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Indian woman reflects on work culture after working with European client: ‘Rest isn’t something you earn’
An Indian woman shared how working with a European client changed her perspective on work-life balance.
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An Indian woman has shared how working with a European client made her rethink everything she had come to accept as normal about office culture, from working weekends to staying constantly available and feeling guilty about taking time off.
In a video shared on Instagram by @nooor__kkaur, the woman spoke about noticing a stark difference in the way her European client approached work and personal life.
(Also read: Indian man working at European MNC highlights 'chill' work culture: 'No constant pressure, flexible timings’)
She posted the clip with the caption, “Need to move to Europe.”
‘People have lives outside of office?’
“Like, wait a minute. People have lives outside of office? What are you saying? So, I started working with a European client and, honestly, it's broken something in my brain because, for the first time, I saw what a job looks like when it's not trying to consume your entire life,” she said.
She went on to describe how weekends and holidays were treated differently.
“They don't work weekends, like at all. Saturday and Sunday are theirs, and nobody's apologising for it. They take actual holidays, two or three weeks' holidays, and they don't even check emails, you know, just in case anything urgent came up.”
She added, “When someone has an emergency, it's just understood. There's no guilt, there's no proving how really sick you are. You know, rest isn't something you earn by breaking something first.”
‘We’ve somehow decided being constantly busy is the goal’
The experience, she said, made her question the work culture she had grown up seeing around her.
“It made me really uncomfortable about the culture I grew up in, we grew up in. We've somehow decided that being constantly busy, always available, running on empty is the goal. That work is supposed to be your identity.”
She then pointed out that having boundaries did not appear to affect productivity.
“But watching them, I saw people who work hard and still have a whole life outside of it. There are hobbies, long lunches, time, and their work does not suffer because of it. And it honestly gets better because you're not running on fumes.”
Concluding her video, she said, “And I'm not saying one place is better than the other. I'm just saying we are taught that exhaustion is the price of being valuable, that exhaustion is valuable. But it isn't.”
Watch the clip here:
Social media reacts
The video prompted several users to agree with her observations. One wrote, “This is what a healthy work culture looks like.” Another commented, “Work should never become your entire identity.” A third said, “Having a life outside work matters.” Another user added, “Weekends should actually feel like weekends.”
(Also read: European boss stops Indian employee from working past midnight in wholesome exchange)
HT.com has reached out to the user for her comments, and the copy will be updated once her response is received.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
