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Indian woman moves to Mumbai after 10 years in US, recalls work culture: 'Overwork is everywhere'
The woman argued that long working hours should not necessarily be viewed as a phenomenon specific to any particular country.
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An Indian woman who recently moved from the US to Mumbai has shared her experience of working in America for nearly a decade, saying that "overwork" is not really limited to one country.
Parinaya, who worked as a consultant in the US for almost 9 years, said that the idea of a strict 5 pm logout time did not match her experience. "The 'log off at 5 pm in the US' myth needs to die," she said in a video shared on Instagram.
"People assume US work culture clocks out at 5. I was a consultant for almost nine years, and that really never existed for me," she said.
Recalling her experience, Parinaya shared that she would sometimes receive messages from her manager late in the evening. "To be really honest, I used to get messages from my manager at 7 pm asking, 'Why haven't I replied to an email yet?' That wasn't rare. That was normal," she said.
She also argued that long working hours should not necessarily be viewed as a phenomenon specific to any particular country. "Overwork isn't a country thing. It's everywhere. Different jobs, different companies, same pressure to always be on," she said.
In the clip, Parinaya also spoke about her experience as the only brown person on several work calls. She said that she sometimes wondered whether she was being scrutinised more closely than others. "And being the only brown person on a lot of these calls, I did wonder sometimes if I was getting grilled a little harder than everyone else. I can't prove it, but I felt it," she said.
However, she clarified that her comments were not intended to portray one country's work culture as worse than another. "This isn't about one country being worse. It's about being honest that hustle culture doesn't stop at any border," she said.
In the caption of the post, Parinaya wrote, "Mental peace over anything. Just honestly putting myself out there. These are just my two cents based purely on my experience working in the US as a software consultant."
(Also Read: Indian woman says Houston is not the ‘America’ she saw on TV: ‘I was expecting New York streets')
Social media reactions
The post prompted a discussion among social media users, with several sharing their own experiences of working for American companies or in other countries.
One user wrote, "I work in an American corp in Germany, and the hustle culture is real. I get paid for 9 hrs but my work never finishes at 5. Unrealistic goals, ambiguous expectations.. and the list goes on. Most of the days the whole 9 hrs are just gone taking multiple calls and I am forced to do the actual work after 5 pm."
"I agree. Logging off at 5 pm is a myth. Even in America," commented another.
"That may be true for US. In Canada if you log in at 8 AM, manager asks you to get the hell out of there if you are working past 4 PM. It's not in every country, US and India glamorize late work culture," wrote a third user.
"Dude you are an Indian. Literally Indians set the standard for working more in US. I have worked in 6 companies already so far. One thing common about Indians is working after hours and okay with not having a wlb. Also being brown is not a deterrent, again most companies in US have a lot of brown people," said another.
"Move to europe if you want to really want to logout at 5. If you stay late hours in the office it is considered that you could not complete a task in time or you cannot manage the time and that is seen as a problem rather than glamourising people who work more hours," commented one user.
