Learning to work to live

After college, my first job was at the advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather. Soon after I joined, one of my seniors, a serious-looking man we'll call A.J., led us all into the conference area for a meeting. He looked around at us, and after a dramatic pause, intoned: "Advertising is one of the most stressful careers you can have. A recent study showed stress levels to be second only to a job at air traffic control." He looked around at us again. "An air traffic controller, can you imagine?"

I'm embarrassed to say I was mildly impressed. Still wet behind the ears, I was inspired by the air of deadly seriousness, and didn't snort, as I might have done today. After all, a last-minute error in an ad agency means a lot of pleading and running to the printers, with a likely dressing down by a boss who has to get creative with the budget to absorb the cost of extra proofs. Contrast this with the screaming, fiery possible outcome of a last-minute error at air-traffic control.

Apart from the inappropriate comparison, it's interesting how much A.J. glorified stress. People around the room nodded seriously when he said this, feeling important and somehow, special. (Some, I got to know later, had excellent poker faces.) Stress was something honourable, something that gave meaning to the work being done. It wasn't about creativity or building a brand — it was about how much you ran around in the minutes before a deadline.

Over the months, I saw exactly where that stress came from. The most serious "advertising people" seemed to be the ones who did the least work. They would saunter into the office at 11am, chat and drink coffee until lunch. Then they'd go somewhere for a meal, sauntering in again at 2.30pm. They'd do a little work and then it would be time for some tea and more talking. Then at 5.30pm, they'd sit up and start working in earnest. A few hours later, they'd wipe their foreheads and say, "Whew, crazy day huh? Look, it's 10 at night, and we're still at the office."

Perverse pleasure

I don't know if this is particularly an Indian thing, or whether it applies to all emerging economies, but people take perverse pleasure in working all night or working through their weekends.

One of the biggest worries my wife has about returning to work in India is this lack of respect for time. A boss doesn't apologetically ask you to stay late once in a while — it's just expected of you. With some bosses, leaving before they do, even if you have no work, is simply not okay. And if you're home, people can call you at 10pm on a Sunday without so much as a "Can you talk now?"

In this climate, a person who plays Tetris all day and grudgingly starts work in the evening to toil inefficiently into the night, is valued more than someone who spends the day working hard, to leave at 5.30pm. Bosses often start evaluating work at the close of business, and expect people to just sit there for the next two hours, "in case I have a question". The cruelest of these ask for changes on their way out, to be on their desks first thing in the morning. (That they'll get round to seeing only in the evening.)

And so in a way, A.J. was right. It's not advertising per se, that's second in stress to a job where you can cause two jumbo jets to collide in mid-air. It's working for self-important gas-bags like A.J. that does it.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the United States.