Sikh Work Ethic

[Ranjeet01]

There was an Anthroplogist called David Graeber who has recently passed away.

But he wrote a book called "Bullsh!t jobs"in which he claim probably half the jobs are meaningless but combined with a work ethic and work being a sense of self worth creating psychological problems.

I have not read the book but it looks interesting. 

You probably heard of something called "The Protestant Work Ethic"

However,  I have noticed that our people in Punjab are a work-shy bunch but the minute they go abroad, they suddenly develop this work ethic.

To the point some of our people cannot sit down for 5 minutes without them needed something to do.

I have realised that there is a difference between being busy and productive. 

The question I have is do we have our own work ethic? Is there a Sikh Work Ethic?

 

[MisterrSingh]

1 hour ago, Ranjeet01 said:

You probably heard of something called "The Protestant Work Ethic"

However,  I have noticed that our people in Punjab are a work-shy bunch but the minute they go abroad, they suddenly develop this work ethic.

This baffles me although I understand why it's a thing. This selectiveness also reveals some unfortunate truths about character.

I'm assuming you're referring to our brethren who prefer loafing around on their motorcycles in the pind instead of putting a shift in tending to their OWN farmland? Somehow, these same guys when arriving overseas have no second thoughts about grinding themselves into oblivion working for, at times, ruthless and quite nasty employers? 

You'd think they'd want their family endeavour (their land) to succeed and continue prospering, but somehow this seems to fall through a blind spot.

My theory is these guys realise if they put their heart and efforts into farming their own land back home, they will become trapped in the daily grind of it all. Their elders will delegate more and more responsibility to them, and before they know it, any opportunity of going overseas will disappear. So, they deliberately keep it all at arm's length, even if that means seeing the elder males in their family undergo hardship. It's a very cold and calculating mentality, and another reason why I don't get on with these clowns.

 

[Ranjeet01]

55 minutes ago, MisterrSingh said:

This baffles me although I understand why it's a thing. This selectiveness also reveals some unfortunate truths about character.

I'm assuming you're referring to our brethren who prefer loafing around on their motorcycles in the pind instead of putting a shift in tending to their OWN farmland? Somehow, these same guys when arriving overseas have no second thoughts about grinding themselves into oblivion working for, at times, ruthless and quite nasty employers? 

You'd think they'd want their family endeavour (their land) to succeed and continue prospering, but somehow this seems to fall through a blind spot.

My theory is these guys realise if they put their heart and efforts into farming their own land back home, they will become trapped in the daily grind of it all. Their elders will delegate more and more responsibility to them, and before they know it, any opportunity of going overseas will disappear. So, they deliberately keep it all at arm's length, even if that means seeing the elder males in their family undergo hardship. It's a very cold and calculating mentality, and another reason why I don't get on with these clowns.

 

It is something that has bugged me for a while.

But I guess it depends on what line of work that they go into.

For example, we had relatives that came from Australia and they are doing quite well there.

The husband was a trucker and he told me how at first he was working over 100 hours a week.

My first thought was "wow", they are on the road a lot and they aren't getting a lot of sleep and that is quite dangerous, especially if you are driving a heavy goods vehicle. 

However, it was only until I spoke to another relative in Australia that he told me the truth. They sleep in the trucks so actually don't work 100 hours but they probably clock it as 100 hours. So it looks like they just claim loads of overtime. 

So it looks like they are working much harder than they really are.

This is probably expels some of the myths of the hard working immigrant. Just work loads of overtime and pretend to be working hard.

Even in the office, people spend over 8 hours a day. They realistically only do 2-3 hours of work, the rest of time is wasted on "breaks", browsing the internet and chatting to colleagues. 

So it poses another question, how hard do people really work?