A friend of mine posted this recently on Facebook and I thought it deserved a share.
For a simple little cartoon, this tells you an awful lot about workplace relationships in India. Note for instance:
- The over-usage of the word "sir". This is not an exaggeration. People really do use it in every single sentence when talking to their boss.
- The complete lack of stress on the face of the late employee (reading back, that sounds like he's dead. But you know what I mean). He knows he's late, he knows his boss will be angry, but it's just how things go. He may even suspect the truth of the matter and know that his being late doesn't actually matter so much. But even though he's happy as Larry, note also:
- The crucial need to make a show of repentance, even if you're blithely sitting on your scooter enjoying a few minutes more of the illusion of freedom.
- The equal need on the part of the boss to make a show of "bossiness".
- The clearly far greater stress levels being experienced by the boss, even though it's the employee who is getting a dressing down.
- And finally, the completely unexaggerated depiction of Indian traffic at its worst. Though the idea of there being this many stationary vehicles in one place without anyone trying to sell anything is somewhat fanciful.
Hierarchies are really, really important in India (and that's from someone from the UK). The need to maintain the outward appearance of those hierarchies can lead to some pretty surreal situations. I'm sure this one has happened in reality more than once.
