Avoid dehumanisation at the work place!
Gone are the days of ruling the workplace like a tyrant, with workplace democracy becoming a commonplace in the corporate culture, we must all pull the triggers of change.
Don't eviscerate yourself for a smooth-talking manager!
Before I begin, let me ask you a simple question – are you happy? Is this what you imagined life would be when you were a wee child with big heavy dreams about your future grown-up life? Did you think all your energy and soul would be zapped by the corporate rule book of signing in and punching out? Did you think when you take a moment to stretch your back for a minute in your very busy work day, you would have to check left and right to see if your manager does not see you? The imaginary whip of slavery in his/her eyes makes you work tirelessly like a worker ant, enslaved for life.
When your friends ask you about Facebook updates and their latest Instagram posts, your go-to answer is that – “When do I have the time to check Facebook? I have a full-time job?”. Since, when did having a full-time job for people become a constraint to have a life even. And if you are the big shot CEO who finally made it into the glass cabin of lies, then how do you feel when you bank millions in earnings, from the sweat off the brows of your diligent employees. But wait, doesn’t this come at a personal cost to you as well? While you mark your attendance at work, doing sweet nothings you also bargain it for ceaseless stress, deteriorating health, failed promises, broken marriages, missing your children’s growing up, numerous friend-dates and family dinners! All along with that patch of a desert on your chest, which you once called a heart.
Well, then here’s something you can learn, as per my own experiences – “the dehumanization of values or inversion of one’s’ sense of self, which is so typical of the corporate climate does not work”. After all your rules and algorithms and close circuit cameras cannot morph the human veins and blood into electrical wires and currents. You must realize that even in a professional environment when we treat ourselves and others without consideration, we have agreed to be deadened to our own as well as other’s preciousness.
I find it hilariously disappointing when my own very human friends take pride in treating themselves as mere objects for the sake of their targets. Like when they say – “Once I couldn’t sleep for four days straight, because I had to finish a project for my company”. A better phrase to explain the same thing would be “I proudly eviscerated myself for the sake of profits for some stranger I met for 15 minutes during an induction”.
While I do not have all the answers of how to remedy this cultural plague of a situation in the corporate climate. But this ardent lack of reverence for life with rampant abuse to nature, continuous inter-personal warfare and the cold war at the board room with how easily we mistreat our other fellow humans’ needs to stop. I do so, with kindness, compassion and respect for my colleagues and employees. And my only request to everyone who are trying to make a living, which we must all do indeed, is to defend our humanity, with inter-personal compassion and realising the boundary that demarcates work-life balance.
P.S. This story was originally published at my LinkedIn profile.
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