The Worth of a Man

I have been having a bit of difficulty in getting my blog going again, and it probably has to do with the fact that I have not felt this relaxed in a long time. I have also struggled to think of a relevant topic to write about, and this one is probably the most relevant in these times. I know a lot of readers will disagree with some of what is written below, but that is also because it shines a mirror within ourselves, into places we have not explored, or questions a value system that has been indoctrinated into us.

Does a job define a man or does a man define a job? What would in other times have been a good topic for discussion, has now become a situation I live on a daily basis. For most people knowing what others do, denote their station in life. It gives people an easy point of reference, a way to assess where to slot you in their scheme of things. It indicates ones position, their relative worth and provides an assessment of their scale of ambition. Now when I am asked as to what I do, I am completely stumped! Even though it used to annoy me a bit earlier, I understood it as a conversational ice-breaker, and it was so easy saying that I worked in such and such a Company. If pressed further I often gave vague or flippant responses, like I work in accounts, or I am a bean counter. These though still provided me with an identity. Now it seems I have none, it is almost like someone has stripped me off my name. I have suddenly come to respect the rationale behind invented terms like homemaker and to understand the desire of people, quite often in meaningless roles, to give themselves grandiose titles and to also exaggerate the worth of their roles.

The type of organisation you work for and your position in it, say more about you, than the content of your character or the purity of your thoughts. It is similar to being asked as to what car you drive. Getting to know what people do, gives us a position to pigeonhole them into our mental grid. We all indulge in this process without even thinking about it. It happens in nanoseconds, in the blink of an eye, and is generally a starting point in our flashpoint decision on how to take that particular relationship forward. It happens simultaneously with the other mental images which provide us with our first impressions, like their looks, the way they carry themselves and the way they talk. Added to the latter, a person’s employment completes the mental picture for us. We take our behavioral cues based on the results of this gentle probe.

Imagine being introduced to someone. We have already processed our first impressions in the blink of an eye, even before the first word is spoken. Now you ask them what they do, and it takes you another fraction of a second to complete the picture based on their response. This extremely innocuous question leads to an instantaneous character profile being drawn up, and will often override the initial impulses gathered before this verbal exchange. You do not need to know their age, their religion, their nationality or their political preferences for you to make up a quick mental model of that individual. The two categories that escape this process are businessmen and homemakers. No one knows what to make of them, until a further sequence of questions are gone through and processed.

The diversity of reactions of people, on being told that I am not currently employed has been huge. From being quite okay about it to absolute avoidance of that topic, from congratulating me (seriously two friends actually congratulated me) to chronic sympathy reserved for terminally ill, the reactions have varied dramatically. Even people who are close to me and think they know me, have suddenly found themselves in deep waters. Thinking back now on the various reactions, I have conversely been able to assess the level of importance that each person puts on their own employment. Since I have only marginally been impacted by this turn of events, I now respond to the question of what I do in different ways. Homemaker, kept man, retired, recently liberated from the yoke of earning a living, are some of the expressions that I have started to use. I can completely understand when some people get cross eyed in trying to contain their reaction, to portray one that is both appropriate to my perceived sensitivities and their own sense of worth.

Recently I was at a get together, where we were all introduced to a newcomer. We were sitting in a sprawling circle and the host was introducing each one of us, to the newcomer, by name. As mentioned before, since a name would not be enough for him to assess the relative worth of each of us, the host was also stating what each of us did. Halfway through that exercise he must have realized the error of his ways, wherein he stopped three people shy of me - stating that he was now tired of going through the whole group. Now these are people I met after a long time, and who have no clue as to how I have taken this, and hence he as a good host, did what he felt would be least embarrassing to me. My wife and I both noticed this and I mentioned it to her on my way back home that night. Of course I am not standing on judgment at all, since I do not know what I would have done in the host’s place either.

So I try to understand where I stand on this issue and have cemented my feelings that working is only a means to an end, and there are various options that lead you to the same result. I also know now that individuals who are in a good place mentally will be able to grasp this particular bull by its horns. Others, who still have a desire to prove themselves, will be dashed into the dust. Unfortunately for us Indians, culturally we have not been prepared for something like this, and losing one’s job carries a huge stigma. I remember reading an article a few months ago that the marriage market in India has changed dramatically, with prospective grooms holding government jobs finding favor (after the lapse of many years), over ones in the outsourcing industry. It says a lot for our values and the drivers of our culture. Of course this is also true of a wider swathe of humanity. In the West however, losing one’s job is a part and parcel of life. This is a culture that celebrates people making it big from meager beginnings. A lot of the leaders of industry earned their first living by flipping burgers, and it was seen as an essential component of one’s education. I cannot imagine any Indian middle class parent approving their child starting their career in an Udipi restaurant – can you? Dignity of labour is still sadly a pipe-dream in our part of the world. Just recently, I was reprimanded for saying to my son, who plays the keyboards, that he could starting a budding musical career by playing in, the soon to open, Metro stations in Dubai. We talk about acceptance, but are extremely critical of the pursuit of any labour intensive profession that does not abide to accepted norms.

I have also been told that this was probably the worst time to lose your job, wherein I corrected that individual by saying it is probably the best time to lose it. A lot of taboo's have been broken and paradigm's are shifting. In the meantime I use my time looking for employment (which I am infinitely more knowledgeable about now) and making the most of my present situation. For example, as I am writing this blog I have gotten one of the innumerable phone calls from a Bank wanting to provide me (this time) with a platinum credit card. Instead of cutting the call short as I used to do, I evinced a tremendous interest in their product, asking all sorts of questions, and thereby exciting the caller about a prospective sale. Of course their reaction was worth recording when on being asked where I worked I told them that I am out of work. You can almost imagine the mental back pedaling as they try to wiggle out of the call, and I am continuing to persist in pestering the guy to send me documentation to cement the deal. I even told the guy not to worry as I would get a job soon, and to just take my word for it. This guy literally refused to take me seriously and believe me, and kept asking me whether I was joking. I think I have now found the perfect response to these annoying calls that I have endured over so many years.

But coming back to the topic, I now also understand the rationale as to why people in relatively senior positions in various organisations refuse to fade away. They try to cling on to their jobs even past retirement age. For most of them it is not a financial necessity, nor is it about power, rather it is a way to hold on to their identity. For years they have seen themselves in the mirror as an employee, be it a GM, a President, a CFO or a CEO of a particular organisation. They have enjoyed the respect that went with a title (any title), got used to seeing themselves the way they wanted others to see them. Now they are cast away into the vast sea of humanity, to drift like all the others, with no title to separate the plumber, the carpenter or the candle stick maker. Where is the dignity in that?

And coming back to my first question, I believe that it is definitely a job that defines a man. Why else would we entrust our least valuable possession, our wealth, to Bankers and pay them ludicrous amounts of money to take care of it, and on the other hand entrust our most valuable possession, our children, to teachers to mold and shape, and pay them nothing?