Techie’s ‘slavery mindset’ remark about Indian workers reignites work-life balance debate | Trending

An Indian techie’s rant against different expectation from Indian employees as compared to American workers has reignited a debate on the skewed culture around work-life balance in India. A techie’s Reddit post critiques the expectation for Indian employees to accommodate US work hours.(Representational) Taking to Reddit, the man shared his thoughts about the over-willingness of Indian employees to adjust to all kinds of demands US companies whereas American workers refuse to do the same for them. “We Indians still have that slavery mindset. Why we have to adjust according to US team while working with US clients?,” he asked in r/developersindia. “Let’s say you work with a US team. Then your manager will always force you to adjust according to them. You will have to join late night and early morning calls, but the US counterpart team will only join meetings during their working hours, 9 am to 7 pm at max,” he added, explaining the missing work-life balance in India. ‘We take pride in working late’He also emphasised that Indian employees are expected to adjust to US clients due to daylight saving time just so they “don’t have to sacrifice their precious hours.” “And all this so that your manager gets promoted to the US. Moreover, this becomes a ritual and gets passed on from seniors to freshers and it gets normalised. Then we Indians take pride in working late nights, with US people,” he added. The post struck a chord with many who agreed with the culture of bending over backwards for US companies. Work-life balance debate”Americans don’t normally set such late calls. It’s our own desi brethren who act more goras than the goras,” said one of them. “Someone invited me to a call at 11 PM and asked if I’d be comfortable syncing every day around that time for 30 minutes. I denied straightaway. Meanwhile, he himself doesn’t want to attend any calls after 8 PM,” added another. Meanwhile, others said that late timings were understandable as the clients pay for work on their time. “Because they are the client. If you were the client, employing US team to do something for you, they would adjust to your timing. Client is the king,” said one of them. (Also read: ‘Scammer, you people can’t be…’: Indian engineer shares US boss’s rac rant)