Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Battling The Workplace Bachelors

Yes. Does the title of this post look ridiculous? Or you are under the impression that this is all about sexual advances that bachelors make at work? Well, no , it isn’t. Because, workplace bachelors may not sexually hit on fellow married women or mothers like you and me, but they do 'hit' us where it bothers more – our time.
If the question is how, then let me paint a very realistic picture for you. I pack my bag at 5:30, and I like to move out of office just as the clock strikes 6. Yes, I do get the regular "6 baj gaye kya", stares and comments from other male colleagues, but these bachelors, they are something else. Unlike most married men, they do not have someone waiting, and are available all through the evening. They might be one big reason why your husband returns late from work. They talk nicely, are mostly well behaved, but they have all the time that we women definitely do not have and our husbands are "supposed" to have. The late evening meetings, discussions and office gossips – you call it and they do it. And poor your husband, even if he wanted to come to home, he cannot. Come on, 'protocol' does matter! While men can compete with them, to a large extent, we women simply lose the game. So when my boss gives me those 'comparable' looks – that says that why cannot I come to work on Saturday, why can't I stay up late and complete that presentation, or why cannot I attend that official dinner? The list is endless, and while my bachelor colleague is all up and ready for it, I simply have no choice but to run a sorry look.

Why?
Because we women probably have a warm home to go to. Bachelors generally stay in groups, have hired cooks, and just reach their homes only to crash in their beds. While we women, married or not married, have some calls to be made to the family, might cook, will have some laundry to attend to, and a book waiting to be read by the bedside. These workplace bachelors have no social life – beyond the office- they generally do not have girlfriends, have the least inclination to get married, and act as the 'joker' for the bosses' sake. Be it that empty cylinder, or picking up the daughter from work – they are there. And we, we just cannot be there.

So how do we battle them?
We cannot. No seriously. Be honest, would you like to go and pick up the bosses' daughter from her school because she just puked? Or drop the wife for shopping because she doesn't like to drive and is too fab to hire the auto? Can you take that 11 pm flight to the new place of operation leaving the house as it is - messed and incomplete? Or, worse, when everyone home is enjoying with the family you math up the client statements with the expenditures? Nah.
Drop it here. Do not bother. Remember, those who have no life , they have the office. The desi MNCs are cultivating a league of work population whose productivity might be high, but social life is negative. Maybe, that's where you and I score. Ain't it better to lose this one?

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