Skip to content

Are we Indians getting time to enjoy and be ourselves?

Post this topic on X

In General & Off Topic

The IndiBlogger forum is now a read-only archive. Every public discussion is still here to read, but new topics and replies are closed.

Charan
from Chennai |

     That's the question that came up in my mind when I heard of scores of the Western counterparts of various MNCs having taken at least a week off for Christmas and New Year. Organizations in most of the countries operate from almost zero to very minimal at these times and  almost all the employees either go on vacations out of their leave pocket or its a part of the calender marked holidays.

  • Why are no such practices in India for any of the festive occasions?
  • Why does even those MNCs having such practices worldwide do not have such things for their employees in India?
  • Are Indians taken for granted to work no matter what the occasion is?

Or Is it just me who feels it is this way and think this is not fair?

Replies 1 to 8 of 8

pundit
from Oslo |

Are Indians taken for granted to work no matter what the occasion is?

Yes.

Charan
from Chennai |

Is that all Mr.Pundit, from you?

Ketan
from Bangalore |

I guess its the question of where the "moolah" come for the companies.... if you think of government organizations or schools they would have diwali vacations.... for our MNCs the money comes from US and hence christmas brings vacations... but for some companies which are not from US (e.g. Korean) they dont have such vacations, even for India operations...

Charan
from Chennai |

I would say schooling is the best part of life where one would have minimum three courses of vacations every year and being a school teacher or college lecturer too, one can enjoy vacations at large, how many government organizations have at least one such a course in a year or the even the Indian MNCs too, maybe a lucky few may have my friend..

Garf
from Somewhere in India |

Well....we work for them. They pay, we get. The structure itself functions like that.

As for a time to enjoy and have fun....i don't think we don't get it. Ofcourse we get it. Just because they go on a stretch of days doesn't mean that they only have it. In india, diwali or holi or whatever is just a cultural holiday....it depends..not all of us celebrate that. I do know people who don't.

I don't think just because they go at a stretch of days every year and are adamant not to work during this time of the year should be a reason to ignite this topic. We go and have fun and have our holidays when we need...we work and we love what we do.....i think it is fair but yes, you should know when to say NO to work and when to say NO to holidays....

We have nurtured outsourcing and we have got a big chunk of IT service industry here...we are paid for that. Doesn't implicate that we have no right to holidays...

Ketan
from Bangalore |

I agree Garf... @Charan I know some government offices have ample amount of vacations per year... but wouldnt we (the same ppl) accuse of govt offices being lazy and inefficient and compare them to MNC efficiency? BTW I thought the whole idea of working after leaving school/colleges is to enjoy it... if you are not enjoying your work you are in a wrong job and then why blame companies for not giving enough vacations... If you enjoy your job, you would rather not want vacations :-) ... have you heard any businessman who enjoying what he does that he doesnt have enough vacations :-)... Get real ... no need for such a discussion...

Charan
from Chennai |

@Garf - I totally agree on the point whatever you've said, be it how we Indians enjoy holidays as and when we want or be it how the westeners do it. The matter of concern here is that an ABC company functioning here (in India) and elsewhere, offer calender hols for an occasion x elsewhere but DO NOT have a policy (in most cases) to do that here for x y or some z occasions too. Its as simple as that.

@Ketan - Those government offices and others are indeed run INDEPENDENTLY by Indians for Indians and of course employing Indians , which unfortunately isn't the case in any of the other wonderful and efficient Corporates and MNCs btw.....the businessmen are unfortunately a bad example for this discussion.

" If you enjoy your job, you would rather not want vacations :-) "      Nothing to offend you but i just don't want to be quoted for flaming for a comment on this line of yours. I just suggest that this would make a good people-noticing material if used at your workplace as your core mantra.

 FYI : Neither am I cribbing my work situation here nor am I unhappy about my work.

Thanks guys cos this discussion is getting interesting and heated day by day with opinions like these from you guys.

Garf
from Somewhere in India |

@Charan: Yeah buddy...the discussions is on..lets keep it coming.....  :-)

Nez...

As of offering the calendar holidays by the ABC company, i don't think they don't. They do it. I mean..what is it that you are refrring to in particular...coz..the majors like diwali, holi, dussera..etc are all covered on all organisations holiday charts....and they sometime do have provisions of local holidays too i guess......can you instance a few such occasions that you referred to..?

Charan
from Chennai |

True, holidays are given for every occasion...but how many days 4 any of the occasion here in contrast to elsewhere?

Raghu V N
from Thrissur |

What is the measurement of enjoyment? In my place, reports are coming about the increased use of liquor from year to year. There are a lot of holidays and unfortunately, even the days of strike can also be considered as a holiday in my state(Kerala).

Leisure time is supposed to be for a releaf from stress, and everybody likes it.  But, what is the meaning of the demand for  more leisure time? I think we are getting lazy now!!

Charan
from Chennai |

Hey man, nice to see you drop in.Nice to hear of another variety of a situation prevailing in some part of our country. Though the topic headline is very generic its rather more pertaining to the description below.

W.r.t your 2nd part of post, this is definitely not a way a to demand for a more leisure time but just to throw light on partiality on these policies shown by organizations.

Garf
from Somewhere in India |

@Charan: How many days of leave have been granted for Christmas and New Year at the ABC company? And how many for Diwali and Holi and Dussera at the ABC company?

Charan
from Chennai |

If you can, how about substitute anything for that ABC and get to know from people and i'll be happy to know stats from wherever you are, too.

Garf
from Somewhere in India |

@Charan: Take any indian MNC.....you are always free to take leaves at a stretch on any holiday...and thats what happens.

"True, holidays are given for every occasion...but how many days 4 any of the occasion here in contrast to elsewhere?"....can you examplify it? I just wanted to know what is it that you referred to. As of any ABC company...take any indian MNC.

Charan
from Chennai |

Hmmm.....had that been the answers that I got out from the people whom I asked this question then I wouldn't ve instantiated such a discussion in first place. To state a few examples...

  • Two people working on the same project, one here with just a holiday for Christmas and not even a holiday slated for Jan 1st, another on site in Europe has holidays starting since Christmas till Jan 4th. 
  • Another instance is where the project is a support project to a client and the work is based only on client interactions and such a team have to "be at work" even when clients themselves are absent having taken a Christmas vacation.

In neither of the two stated above are people given more than a day of holiday for any of our national calender holidays like Dussera, Diwali, Christmas, etc.

  • A third instance where i found its even more worse, its an Indian company where people work in shifts (not a BPO) there is nothing in the company's dictionary called as a holiday apart from the weekly off, not even for a May Day.
Garf
from Somewhere in India |

@Charan: That is sad. In that case, for certain, correction should be there. These should be going to the HR policies if i am not mistaken. I have many people working in IT and i have never heard of such a bias. Whatever you suggested awes me. There is no piont in discussing if that is the case because it is just plain wrong.

Charan
from Chennai |

Its not just for discussion purpose but for an exhibitionistic purpose as well.