Yet again rages the debate about the work hours. All sorts of memes are afloat. Callow, actually shallow, anti-capitalist comments are making the rounds. Thank our stars, none has as yet started the Southern mindset debate! We ARE an 'argumentative' enough society for such 'smart' talk.
No, I am not taking the side of the 'filthy rich'. My point of view is rather different. In my opinion, the quantity of work, the hours put in, become an issue because the quality of work is hardly worth writing home about. Okay, let me give you a few examples to prove my point.
At every 'nukkad', what do you see? A huge row of autos, drivers yaking away in groups, never ready to help even the senior citizens (who are, otherwise, constantly mocked at for being 'old') if the distance or the direction of the 'sawari' does not suit them. The meters continue to be as faulty as the drivers' attitude, which is extremely arrogant. Signals, lanes are meant for not following, anyways.
Another group at the roadside would be people in their twenties/thirties lounging around, harassing women, passing nasty, nay, sick comments, talking about politics or cricket stars, boasting about their own 'jugads' as 'smartness'. They are hardly good at anything. Why, they cannot speak or write their own mother tongue properly.
That should bring you to schools and colleges. Given the slew of early teen age love stories as themes of films, 'smart' students have lovers in the seventh, or is it younger age-wise, standard. With the mobile at the fingertips, they 'know' a lot. At least, now, there are exams. Earlier, as well as during the COVID years, marks were freely distributed as no teacher wanted to fail anyone. The sleigh down the slope of quality continues.
Most college students never attend lectures. The campus is for hanging out. As the fees are very low, or are paid through various government schemes, the typical college education has no value for them. They would without fail attend a CA or CS or CAT or some such private tuition as it is very costly, and the 'coaches' hardly care about learning. Students are made exam-ready. Success somehow is the motto.
Students study, if at all, the night before the respective paper during the college exam period. As a result, their hold over the basics themselves is extremely weak. Give them an assignment which would have them actually work, whose answers are not available either in 'Nirali' or on the ChatGpt, but would make them read up, think, analyse, well, they would hate you like hell!
Teachers are no good either. If at all lectures are conducted, it does not hurt anybody's conscience that their core subject classrooms would have just one, or two tops, students! With the autonomous status of academic institutions, teachers set the papers. Their friends are external examiners, if at all.
Well, this practice continues till the Ph.D. Experts who cannot produce a single correct sentence in English produce Ph.D. 'theses'. Why, they are research guides! Prospective, or in-service, lecturers cannot pass the MCQ type of NET/SET qualifying exam's, whose success rate would be tops five per cent!
In autonomous classrooms especially, most often, just a chapter or two is taught, and questions and assignments are set on these very areas. Indirectly, the entire paper is leaked, too. Students love such teachers because "dimag ka dahi nahi banata". Such teachers wander off the campus for all their private affairs, visits to hospitals, shopping, a quick drop-in at home, and what have you. So long as the "click" at the entry and exit time is okay, nothing else matters!
Well, professionalism, work ethics hardly seem important. Be it government offices or the corporate ones, everybody is very conscious of benefits, which is not at all wrong if responsibilities are catered to as well. Less work, more money/benefits is the theme, however. People are never at their place/in their seats. Gossiping about others behind their back, ganging up, groupism, dirty politicking, many such 'hobbies' are indulged in at the workplace.
Well, the blog would be very big-and-long if we rattle off all such ills that haunt our workplaces. Significantly, after every burst of/by the corporate honchos, many such basic issues are never analysed. Instead, irrelevant discussions crop up. Well, self-reflexion IS a virtue!
Pratima@ The very, very, very few honourable exceptions to these rules, which are universally accepted in India, never worry about the big bosses grunting about work hours because they do not while away time at the workplace, they actually do their duties, they WORK!
Oh,yes, I have not even mentioned the AI, and what it would do to our work, forget hours!
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