What's The Perfect Work-Wife Balance?

If nothing else, the chairman of L&T's inappropriate, 90-hour-work-week comments have been a huge relief from corporate boredom.

- GURBIR SINGH

If nothing else, the chairman of L&T's inappropriate, 90-hour-work-week comments have been a huge relief from corporate boredom. Ever since S N Subrahmanyan (SNS) held up the ideal of a 90-hour week and trashed his employees for not working on Sundays, social media has been on fire. From memes drawing on bedroom scenes, to modified renditions of Bollywood numbers on the joys of staring at one's wife, it's been a field day for part-time humor mongers.

One doesn't know if he used AI, but one song writer captured the mood thus: Sleep deprived And barely Awake Living for the next coffee break Mr Chairman grins from His Towers High Sees us Cogs But Never asks, Why

The blowback to Mr Subrahmanyan's comments has been so severe, the PR division of L&T has been scrambling with damage control. L&T's Head of HR, Sonica Muraleedharan, said in a recent statement: "SNS never implied or mandated 90-hour work-weeks. His remarks were casual in nature, and have been misinterpreted."

There have been the serious responses too. Corporate seniors like M&M's Anand Mahindra and former HCL CEO, Vineet Nayar, have pointed out good quality work has nothing to do with keeping long hours and relentless schedules. They have emphasized optimum work-life balance needs to combine high output with happiness and recreation with the family.

12-HOUR DAY IS THE NORM

These reactions make a point but they miss something significant. The L&T chairman was being smug; holding out his own long working hours as an ideal to his employees, when his working conditions and the remuneration he takes home are a hundred times more than the assembly line worker's.