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Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao Some of it is a failure of our education system too. … |
Very nicely put. You are absolutely on point. But to be fair, an education system can’t be burdened with teaching a person everything they need to live a life. You learn some stuff at school; the rest you learn as you go along. What really matters is that you see success or failure as lessons to be learned. This doesn’t happen when people feel entitled. But that isn’t all on the education system. To be sure, there are many who have come through that same education system and who retain an enviable humility and crystal clarity about their place in the world.
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Originally Posted by PreludeSH Last month I was in North for vacation. … |
Most of us wouldn’t know the half of it.
During the pandemic years, while large swaths of society were steeped in unbearable pain, information workers (IW) enjoyed unprecedented professional ascension. With lockdowns and work-from-home, their privileges skyrocketed - lots of jobs, huge salaries, big bonuses, sizeable increments, zero commute, and not to mention the lowest risk of catching Covid. The term “new normal” was being bandied about with gay abandon and there was a palpable sense of infallibility among IT and software folk.
But all this is perfectly fine and in fact it was as it should be.
What was really disturbing was that while enjoying a windfall of good fortune these information workers and their families were some of the strongest proponents of lockdowns and shutdowns. Their only concern appeared to be their own personal safety. The overarching sentiment was that if others had chosen professions or trades that were outside of the digital economy and that depended on society being open, well then those people were squarely responsible for their own plight and the IW community should not have to endure an open society for the sake of such folk.
Now life has come full circle. Most people with common sense foresaw this inevitability. But apparently the IW community didn’t.
Now the same IW community is practically demanding the empathy that they didn’t provide to the millions of folk who not only lost their livelihoods, but also their lives in many cases as a consequence of not being able to provide for their families during lockdowns. Anyone remember the folks who died walking 1000s of kms to their hometowns in the blistering heat?!
Just for context, I myself am an information worker. But my journey in life has never allowed me even a second of complacency.
Here is a small anecdote.
In 2021, I had placed an order for an item from a local vendor. The item was delivered to me via WeFast courier for which I paid Rs. 60. I put away the package and put it out of my mind. Little did I know that I was about to get a window into someone else’s life that would almost move me to tears.
Just an hour after I got the package, a random person called me. He sounded angry, flustered, and went so far as to call me names. At first, I was furious. Then as the call progressed, clarity ensued.
Apparently the vendor I had ordered from had promised the courier opportunity to the person on the phone who had waited almost 3 hrs for the package. But then the vendor had found another courier who would deliver it for Rs. 20 less and so had abandoned the first guy without informing him.
Now this guy was calling me and venting as to how he lost Rs. 80. He asked me if I had initiated the reallocation of the parcel. I hadn’t of course. In fact I didn’t even know the details of the logistics behind the delivery until he told me.
The guy on the phone spoke fluent English, Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati. He had been an event planner for almost 2 decades and prior to the lockdowns he was earning between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1 lac to support a family with two kids and old parents. Now, this dude had invested a full 3 hours to earn just Rs. 80!! And now that opportunity too had been taken from him. Imagine his state of mind!! The desperation. The despondency. I mean, if he had felt compelled to call me, a perfect stranger to him, to let loose the choicest of expletives, what would have been going through his mind?!
Despite my lack of involvement in the logistics choices, I offered to pay him his full charges or even twice his charges if he were to allow me. But the guy had his pride. He declined; then he apologised for yelling at me and disconnected the call.
At that point, I almost wept. I had seen bad days and terrible days in my career. But the economic suffering that people were enduring all around us at that point was astonishing. Absolute misery was unleashed on millions of folk whose stories we will never learn.
Sometimes karmic cycles work faster than we think.
The information workers who are going through it now would do well to look back just 18 months and take heart that their situation will possibly never be as bad as that of that erstwhile event planner who wanted just Rs. 80 and some basic dignity for 4 hours of work as a courier in an unforgiving city.