Turning Off the Professional “Always-On”
Let me start by saying that I hate doing this. Venting. I hate it. It makes me feel like I’m perpetually whining about this and that, that I’m never happy with where I am and that I take my privilege for granted. That said, I don’t see any other path to take but this, for a healthy outlet to emotions that would otherwise slowly eat me up from the inside, like rust devouring iron. So, I vent. To friends (thanks, KT), to my cats, and on here.
A rotten pea in a pod
Not long ago, someone reached out on LinkedIn with a connection request and a message. The message was an invite of-sorts to join an ‘exclusive engagement pod’ of active LinkedIn professionals. I perked up. ‘Pod’ is a term I associate with peas, office desks, and aliens. Naturally, the usage of the term in a professional context (obviously it didn't refer to a desk this time) intrigued me. Doesn’t seem like a bad idea, I thought. It would be great to build networks and professional connections to fall back on, especially during these tricky pandemic-influenced times. I accepted the request and wrote back saying that I was interested in being a part of this ‘pod’. Might even find a pea.
I received a response shortly, outlining what the group was about (phrases like ‘exclusive network’ and ‘access to new opportunities’ were thrown around liberally), and the terms to be a member of the group. I will point out — they mentioned I should join only if I was very serious about meeting the criteria, so it wasn’t a cult I was drawn into. These were the terms, in a nutshell
Be an active LinkedIn member and be ready to engage daily on each and every post.
Sounds basic, doesn’t it? Yet, this put me off, so much that while I usually ignore a message that irks me, I felt an urge to respond. I said — no thank you, this isn’t my cup of tea. I wanted the messenger to know that this doesn’t go down well with everyone.
A professional networking community outside of the professional networking platform, comprising of a handful of members who are a part of it only to boost each other’s engagement scores (this should really count as inorganic and unethical engagement) on said professional networking platform lists their criteria for being part of the community as “be always-on. Every day.”
The art of professional gaslighting
Over five years ago, I was in the market for a job, and this was when I had just quit my unfulfilling and low-paying role at a start-up. I had fallen into that age-old B-school thought-trap that encourages high performers to opt for low-paying gigs as tradeoffs to the experience they’ll earn busting their backs for a joke of a paycheque while losing out on work-life balance. I soon realised that this was a tried-and-tested trick to push impressionable and enthusiastic degree-holders into any available jobs just to get an institute’s placement numbers up.
I quit that job within six months to purse content writing. It was rewarding at first, but the demands grew as I started to explore projects with established agencies -too pushy for my liking and for my mental wellbeing. I decided I needed something full-time, something comfortable, and with more pay. Good pay was, is and will remain a priority. I never shied away from my love for money, except when I fell into the start-up trap. ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness’ was probably coined by someone who either had plenty of it or didn’t have to pay bills. I’m neither.
I applied to a few places and landed a few interviews. One of them (and this was via a referral) was with a global advertising, marketing, and PR agency. The company continues to be the sole source of wet-dreams for those who want to dip their toes into the tantalising waters of advertising. I was thrilled. Scratch that, that’s a lie. I was beyond thrilled. I was living my wet-dream.
Post the interview, certain expectations were stated. The coffee would be decent, but not spectacular. The traffic en route office could get terrible. The one that shook me, and this was before the pay was placed on the table, was this gem.
We work from 9–5 like any other agency. But expect to stay back till 3 AM on more days in a week than not, and sometimes on weekends. *chuckle*
That’s right, the interviewer chuckled after telling me that I was expected to work 18-hour shifts often -possibly five days a week including weekends, at a basic client-servicing role.
Then, the garnish was liberally sprinkled on the main dish — the pay.
Although more than what I was being paid at the start-up, it was laughable, and painfully so. There I was, a rank-holding b-school graduate with a plateful of extra-curriculars and awards under my belt, a good track record at my pre-post-graduation gig (sounds weird, no?), being offered an annual pay that wouldn’t cover even a quarter of my education fee.
But it wasn’t the pay that put me off. I was experiencing Stockholm Syndrome, still doe-eyed at the conditioning that poor pay is acceptable if the work experience I amass would lend colour, tint, Lightroom filters, and maybe a sprinkling of 24k gold dust to my CV.
It was the 18-hour shifts I was expected to endure with an air of casual professionalism, and the ease with which this was communicated; this also confirmed my suspicion — some people would take up this role in a heart-beat because of who the employing brand is. However, this wasn’t my wet-dream anymore. I had to wake up.
Why do we glorify spending more time at work than what we are being paid for, is beyond me. Like my amazing manager used to say — Go home, Niviya. We aren’t curing cancer here.
I was basking under a dying evening sun by a beach in Goa when I got a phone call from the company; and I rejected the offer. I was told by them that I was a fool to give up working for such a reputed brand. Let us go through that once more, but slowly — a company that was looking for a candidate to fill an open position that definitely does not require a high educational qualification, expected the candidate to forgo her personal goals and spend over 18 hours a day almost every day working for them, for pay that was the lowest level in the age-old party game of Limbo-but-with-salary, called her a fool for rejecting them.
I’ve been in my fair share of toxic relationships, and the above is probably where the men I’ve been with were educated in the subtle art of gaslighting.
Extrinsic demon-tivators
I recently signed up for an online course!
I’m an academic at heart, a true-to-the-bone nerd. I love to learn, to disseminate those learnings, and to apply them. And then I love to learn some more. Also, learning could help me make more money, and we’ve already established that I love money; so this is my new wet-dream.
