We often hear people saying, “get out of your comfort zone”. These are the same people who believe that nothing good happens if you are doing your life happily without any tensions. Yes, once in a while, it is important to come out of our comfort zones and upgrade ourselves when there is a real need for it. For example, I do not know how to use a new software that is crucial for my profession for the next 5 years. Yes, surely I need to master this software. If I’m lazy and do not learn this software, I am doing it wrong.
But, the problem starts when this “get out of your comfort zone” becomes a routine all the time.
Our brain expects some type of predictability in life. People who lead a peaceful life have a set routine and no surprise tensions. Corporate people, managers, capitalists and employers always stress on their employees doing “continuous learning” and “come out of your comfort zone.” What they tell openly is that, the world is evolving and we need to keep with the competition and be updated. The reality behind their words is – “We never wish to see our employees being happy, we want to see you running around confused.”
In software industry, senior coders say, “when something works, do not mess with it.” But with employers, when something is working extremely well, they wish to mess around with that. When employees are happy, they wish to push them to some problem. For example, an employer’s mind works like this: “all employees are struggling to do the tasks, but there is only one employee who is managing everything so well. So how do we spoil the peace of mind of this one employee? Let’s call this employee first and tell him / her that he / she is extremely competent and later give some unnecessary work that this employee is not competent to work on.”
By introducing crazy new ideas and projects, the employees become guinea pigs for the experimentation of the bosses who have no idea how to work out the things. Many employers do not have proper experience on how to run an organisation. So, they start experimenting their crazy ideas by taking a cue from the bosses in other organisations. Most of the times, these new ideas and projects fail. But as they say in Kannada “jatti biddru meese maNNaaglilla (the wrestler fell down, but he claimed that he was not yet defeated since his mustache did not touch the mud). So the bosses will never ever take the responsibility for their failures. They conveniently shift the burden on their subordinates and workers. The workers become the guinea pigs in the hands of the crazy employers!
Over a period, the employees get worried about what crazy new idea is going to create a new problem for them the next day. An auto pilots starts running in the minds of employees which keeps creating imaginary traumatic situations at the work place! This surrounds the time, mind and space of the workers. The workers are put on a roller coaster. Employees do not have the time and space to think and plan their personal lives or their future. They fail to upgrade their skills. Hence, they become under qualified and under skilled. They cannot jump to another organisation that has a better working environment or a better pay scale. Workers get stuck in the same toxic place. One fine day, they retire. When they look back, all they have is regrets!
