26-year-old CA died due to overwork, corporate youth said – only by taking away lives can the race to 99 be stopped

When it comes to corporate culture, young faces working day and night come to mind. But working 24/7 or its pressure has proven to be deadly. The death of Anna Sebastian, who used to work at Ernst & Young in Pune, revealed the terrible face of this company. aajtak.in spoke to many people who worked there to understand what 24*7 really means and how deadly it has proven to be.

Let’s start with the data

A data released in March 2024 by the UKG Workforce Institute, a global think tank that talks about office issues, is shocking. According to it, about 78% of Indian employees complain of burnout. In this case, both the body and mind become so exhausted that they cannot do anything productive. The true extent of this burnout can be measured from the fact that 64% of people admit that if their workload could be reduced by a small pay cut, then they would be happy to be prepared.

The Longest Week

The ILO also says India has one of the longest working weeks in the world. Indian workers work an average of about 48 hours a week, compared to about 37 in the US and 36 in the UK. Our labour laws continue to allow for a 48-hour work week. Even that is not bad, but businesses are having it much worse. Working hours have been increasing during the work-from-home period during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a complaint from almost everyone working in business.

We interviewed employees from several large companies in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune.

A mid-level employee at a Mumbai-based company, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “We have many clients and many deadlines every day. To ensure that nothing goes wrong, stickers are placed on everything from my laptop to my work wall at home. Even after this, the work is not done. Although the shift is nine hours, the laptop has not been shut down on time even once in nearly three years.”

Then why don’t you change jobs or quit?
In another five years, I will do something of my own… Having said this, Chetna further added – This is a game of 99. Only when she knows, she will stop.

Online meetings take place at odd times

For Chetna Bhagat, who works for an international multinational, Zoom calls are the biggest torture. She says – Our headquarters is in New York. To keep up with them, we have to be ready 24 hours a day. Every day, an email is received, in which the meeting time is mentioned in very polite language, which for us is late at night or early morning. We can never say no. You have to write “yes, boss” all the time, otherwise you will not get the review.

“I was put in quarantine for two weeks after arriving and then given a job with much less experience than I had. When I complained, I was put on extra shifts. Now I’m leaving that little girl behind. The work-life balance is completely gone. My family, who helped me out, are now leaving me to fend for myself,” said Archana, who returned from maternity leave.

Vikrant, an event manager who works with big names in the hospitality industry, said: When I entered this field, I had big dreams, but everything has changed in eight years. The company provided funds, but at the cost of becoming a guarantor. Day and night were his. Even on the wedding day, I continued to attend online meetings. After marriage, the relationship became strained. The wife came from a different profession. She understood the work but not the complexities of the sector. Things dragged on for so long that it came to the point of breaking up. But he had taken out too many RV loans and did not even have the courage to change jobs.

While complaining about work-life balance, almost all corporate employees also admit that they have put their fist in the narrow-mouthed bottle. Now, there is a danger of either pulling the hand out or getting stuck.

The situation of Indian workers has now become the same as that of Japanese workers.

In fact, the term “karoshi” was very popular in Japan in the seventies. It means death from overwork. It happened that in order to overcome the grief of the nuclear explosion and defeat after World War II, the Japanese threw themselves into work and it even became a passion. People began to work so much that deaths began to occur in offices. Many professionals also took photos of people going home from the office. This series was named “Human Machine”. In this photo, people looked drowsy, huddled together, and even slept standing up. Now a similar situation has occurred in our enterprises.