Moonlighting, Quiet Quitting and a 70 hour work-week!
First, the context..
In late 2023, one of the chieftains of the Indian IT industry caused an uproar. In an interview, Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys, exclaimed that both millennials and Gen Z need to work 70 hours a week to bring India up to first-world industrial standards.
His reference to Japan and Germany, two advanced economies that saw a spike in work productivity after World War II and should serve as models for India, was noteworthy.
I am sure he meant well. He also knew there would be a backlash! His association of increased working hours with a spike in productivity sparked a heated debate on social media, emphasizing the importance of working smarter rather than hard.
In fact, I am quite sure that quite a few of us know individuals in our workplace who put in long hours but are, if anything, barely working!!
Why was “number of hours” used as a yardstick for productivity
In another event, just a month ago, another global leader, Jensen Huang (NVIDIA CEO), when speaking to students at Stanford, had something very similar to say. I quote…
“I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering”.
What ??!! Why on earth…?? Stanford?? Really???
These are some of the brightest graduates about to enter the workforce. Reading more of what he said in his entire address to students, especially the following phrase, is crucial.
“Greatness comes from character, and character isn’t formed out of smart people; it is formed out of people who suffered.
Taking a step back, one must acknowledge that these industry titans of today broke their backs yesterday fighting an uphill battle against everything from arcane laws, bureaucracy, loneliness, ups and downs, and in all of this, pursuing a dream that was not listed on any Gartner quadrant.
So, it’s not surprising that when they pass down lessons to the current generation of students, some of whom could be entrepreneurs, corporate titans, or possibly even lifetime YouTubers, they come with some baggage.
A past of Suffering & Pain
There appears to be a common pattern among them all. It was a sign of hardship to have lived through a period when technology was less developed, the planet was a lot cooler, and the well-known abbreviation T.A.M. (Total Addressable Market) was not even a catchphrase.
In fact, a lot of the early founders in the 80s and 90s hatched their dreams in someone’s garage or in their own homes. Money was hard to come by; they had to save up or even take loans from banks that were hesitant to fund what was considered at that time to be wild ideas.
However, it’s not always true that to succeed in business one must toil endlessly.
For instance, there are lots of cases where the children of successful founders have carried on their parents empires with a lot more finesse and imagination.
Consider Mukesh Ambani’s ownership of Reliance Jio as an example. Following Dhirubhai Ambani’s death, Mukesh and his younger brother Anil shared the spoils of their dad’s empire. While his younger brother was given emerging sectors such as telecom and financial services, Mukesh found himself confined to traditional companies such as oil and gas and petroleum.
However, within the space of a decade, Mukesh had recovered lost ground and is now the richest man in India, wielding interests in cricket, a stranglehold on telecom, a huge chunk in retail, and many other booming businesses.
Another case in point is that of Tim Cook of Apple. Tim Cook had massive shoes to fill after Steve Jobs departure. Even if Apple’s models may not have been as glamorous as their original releases, Tim constructed an entire walled garden (referring to the security and privacy checks Apple puts in place for their customers) around the Apple Store to make it more secure.
Tim also lowered costs by expanding manufacturing locations in China and diversifying their supply chain internationally. The cherry on top: he will receive recognition for leading Apple to a record valuation of USD $3 trillion, the highest amount ever for a business.
While the two aforementioned feats broke records in their own right, I’m sure they each faced unique challenges. They were both handed well oiled companies, and they took them to greater heights. I doubt, though, that either of them had to endure any suffering or pain in the process.
This entire idea that we need to endure hardship and labor nonstop for years on end in order to succeed in life is based on some esoteric ideas from our past, when life was not as convenient or fast-paced as it is now. In fact, Gen Z and lots of millennials often retort this, saying you should work smart instead of hard.
A future of Work-Life Balance
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an ex-associate. He quit his full-time job at the peak of the pandemic and shifted to contract work. He told me that he had his share of sleepless nights too. Today, though, he does multiple gigs, has a start-up of his own, coupled with a Youtube channel, and works out of homestays in different parts of the country at different times of the year.
While as a Gen-X person (born between 1970–1990) I envy his lifestyle, I will never trade stability for uncertainty. A lot of Gen Z and millennials will not think twice about getting into the gig economy if the price is right.
The pandemic blew the lid off the notion of work we had been handed down since the Industrial Revolution. New movements such as The Great Resignation, work-from-home, moonlighting, and now quiet quitting are now commonplace. Perhaps humanity’s reckoning with work itself was long overdue.
The practice of moonlighting, for example, has been condemned by many firms as unfair and unethical.
What is moonlighting, and why all the fuss?
It’s the act where a person takes up another job (apart from the one they already have) on the sly in a different company. In short, they hold two or more jobs. The issue here is that when employees join as full-time workers, they usually sign an agreement with their employer that they will not take up other jobs outside their firm. Therefore, moonlighting is actually illegal.
What a lot of the business folks don’t like is actually quiet quitting.
So what is quiet quitting?
Quiet quitting is a trend that’s picking up with Gen Z and millennials today. When an employee does quiet quitting, he or she works for only as much as they are paid for and not a minute more.
No more going above and beyond your normal working hours!
No more sending emails or having conference calls with multiple stakeholders in the middle of the night!
No more taking work home!
This 360 degree customer obsession begins when they swipe in and ends after they swipe out!!
This is why, capitalists hate quiet quitters with a vengeance!!
In fact on CNBC, Shark Tank’s famous David O Leary (Mr. Wonderful), recently ranted about quiet quitting, going so far as to say, “I won’t hire quiet quitters, I’ll let my competitors hire them”!!
How did quiet quitting actually emerge?
Again, it was a result of a prolonged work-obsessed lifestyle that often masqueraded as increased work productivity coupled with cutthroat competition in the workplace, which was tearing into the human psyche. This is a generation that saw their parents burn out in the office and develop unhealthy lifestyles, all in the name of giving them a better future.
So basically, they learned from watching us work; they learned from watching how we lived and how we created this bubble filled with comforts that spewed its waste on our planet. In short, they learned from our mistakes.
Quiet quitting is Gen Z’s way of sending us the following message: -
- We don’t need to run one sprint too fast! In fact, we would rather be on multiple marathons at our own pace.
- We have the tools to be more productive today, thanks for building them for us, but we’ll take it from here.
- We’re not only interested in building something for ourselves, we’re more interested in building for a sustainable future.
And, we certainly aren’t going to work 70 hours a week to achieve this!!
