suck the excitement out of these employees’ working hours is their frustration (and realization) over their minimal control in the workspace.

Since I was the youngest and newest (and also a short-term worker) at the firm, some employees took a keen interest in trying their hand at molding me and sharing with me their opinions on matters they usually didn’t like sharing with the rest of their colleagues.

“Did you know that the market for digital clocks in India is monopolized by one single company?” one of the employees asked me after calling me to his cabin suddenly.

“There is a huge demand for them, but very few have the knowledge and the skill to mass produce them here. Work on it. Why don’t you make a digital clock during this internship? I am just telling you what I have learned, you know. You pass out of college, get your degree, and maybe even get placed in a company that pays you a huge salary. And then what? Do you choose to remain a slave for the rest of your life? When will you become free?”

I laughed uncomfortably.

He smiled before he continued.

“Please do not get me wrong. I am just sharing what I have learned from my experience. You need to do something different to earn your freedom.”

From what I observed, the workers were in a hurry to finish their assigned tasks, not because they were eager to learn, or because they wanted to gain more appreciation from their respective bosses, but only because they were scared of getting screamed at.

Sometimes, they reminded me of my childhood self when I forgot to finish my homework.

The comfort with which some of the employees (including the ones who held a relatively higher position in the firm) disclosed to me that they were slaves with white-collars was disconcerting.

“How else are they supposed to deal with their lives?” one of my friends asked me when we were relaxing by the beach one weekend.

“You either sacrifice, take risks, work hard to build and obtain your freedom, or accept your predicament and make peace with it. What’s the point in fighting if you have already decided to give up? If you have decided not to choose the path less traveled, you might as well accept the ups and downs of the path you have chosen to travel and make the best of it.”

I did, however, meet one person who seemed to not entirely dislike her profession.

“I like being challenged and learning something new every day. I don’t mind working here as long as I don’t get bored. That’s why I keep changing teams. I have worked in all departments in this branch: admin, resource development, training, management, finance……I don’t stay in any department for too long.”

And then there were a few who lived in a world of their own.

“If your manager assigns you a job, you have to give him ten times more than what he expects from you. You must surprise him. That’s how you move up the corporate ladder,” one other employee told me.

Yet, I think, deep down, we both knew it was just not possible. The employees hardly had time to complete the tasks they were assigned. Nobody working there had the interest, the time, the appreciation, or words of encouragement they needed to give their managers ten times more than they wanted.

They all seemed to know that the chances of getting a promotion for their extra work were low if they got complimented for their dedication in the first place.

“Back when I first joined here, I used to try and give the best output I could. There were days when I spent hours perfecting and correcting every minute of errors just so I could provide them with a refined product. But, after working here for more than a decade, I no longer care about all that. The more work I do, the more piles up on my table the next day. I don’t get appreciated, nor do I get any incentive. All I get is extra work and more stress,” I overheard one of the employees say to her colleague.

***

So, I asked myself again: where do these people derive their sense of joy and excitement from? What do they look forward to? Why do they keep moving on?

I like to think the wallpapers on their mobile phones are not just an extension of their love but also a reminder as to why they must keep going on, why they must prevent themselves from screaming at their managers, and why they need to put themselves on a leash.

When it was almost an hour to the closing time, I could sense a change in the air. All of a sudden, the cabins filled with a never-before-seen excitement. The turning of files and pages became faster and noisier, and the conversations became louder and lighter.

I have even seen employees run to the exit so they don’t miss their buses back home.

“At this age, that’s all they become,” my brother told me once. “Their children become their only sense of identity. Their children become everything. They have nothing for themselves.”

The pure biological and evolutionary love these employees harbored for their offspring gave them a reason to get themselves out of their beds and go to work every day.

What they lack in their professional lives, they try to make up for it in their personal lives.

They quenched their thirst for control by carefully choosing and crafting the lives of their offspring as much as they possibly could.

The other strategy some of them used as a coping mechanism for their somber professional lives was, as silly as it sounds, food.

I used to wonder why a lot of middle-aged men were fat. How could they look at themselves in the mirror and not realize their bellies were getting bigger?

They all do notice it, but just can’t bring themselves to care too much about it. After all the backbreaking work and constant stress in the office, it made sense why so many did not want to spend what was left of their day working out in the gym or eating consciously.

There was no woman or man to impress anyway. Their romantic days were long gone.

Keeping oneself healthy takes a lot of energy and self-control, but a lot of employees clearly run out of both before they even reach their homes.

Every man or woman in India would have heard something similar from his or her parent at some point in their lives:

“I work eight to nine hours a day, five days a week, just so you can live a comfortable life.”

I always used to think it was something a parent said out of momentary frustration and anger, but it increasingly makes a lot more sense. A lot of the middle-class employees here clearly have no love for the work they are doing.

But, without a family, I wonder what these middle-aged men or women would do. Would they still spend their days working a job they didn’t love until they retired? Would they still work eight to nine hours even if it means going back to an empty house in the evening? Would they still find reasons to keep themselves fit and healthy?