leave phobia

One of the biggest differences I see in the work cultures of the east and the west are in taking leave – atleast a few days off from work. I’ve come across people in India who have worked for a decade or two at a stretch – and proudly proclaiming that they have not even taken a single day of leave, and have even received a medal for their service. While their dedication is of course to be appreciated, I doubt whether this is a really good thing.

While their’s may be an extreme case, I myself was a bit like this for the first four years of my employment – in an entire year I would take maybe only one or two days off, inspite of having worked over countless weekends – the comp-offs (compensatory offs) accumulated could then be encashed later. It wasn’t really some kind of lust for money – its more a kind of blind obsession with work due to various factors mainly peer pressure – everyone else is doing it, the bosses expect it, its the normal way of working and anything else is a dangerous deviation. In general people have a lot of hesitation in taking even a day or two off from work. In my case, in the first place I usually enjoyed my work even at times when it got stressful, so never even considered taking time off, without a very strong reason.

Also we have these concepts ingrained in us – the concept of “work is worship” and the Karma yoga – where people need to work without expectations. These are indeed noble ideals but how many people genuinely follow them, and even if the intention is there, how can one give 100% to work when one is unknowingly being worn out.

And even at times when I did feel like taking leave, I’d have some kind hesitation – almost a fear. In fact all kinds of fears – (not all at the same time! but in different situations) which I’m not particularly proud of recalling now – though not all of the following are my own, some include fears of others as well:

What will my manager think – will he not be less impressed with me? What will the clients think? It is sure to spoil the name of the company if I’m not available for them? Who will do all the work I was supposed to do? What about the project deadline? My peers might get a chance to do better than me, what about my promotion then?

In retrospect, I’d say that it seemed to me as if the entire company was resting on my shoulders! If I take time off, the company will sink, my life will end, all kinds of horrible disasters will happen, I simply can’t afford to take the risk!

And even at home, so many obligations, so many entanglements (inspite of being a bachelor!) – how can I possibly get away from all of them!

But luckily I was placed abroad, and when I went abroad and returned – effectively in a way having taken 3 months off from the house, I found – maybe a bit disappointingly 😉 – that life does go on, even without me. Of course, I do make a difference, but how much of difference I make is entirely my choice.

On the other hand, in the West people took upto 2 weeks off every few months. In India if someone did that it would typically be for some really grand reason like marriage or maternity leave or something like that, whereas they took it simply for travelling, and sometimes just sitting at home and reading some books. I used to think they’re some ultra-priviledged people who can afford all this because they’re rich, their life is “made” and so have nothing to worry about. However when I did visit them, I realised one thing – they too in most cases were ordinary middle class people just like us. It hit me that they seem rich and priviledged only in comparison, but as far as they’re concerned, they too have their own problems including financial problems just like us. Our perception about them, probably matches some poor famine struck under-developed country’s perception of us – who would think that we Indians are all rich, well-to-do people who have our lives “made”!

Let us discount all the political arguments like social security and better government policies and so on, these are again things that we feel they are privledged with – without knowing that they too have an endless number of things to crib about just like us.

It comes down to the fact that that they live their lives more completely – more freely – moment to moment. Their tendency to save their time, money and energy until retirement and for their future generations, is relatively much lesser compared to us.

An important point here is that while they really “work while they work” – they are very sincere with a strong sense of integrity.

We want to save everything for maybe a very grand retired life and maybe for atleast 3 decendants down the line. Or… “in case of an emergency” – which is of course a good thing except I think its taken too far. [IMO there is no greater emergency than the current moment]. And I’m no economist, but if we consider the value of the money we are trying so hard to accumulate and save, nobody seriously seems to bother about the rate at which all these elements are depreciating. And especially time [I’ll use all my time to earn tons of money now, so that I’ll have time to enjoy it “later”] – it depreciates instantly, completely. Time – use it or lose it.

After my visit from Germany, I started getting into the habit of taking a week or two off every few months – either to travel around India or to attend a retreat. At first it seemed scary, all my peers were wondering if I were in my senses, but gradually when I came back and found that the world hadn’t actually ended, I didn’t get fired, etc then they got used to it. I have compromised here in terms of rising up the corporate ladder – I’m not doing too bad but I am sure I should’ve probably done better in achieving a better balance. However I have no regrets, I’ve only been experimenting and I should consider correcting this aspect. But it was like jumping into a cold swimming pool, very intimidating at first but lovely later. I feel I have lived a more complete life – I have had the good fortune of many invaluable journeys both around India as well as within, only a small fraction of which I have yet managed to say in this site. But to prove the point of the value of different things, I recall a story of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa that Upendra (a friend, colleague and neighbour) narrated to me yesterday:

A rich businessman comes to visit Ramakrishna to pay respects, and is about to prostrate at his feet. But instead, Ramakrishna prostrates at the businessman’s feet. The businessman is zapped… “what is this, you shouldn’t do this, such a great man having renounced everything, falling at my feet like this!”. Then Ramakrishna replies – “not me, it is you who are doing the greater sacrifice, you have sacrificed the Divine for the sake of your wealth – it is a much greater sacrifice” 🙂

I was discussing about taking time off with a well-wisher (a professor in IISc – but also so down-to-earth as to conduct himself as yet another fellow-student – in fact it was he who had been one of those who had encouraged me to do some service). So here’s a simple approach that we both concurred on:

– plan atleast a month in advance, involving others you work with, and book the dates
– inform everybody involved eg whom you report to/reports to you
– any appointment that comes up during those dates, either prepone it, postpone it or decline/delegate it
– a very useful thing I’ve seen in European/American colleagues is that they include their vacation dates along with their signature which of course reminds everybody in every email they send
– if the project team has some kind of common calendar, mark the dates of availability there as well

So if you ever consider implementing this, the two key aspects to watch out for are planning and communication.