Motherhood and Working in Corporate Office

At the outset ,i apologize if this going to hurt some set of people but i just thought i write this any way.

What prompted me to write on this very topic, well it should only be my niece at home. 

These days one generally sees that women who are working , mainly focus on their careers,  which is really good . 

Gone are the days when men dominated every walks of life , more than ever before women are making their presence felt and in a very towering way. This is all good for a country raring to be the engine of growth and becoming a super power.

On the flip side what is happening is that once these women attain motherhood , they are caught between career and care taking .

Any one in this world would tell you , only a mother would understand what a kid would need . Agreed that  grand parents can do the same, but they can never replace the fondness of a mother, let alone taking care.

That being said , when the so called corporate woman is caught in this dilemma , what happens? First she asks for permission in her office to leave early or going on leaves to be with her kid in the name of spending time with family, can this happen consistently, probably not due to rules and regulations.

Although companies do allow maternity leave of up to 3 to 6 months , believe me this is just not enough. A kid doesn't grow up in six months and the first five years are extremely critical for the kid to grow up and be taken care of . These kids have razor sharp minds, if not cared properly , it is extremely likely that they get hold of habits which parents would not like them growing up with.

So with leave or permissions not an option , our folks take the step of arranging either the grandparents to take care or eventually a nanny is an option. Once this is done , they come to office thinking all is well, only to find that after an hour or two their conscience tearing them apart on how well the kid is managed back home.

Although our women folk look ok at this juncture  at face value but in reality they are emotionally drained and shaken at this predicament . They go on to curse their superiors for not understanding their plight and giving them too much work, then comes her husband for all things that have not worked since their marriage , then colleagues are in the line of fire for not understanding things, then her own parents and in laws. Well the list goes on .

Once back from office , the kid pampers her until late night again the curse mania starts as she has to go to work the following day with pile of targets staring at her . 

Neither the kid gets fair share of tenderness,pampering and care that is required nor the mother gets her fair share of happiness. This may sound bitter but is the brutal truth.

Who is to blame , ask the victim , likely answer  would be the in-laws and her husband. Is it really the case?

If you carefully analyze the situation, our corporate woman could have decided not to go to work, ultimately she decided not to, why?

Think hard, it might seem money is the deciding factor. Prima facia this might be correct but go one step higher you would stumble on the real issue.

The issue is both husband and wife planned all niceties like car,aircon,a good house based on both their salaries . If one of their salaries does not come , well it could mean trouble. At stake is kids welfare and paying of the monthly instalments , both of them very important in their own sense.

Our men folk should take more responsibility here and share the burden,they can but as i stated before no one on this earth can substitute a mother in a kids growth.

Chuck these niceties , it is high time people start thinking in this angle. I only write from what iam seeing but i think this is close to reality.

Expectations at workplace!

I was thinking about what would be the topic for my next blog ,when events over last two weeks finally convinced me that this should be what i need to write about.

If you think ,what am i going to write on a subject which depends on which way you look at it , think again. Let me tell you a good deal can be written about this subject and i'll try and see what i can.

Over last two weeks i have been speaking to many of my colleagues on various aspects about expectations at workplace. Many things came up during these discussions. They were as fickle as pens should be provided to as grandiose as exotic holidays sponsored by the organization. 

What was most striking was the difference in expectations from people with considerable experience and people with not so much, also differences emerged between the two sexes but was not that much.I will concentrate on the recent hopefuls.

One important aspect was how much the first timers crave for growth, specifically faster growth. It was just jaw dropping. In the recent past say about 8 to 10 years back, if you had worked for a good deal of five to ten years then you were expected to be a supervisor. Agreed in current environment, that may not be possible but what came out evident in my discussion's was that the current set of people entering the business environment although much better equipped than their preceding set and portray themselves as street smart as anyone can get , forget one important word "PATIENCE". They need to get things done in a stroke of a second.

In workplace they need promotions as quickly as even a year . Alas, this expectation is not going to take them any forward but most likely a step back. In our country many young people in the band of 20-21 years are starting to work in various sectors and are seen by many to be the backbone of the country. Yes, they have every right to be called so and i myself am supportive of  that but if they need to take our country to the next level, they need to have that golden word "Patience" embedded strongly in their minds .

Just to conclude - Rome was not built in a day , neither was our independence achieved in a year or two. As we know these events of great importance did happen but was only possible because people behind it had the will to achieve it but on top of it , they had truck loads of patience at their disposal.