COVER STORY

Horrible bosses

What is the purpose of attaining education for the majority? To possess knowledge regarding various subjects that can later assist one in bagging a successful job. Yes, since our childhood, we have been taught that the better grades you score, the more prosperous you will be in your career. However, our universities do not prepare students for the atrocities and exploitation even the most talented of them have to face when they join a workplace. Just to make it clear, your A+s won’t be saving you from office politics or manipulation at the hands of your employers.

Unfortunately, the ones to be exploited the most are the youth, including university going students as well as the fresh graduates. Students spend four years in a university, and come out motivated and flooded with ambition. Tragically, it’s their eagerness that leads to their exploitation since many a time the aim of the employer is to play upon the desires of the naive graduates and use them for their own benefit.

Sorry to shatter your dreams, young aspirants, but this is what we call a capitalist culture. This current ruling culture is composed of people who, behaving according to a set of learned rules, act as they must act in order to survive in capitalist societies. This mindset and trend prevails in businesses, corporations and the working class.

The exploitation starts right after students graduate from university, and are offered a pay scale of Rs20 to 30 thousand. Of course, this isn’t the case with all university students, as many bright souls belonging to top institutions such as IBA, LUMS, NCA and Indus Valley manage to achieve a pay scale of Rs40,000 or more at their first job. This may sound a lot, but keeping in mind the eight hours of work and the dedication one puts in, this pay scale is nothing. Also, one would be lucky to find a place in big organizations such as Jang group or JWT, as these are one of the few places that have an HR system in place.

But the fact is that even large organizations have limited space, hence students end up joining startup firms and the cycle of exploitation begins. This is the problem currently being faced by the youth, and unfortunately, we are too brainwashed to realize the injustice being done.

One such tragic experience is of a 22-year-old student Eeshal Ansari, studying Social Sciences at a university in Karachi.

“I decided to work while I was still in university because I wanted to learn and get exposure before graduation,” she shared. “I wanted to kick start my career at an earlier stage of my life and since I love writing, I chose to go with the first platform I found.”

Eeshal was working for a website that dealt with fashion, lifestyle and celebrities. Her job as a reporter required her to spend 8 hours at work, submit three articles a day, and cover events. Since she had university in the evenings, she was granted to work half days. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Wrong! Sadly, this is how manipulation works, you are hired on false pretences and your job description and pressure tends to increase with time. It’s because the bosses know that once hired, you will think twice before resigning as long as they play their cards right.

“The work I was eventually made to do was reporting, writing and managing social media,” she explained. “Apart from that we had to conduct interviews and the articles I had to submit daily were gradually increased to five.”

When asked about her experience, Eeshal shared, “The job affected me in mostly positive ways as it helped me polish my skills. I learnt how reporting is done and how one can write balanced pieces even if it’s limited to celebrity content.”

However, the job left a scar on Eeshal, too. “My coworkers were abusive, my bosses were abusive and my team lead was abusive. It affected me really badly and my anxiety got triggered, which I had since a young age and had managed to control,” she shared.

She further confided, “I eventually quit after four months because I had become overworked. The office politics were also coming in the way of my career growth, and that is something I felt I didn’t need to deal with at that point in my life. Even as an undergrad, I knew the job was becoming an obstacle for my growth as people were obsessed with their positions and politics instead of focusing on how they could make their staff grow.”

As expected, in a dog eat dog world where achieving the salary and status you deserve is a task, one can expect a lot of leg-pulling. If the heads of the organisation are conniving, this is the tradition they pass on to their workers as a means of survival.  

“I learnt that there are no friends at a workplace and hardly anyone is genuine,” Eeshal continued. “They are all your colleagues and you have to stay professional at all costs. Keep your ears and eyes open but keep your mouth shut, and don’t trust people easily. Apart from hard work, other forces can also affect your career growth.”

The fact is, the corporate world isn’t fair and it rewards clever individuals instead of those who are hard-working. While larger firms tend to invest in the emotional state of their workers and employee-retention, even if they aren’t paying them well, smaller firms encourage office politics and there’s nothing the employee can do since there is no human resource department.

Such is the problem faced by the university graduate Talha. Working in a digital media advertising firm, Talha began to notice problems at his firm a few weeks after he joined. Unfortunately, he needed his salary to make ends meet so he stuck by his job.

“Other friends of mine earn more,” he explained. “I’m earning 30 thousand only, and I am made to work almost 12 hours a day. I even end up taking assignments home.”

When asked why he was overburdened so much, he shared, “The organization keeps firing people and refuses to hire new employees, hence, I end up doing the work of those who are no longer in the firm. Most importantly, there are many manipulative co-workers who offload their work and take the credit for your hard work.”

The question now is, when the dire circumstances are so clear, why aren’t the young employees raising their voices against the atrocities? The answer is simple, because they are young and they have a point to prove to the world. No one wants to graduate and sit at home, plus many students have low confidence till they have been employed for a few years. The reason behind this is that the students are unaware of the current market situation; due to lack of market research, many of them are under the impression that there is a lack of jobs, which was true five years ago before the internet boom happened.

For the manipulative bosses, your fear is their gain. Fresh graduates start looking for jobs and end up working for the first company that offers them a nominal salary. And then those same individuals are trained by the corporate culture to be ruthless and manipulative. Hence, the abuse perpetuates.

 What can be done?

Honestly, a change can only be set into motion after years of working upon this issue. Hence, it is essential for us to at least start noticing the problem, and this can be done only when students are made aware of the exploitation that exists in the professional world.

Universities need to introduce a short course where students can be taught how to deal with work issues professionally. Most importantly, the youth needs to be made aware of their rights. A fresh graduate should know the bosses cannot make them work on things that are not in their job description, as well as the salary they deserve based on the tasks they conduct. The least the universities can do is provide the students with career counsellors who can guide them.

The second step that is of utmost importance is the existence of a human resource department in each firm. This is because HR can deal with employee issues effectively and the workers would know who to turn to if they encounter any problems. Some firms abroad even have therapists for their employees so any arising problem is dealt with before it reaches its peak.

 Lastly, the government should make it a law for all firms and companies to have a labour union that protect the rights of the employees and brings forth their demands and complaints to the employers.  

However, till these laws are introduced or even thought upon, we highly recommend the fresh graduates to research about the firm they are about to join. Social media is your best friend; all you need to do is put up a status and ask about your prospective employer.

And if social media fails you, I advise you to stay strong, have faith in yourself and know that this is not the end. Don’t give in to the corporate culture; and, instead of joining in on the cycle of perpetual manipulation and abuse, make it your goal to switch to a job where hard work is the core credential for success.