From Pink Slip to Greener Pastures

It is not unusual to find people carrying their personal belongings in cartons post lunch on Friday afternoons outside various offices in most of the major cities in the USA and other developed countries.  They await their cabs to take them home.  They have just received their pink slips and lost their jobs.  While some feel traumatised by the experience, most of them take it in their stride quite naturally.  Of course, they have reason to worry but what can’t be cured has to be endured and they are confident that things will work out eventually.  The community and the entire social structure accepts this eventuality and supports that there is no guilt in such downsizing.

Contrast this with the situation in India where for generations we have expected the next to surpass the achievements of the previous and start taking pride in our children, early on in their lives, reciting nursery rhymes and showcasing the same to others as indicative of their future potential.

All over the world, parents try and give their children better education and equip them with capabilities better than theirs, so that they can surpass them.  This is true across all income strata globally.  In India, it is carried to another extreme.  The equation between the parents present and the child’ future is heavily skewed in favour of the child’ future, and therefore the sacrifices are inordinate.  This leads to an increase in expectations, often unreasonable.  The disappointment that ensues, when these are not met, can be traumatic for both counterparties.  Imagine this situation across communities and societies in India.  The pressures that are created in the process lead to intense anxiety.  

There is, as such, a great premium for stable and continuous growth.  Stability comes with either status or income and in exceptional cases, perhaps, with both.  At our core, we prefer the status quo in a progressive but non disruptive manner.

In these Covid situations, where survival and conservation has become a primal instinct borne out of fear of an undefined uncertainty, both for the employer and the employee, the equation is uneven, obviously so, in favour of the employer. 

We have, and if the uncertainty continues may continue to, witness increased job losses.  Most of these jobs may return back on normalcy, however, some may not.

Perhaps, newer jobs would be created. What is certain, however, is that during this period of uncertainty, when nobody, by and large, is hiring, this could be traumatic for some. 

All along jobs in India, even in the private sector, have been more or less secure.  As long  as one performed, having proven their worth, job losses have only been exceptional.  While private sector employees had the liberty of switching jobs to further their careers and incomes,  the employers, on the other hand, in most of the cases, preferred continuity over change.  Firing was quite alien and underperformers were asked to resign.  Some public sectors preferred transferring people to remote locations to encourage them to quit but firing as a culture has been quite alien to most.

While most of the blue collar workers will find their jobs back eventually and upskill to use newer technologies, the worst hit would be the white collar workers. And even in the white collared workers, while the younger lot may get reemployed maybe initially with salary cuts,  jobs can no longer be taken for granted and salaries as entitlements.

For most of the white collar workers, who may not have reached the pinnacle of their careers, in fact most of them in the middle management and a few senior managers too, who would be downsized in the present crisis, opportunities may return only with a lag post normalisation of activities.  There could also be possibilities of some of them being replaced by younger colleagues at lesser salaries. 

While most of such employees would accept this eventuality quite stoically confident of their capabilities, some would welcome this opportunity to pursue their dreams and their callings.  A lot of them would however have to fend for themselves quite under prepared.  This would be the most vulnerable lot.  For a time, their savings would help them tide over the uncertainty but if that continues, their ability to downsize their dreams and that of their families is something as a culture this society has not prepared them for.  The loss of self esteem and in the eyes of the community would be a new phenomenon in this country.  There is no immediate antidote for this saga, the solution for which will have to evolve and be internalised as a new normal in our society .

I am reminded of a series of articles carried in the The New York Times in the mid nineties titled the  Downsizing of America.  Of course, the crisis triggering that was different- technology leading to job losses and the slowdown of the economy.  Blue collar workers had to re-skill and relocate, while white collar ones had to downgrade or pursue their dreams abandoning their chosen professions.  A professor of English in a prestigious private university had to not only relocate to his home town and reskill to become a successful carpenter, but a career banker had to change several jobs to land as superintendent of a condominium.  There were several such stories, however, their experiences, though traumatic, were not stigmatic as their identity was not wholly dependent on their position in life.  The social support system and the level of expectations did not find shame in the fact of the only son of a famous and successful surgeon of New York working as a security guard in a warehouse, and the fact that the neighbour of a  rich and successful scientist happened to be owning a larger boat and a bigger car and made more money as a person washing carpets.

In India the nuclearization of extended families has led to an erosion of the support system.  While the immediate family offers some succour, this is usually not enough.  The societal mindset will therefore have to be changed to accept the changing landscape of skills, jobs, income, and stability. 

This change is inevitable and the entropy which shall precede also so.  Let us accept this as a new normal for our society.  Accepting people for who they are rather than what they are, for all you know,  may spur a new breed of professionally experienced wise and knowledgeable entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams. 

From pink slips to greener pastures.

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