A Bengaluru professional's viral Instagram video on long working hours and no work-life balance is getting people across social media talking.
The woman, who recently travelled to the United States for work, shared how shocked she was by the office culture there compared to what she experiences in Bengaluru.
In the now-viral video, she said she usually reached the US office around 9:30 or 10 am. But what surprised her most was how quickly the office emptied out. “By 4:30 pm, the whole floor was empty. By 5 pm, everyone had already left,” she said.
She explained that in India, her typical workday starts around 9 am and often extends until 10 pm due to continuous meetings and work calls. The contrast in the schedule and work-life balance made her realise how little time she usually has for herself.
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She said for the first time in a long while, she found herself with free evenings during the US trip. She said she could go for a hike, watch the sunset and simply relax after work, which was not possible for her in India.
“Is this just me, or is the corporate environment really becoming hard now in India?” she asked in the caption.
The video quickly struck a chord online as many users agreed with her observations. One user commented, “The problem is not work, the problem is the mindset that more hours mean more productivity.”
Another user offered a different perspective and wrote, “True, but they mostly come early around 7 AM and are more productive thru the day.”
However, some users argued that the comparison between Indian and US work culture is more complicated than it appears. One person wrote, “This comparison itself is screwed. Most of the Indian IT companies get the work from the US.”
The user further explained that Indian employees often have to extend work hours because of time zone differences with US clients and teams.
“The day India is self reliant and we are working for Indian products or Indian technology, that day we would be behaving the same way the other western counterpart does,” reads the comment.
The discussion has now turned into a full blown debate online about burnout, productivity and whether long hours are becoming normalised in India's corporate world.
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