Work,deadlines,holidays and festivals

Indian Software professionals work long hours.

This is a fact, and the exact reason for this varies. It is definitely not because we get paid for overtime or that we have to work long hours to make enough money with our low billing rates. Generally newcomers work late to either learn stuff or because they are still learning how to manage their time. Some people also work late because they have the "manager-from-a-different-world" who thinks that you are good only if you work late. We work on weekends and holidays also - again the reasons vary.

I had a long argument with my fiancée today about this - why do you have to work on a holiday. We both are the kind of people who take responsibility for our work and the team. We work 9 to 8 everyday. But we try to keep our weekends free.5 days, 9 to 8 do your best, enjoy the weekend. Working on holidays is OK if needed.

The reason we had the argument was because she is working tomorrow - on a festival holiday. Dussehra is a big festival in India and especially in our families it is a big celebration. The 10 days of Durga pooja culminates on Vijaya Dasimi which is tomorrow. And she has to work to run a regression test pack tomorrow so that they can show the results to the client sitting in Tokyo.

My question is - why should you work on a festival day? Cant you just tell the client that you will give the results a day late?? It definitely is not a end-of-the-world deadline tomorrow.

I myself am a team lead who has has to handle teams. We always maintained a rule that we will not work after a certain time and will definitely not work on certain days. Even when sitting at the clients office I have told the client that the deliverable will be delayed because it is a holiday in India and I do not expect people to come and work. None of my client side guys work for Christmas or Easter and they agreed to what I said.

It is not wrong to put you foot down and tell that you need to take a certain day off - we are humans and we depend on family and other factors as support and driving mechanisms to move ahead in life. It is by spending quality time at home and enjoying few days a year with the family for festivals and things like that, we keep ourselves sane and in a position to work. If we lose that then we lose our drive to work and ultimately we will fail.

Work and life might be synonymous in this competitive world, but we have to maintain a balance between the two. If it is not possible to keep this balance daily, we can at least make sure that we do not miss these holidays and take time off on these days.