There has been a lot of opinion bashing going on, on Infosys founder Narayan Murthy’s expectation and advise for people to work 80 hour weeks.
Having worked in the Navy, where you are on call 24 hours a day and also in the private sector for the last 15 years, seven out of which have been as a freelancer, I can only express my disappointment at a, apparently well respected, founder CEO of one of the premier institutions in the country. He is what, about 78 years old, and has been working for most of these years and has still not understood factors impacting productivity or he has understood it too well to know what profit-making entails.
What would necessitate 14-hour days, day after day?
a) Your hiring (HR department or its processes) is wrong or you are deliberately compromising on matching people with job roles for saving hiring costs. It may be because of low self-esteem (if I could do it, anyone else can) or overconfidence that your managers are capable of training even donkeys or monkeys to do the job. Get the right people and no one will have to struggle.
b) Your assessment of number of people to do a project is wrong. Again, it may be your incorrect understanding or maybe a conscious decision to save costs by making the reduced number of folks to work like donkeys. (Monkeys usually will not listen to you once they are fed up with doing what you are asking them to do)
c) I have done it myself, so why can’t others do it for me. This is the most ridiculous expectation. You messed up your life (for which your wife and kids may be still giving you the pain), and now you expect other to follow suit. You didn’t have the balls to stand up to your boss and now when people stand up to you, you try emotional blackmail, country, GDP, development etc…
d) You are pitching aimlessly at any and every project and have no idea on how much business you are going to get. Result is you have people sitting on bench or running short, hence the 14 hr days
e) Finally, and it has a bearing on all the above, you have no idea that while education costs have gone up at a much larger scale, the starting salaries at your company have no way matched up to it.
f) People take up jobs, in part at least, to have a regular income along with a work life balance. If they are not getting it, they might as well become a contract worker and do their own thing. It won’t be long before people, the ones worth their salt, become freelancers and take up contractual works and demand what they deem fit.
You can indeed take your opinion to the grave, and your epitaph should probably read “Knowledge Makes a Man Unfit for Slavery.”