The course is a collaboration between an institution of good repute and an ed-tech player; the latter provides the learning platform. A key feature of the platform and the curriculum is learner interaction, facilitated by a chat-board of sorts where we can ask and answer questions.
Learners are encouraged to interact with an assigning of points. Let’s forget how the points are assigned; the fact is, they are assigned. This is a basic extrinsic motivation technique (thanks, minor specialization in Human Resources Management!).
I want to take this space to mention that I mean no negativity or ill-thoughts or mean to shade anyone with what I’m about to say.
Many (not all) learners are so fired by these points, that the questions asked and the answers given are transactions — for points and nothing else. It is obvious — the more you engage on the platform, the more points you amass. The more time you spend on the site or app, the more the chances of you being able to answer an unanswered question. Now, this led to two things
- People began giving the same answers to a question (and asking already posed questions) with ever-so-slight tweaks to the words — no value was being added beyond the first answer
- People were spending A LOT of time on the platform
The former, I gleaned via observation. The latter? I’m guilty of being one among them.
I was always-on. The points system awoke something in me that lay dormant for a little over half a decade. That beast, rather the demon, reared its ugly head with a ferocity, vigour and hunger that initially fuelled my enthusiasm to learn but later frightened me. I was getting competitive. And irritated. And bitchy. And I was exhausted being always-on. And we weren’t even a month into the course at this stage.
I was always-on to earn fictional points when the goal is to learn something new (or relearn new ways of doing something old) and enjoy the journey.
The second I realized this (30 brings a strange sense of self-awareness and clarity), I stopped. I’m here to learn, I thought, not to earn a medal. I turned off my always-on. I now spend no more than ninety minutes a day on the platform, and most of it goes towards learning.
Unfortunately, others are yet to realize that extrinsic motivators often lead us down a dark labyrinth of metrics and end-points — a place that is difficult to get out of. Case in point — some questions on the chat-board were and continue to be about how to earn more points.
I read articles, posts and comments daily, the ones that are soapboxes for capitalism-lusting brands, their spokespersons and their blinded groupies but are packaged in the well-meaning candy-wrap of motivation and inspiration — shaming people for not being always-on.
“The higher you climb the better the view” (some of us are content where we are, and some of us like to climb actual hills and mountains for better views).
“By the age of 30, you should have __________” (enter a list of achievements that are unattainable to most, and ever more unattainable to those who enjoy their 8 hours of sleep daily and a thriving work-life balance. If you have achieved everything on that list, genuine congratulations!).
“Those who don’t struggle today, don’t win tomorrow” (what is the name of all that is sane is this).
“Got dreams worth more than sleep” (made me LOL more than any meme I’ve come across lately).
“If you are getting comfortable at your job, leave” (why in the world should we do that? Isn’t the whole point of life to live as comfortably as we can?)
“Hustle, always. You can enjoy later” (seriously, que?).
If I’m not networking or engaging in a ‘pod’ daily, I’m not doing enough and I will fall behind in my professional growth, my dreams lying wasted around me like the impossible amount of fur my cats shed. If I don’t spend hours and hours working, even though I work hard and smart, I’m not doing enough. Therefore, I am not enough AKA I am worth less than what I ought to be, or what the market tells me I ought to be.
I do not condone unproductivity when we are meant to be productive. I do not discourage hard work, ambition, grit, drive, goals, and dreams. I have them all, just like many.
But the hustle-forever, always-grind, no-rest culture is damaging us. We work to live, not the other way around.
Work hard and smart, yes. But glorify rest as well. Take pride in the struggles, but know when it’s done and it’s time to enjoy the benefits. We need to purposefully tune out of the always-on mentality, because that benefits only the big guys, not us — we are just hoodwinked into believing that we want the struggle and that we are all getting a meaty slice of the pie, but it’s just some b-school pushing us to take up a high-effort, low-reward job that demands us to be always-on, just so that the institute can get its placement numbers high.
It is also completely fine to not have drive or ambition! We are allowed to simply exist, and live. We need to stop letting others convince us otherwise.
I now work at a full-time job that I enjoy. I also have a freelance gig that supplements my income, an income which leaves faster than it arrives because it goes towards my animal welfare activities (staying under my parents’ roof at the age of 30 may seem embarrassing, but it isn’t as embarrassing as taking up a low-paying job at a start-up because your college told you to). I write two blogs, work out daily, have kickbacks with friends and meals with family, watch TV and read books, stay up-to-date with news and non-news, share memes and LOL and :P at the ones I get, study for personal and professional growth, go out, travel, fall in and out of love, laugh, cry, dance, sleep for hours and then nap some more, spring-clean my room once a month — I do everything that brings me joy — things that are are deemed productive and unproductive.
But ever so often, I go always-on. I take up more than I can handle because an innate voice tells me that if I’m not productive or always working at something, I’m not good enough.
After nearly three decades of listening to that voice, I’ve learnt to tell it, with a slight quiver still— no thank you, this isn’t my cup of tea. I prefer coffee.
(Everything I’ve written is deeply rooted in privilege. I am aware of this, I acknowledge it, and by no means do I intend to represent anyone who does not enjoy the privileges that I do.
I’m also a proud alumna of my b-school — I have the utmost respect for the institution, gratitude and affection for the amazing faculty, and a special place in my heart for my batchmates and more so, my friends. What I’m not a fan of, is the emphasis placed on pure theoretical knowledge by a few members, and the toxic placement drives.)
