(Express Editorial) 70 Hrs Work Week: You fancy GOAT or a donkey ride?

The great Narayana Murthy says, young Indians should work seventy hours a week to boost country’s economy. Such an idealistic idea by the Infosys supremo!

To be honest, working is working, not killing. A seventy hours work week may kill people not literally but figuratively. It literally too can kill people with ailments and people with low strata of immunity.

What says the Indian labor union and All India IT and ITeS Employees’ Union, condemne Murthy’s comments, saying that a 70-hour work week is “illegal” and employees should not be forced to work more than 48 hours a week, which comes up to 8 hours daily for a 6-day workweek.

Not only work is there in life, there are many important things other than work too. Thus, definition of work needs to be clarified in the first place. What is work? What we do is work or what we do to earn our bread and butter?

Obviously, what Narayana Murthy said was about the professional work what we do for our living.  But then isn’t that work what all we do in the rest twenty four hours? If so then we already work more than seventy hours a week.

Has this working of more than seventy hours a week helped boost the economy? No, that won’t even help boos your individual economy itself. But is that all useless what we do other than our professional work? If that is not useless, then how are we going to find more work hours for our professional front?

That means the normal working hours are more than enough for running our and country’s economy normally. If you work more hours for your profession you will do injustice to rest of your work coming into the periphery of life. The imbalance might even lower the graph of economies.

All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy. And vice versa they say, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Neither being mere toy nor a dull boy is good for Jack. The balance is badly needed for good by nature.

It will be a donkey’s work if a man quits all other important works and without taking bath or changing clothes or having grub will keep working all day. That will not only hurt his health but also will lower the quality of work. Thus balance is naturally needed everywhere in life.

This is smart age with smart work. Now working ordinarily lets you get out of the competition but smart work does help you to advance in your career path. Talking about more work during the days of smart work does not go hand in hand. Now in this advancing time work style has also changed. Donkey ride or a work with maximum physical or tyring efforts are not preferable but the same work with less efforts and more easiness is what is the need of the hour as well as style of today.

The message as such is good what Murthy has given but it needs to be taken in right direction which will say devoting more time and energy for your profession will help boos Indian economy. You fancy GOAT or a donkey ride? Answer to the question is obviously suggest neither of the two conditions are acceptable

GOAT means becoming greatest of all time doesn’t depend upon your work hours but on many other factors too. And in the same manner working like a donkey will also not do the needful. Remain what you are and do your best smartly utilizing your time, brain, efforts and quality of work and outcome as well. That is what is needed for the economy or the economies.