To be Busy or Not to be

I believe many of you are familiar with corporate culture and if I am not wrong, you have heard your colleagues discouraging the new recruits not to ever say that they are too occupied with their tasks. It’s something that BOSS doesn’t like to hear from the employees as he always cares about their “Mental Health,” and takes pride in seeing them happy (you can’t be unhappy in an office, it’s your fault if you somehow feel so).

Slon on pixabay

Actually, long ago, I talked about this culture, which is, never say you are busy. To the posh people in the show, it's like spitting on their faces. So, they have figured out an overly successful discourse that clearly indicates talking about your occupancy in the office is your failure in time management skills.

To some extent, this might be true. If you cannot make a plan of your 8 hours spent in the office strategically and effectively, the responsibility surely lands on you; you are to blame for your inability to manage time appropriately.

But this doesn't happen in most cases. The majority of the corporate offices adopt an unhealthy practice that barely allows the staff to breathe.

And this doesn't stop here.

While you are at work and struggling with the tasks assigned, your seniors will call you to share their pain with you, what they have faced today coming to the office, what's their plan this weekend blah blah.

If you say that you are busy and probably you’ll listen to them later— even when it's true— the BOSS will take it otherwise—

• How dare you to say that
• What are you busy with
• How many tasks do you handle a day

Look at me— hundreds of files to take care of every day, yet, I manage time to attend the meeting, respond to my seniors whenever they call me for some purposes, and you— you are surely procrastinating, you lack skill—I will see about it in the board meetings— and it goes one.

Does it ring a bell to you?

Maybe, maybe not— depends on your office culture and traits.

But more or less, this is why we suffer from stress in our workplace— not for the job assigned but for the people, we work with.

However, the real corporate setting does not support such activity or praise this even a bit. And that's why every workplace employs an HRM, who mitigates the tension and builds a good rapport between the parties.

But what do you usually see in the offices? In most cases, these HRMs are the ones causing trouble— speaking negatively about the targeted person and fast-forwarding his termination from the office.

If we look back in 2020 and 2021— during the peak of covid lockdown, thousands of people lost their jobs—needy people, skilled people— but HR Managers?

I haven't seen many HRMs get fired from their job. The reason is simple, they are the best informers and most suitable persons to entertain the boss with inside news, so, why will they be fired? There’s another reason, they are the only media through which the management gets news and evaluates an employee. But only a handful of offices in our country adopt a proven strategy to evaluate those human resource managers. And when you are to beat your drum— there won’t be many negative sides, right?

Remarkably, remote-office traits are changing this attitude in the workplace and now, employees are more liberated to speak their minds than before. Even though controversy exists, from my perspective, you should be permitted to share your emotions in the office as this is where you spend most of your time in a day. Your colleagues are the persons you spend most active time with—so, you deserve mental freedom and there’s none, I believe you are in a toxic environment— change it immediately if you want to flourish.