Working people's blues

Are you depressed at work? Is the recession hitting you? Has the slow climb up the ladder been halted, leaving you with one leg dangling and no rung to place it on? Has your portfolio expanded leading to your juggling one thing and then another, hands and mind racing while still standing on one leg on that tottering ladder?

Has your job profile got nothing to do with your education and training so far, or worse still, has it shrunk so that you don't know what to do during office hours but have to appear busy so that you're not considered redundant?

In addition to those grievances, do you feel unappreciated and unfairly remunerated? Do you suspect that the not-so-industrious colleague in the cubicle next to yours has a fatter pay package than you do - while enjoying shorter hours and the privilege of the boss' ears? And do you never get the leave you require, being told instead to take a day off when it suits someone higher in the chain of command?

Most of us are in one such place or the other at any given point of time, but whenever you're tempted to be disgruntled for too long, think of the alternative. (This is like the 97-year-old who was asked how she handles the ageing process, and replied, "It beats the alternative - dying young!")

So, would you rather have the job profile of most homemakers which goes something like this:

Production floor executive, overall-in-charge of production and reproduction, all internal housekeeping whether the 'shop floor' is the nursery or the kitchen, kindergarten or playground. You could have a work force at your disposal or it could be just yourself, depending on which part of the world you live in and what your means are, but in no circumstance do you include the head-of-the-household who remains above the law and above a toss of the frying pan or a smelly diaper change.

Diplomatic chief of staff, which means you get to soothe ruffled feathers from age 2 to 92, up and down and across all branches of the large family tree. Challenging as that is, what is more daunting is that you are required to give unswerving loyalty to all who bear the same name.

Three, at different times you may be required to be doctor, nurse, psychiatrist, geriatrist, paediatrician, teacher, banker, plumber, car mechanic, launderer, fashion designer, tailor, budget-maker (absolutely no deficits allowed), financier (if possible), travel guide, historian, story teller, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Therefore, some experience in any or all of these sectors would be a great help, but you could also learn on the job as most of us do.

As for perks and privileges and leave benefits, by the time you finally get them, in very limited doses and only when another member of the extended family is involved (help during hospitalisation or moving house, to give examples), it is so many decades into the job that you honestly believe it's an 'outing' - and you don't know what to do with the 'free time'!

Career progression for a homemaker is the slow road to indispensability and when at last you are approached for the last word - the matriarch's decisions - you probably have one foot in the grave and a very short time left to revel in the exalted position. Needless to say, since the post is honorary anyway, retirement benefits are nil, unheard of. You just go out with your boots on.

Now, office-going people, do you still have the blues?

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.