Quit playing games

Employees would rather quit than get embroiled in office politics, feels Neha Sharma.

Twenty six-year-old PR executive Rajesh Singh wants to quit, take a two-month break and think of a different career option. Why? Because he cannot take office politics any more. “What’s happening in the next cubicle?”, “Do you think boss favours her more?”, “I think X told Y that you told X that Y does no work, yet draws a higher salary.”

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These are a few thoughts that led him to bid adieu to the office environment. Psychiatrists and career counsellors believe that a huge chunk of employees are opting for work-from-home careers to escape the unhealthy politics.

Psychiatric help

Psychiatrists have been coming across cases of people who can’t cope with the stress that follows gossip at workplace. Psychiatrist Deepak Raheja says that office politics has been there for long but off late people have started taking psychiatric help for it.

“It’s due to the reduced tolerance and the inability to adapt to an unhealthy work environment. This is high among people in the middle and upper management levels.” He says that his patients are put in their papers due to trivial reasons like gossip and a workload that was not part of their profile.

Career counsellor Roopali Sinha points out that there is a shift towards abandoning 9-5 jobs. Three in 10 clients, in the age group 25-32, want to shift from an office job to a stay home bound career. Popular options are counselling, Internet-based careers, crèches, home tuition, feng shui consultancy and catering.