A recent piece in TIME magazine titled ‘How to be both ambitious and fulfilled’ advised that one should focus on the task and not the rewards, prioritise your relationships, strive for growth, do not try to monetise everything and practice gratitude. But what kind of growth is there if you are a bellboy, a lift operator or a salesgirl? How do you not try to monetise everything when you are struggling to feed your family, send your children to school and take care of an ailing mother? Of course, you might argue that the principles delineated in TIME are only for white-collar workers and salaried office-goers. But don’t others also have a right to live fulfilled lives?
Talk of balance sheets, profit margins and quarterly reports are meaningless for them. For them, what matters is the relentless pounding of the sun while standing by the roadside for hours holding a ‘HOTEL’ sign. What matters is changing out of their uniforms so that they can shrug back into their identities outside of work.
Who can blame them if they let their minds drift while scanning bags at mall entrances or garlanding guests at five-star resorts. Do they wonder what if, in a spectacular reversal of fate, they changed places with the businessman in the natty suit who just walked in through the revolving door? Do they try to guess what is in the suitcase that the ‘Lady in Bling’ just rolled into the lobby? Do they wonder what those troublesome children with the identical crew cuts are fighting about? Do they try to guess the price of that heavy gold watch that the father of the little monsters—who is currently trying to unentangle their limbs—is wearing?
Who cares about striving for growth at work when striving for survival is work enough? And to think that we expect them to serve us with efficiency, respect and—here’s the clincher—cheerfulness. In fact, spreading cheer is a job requirement. All their troubles must be swept under the carpet of THE SMILE. Smiles should have no expiry date. CVs that guarantee “Perpetual Pleasantness” will be given preference over those that do not. Take a salesgirl at a textile shop, held in the vice-like grip of visitors’ bad tempers. Yet, she is expected to be sunny. She hears the same questions over and over again: “Does this blouse need lining? Is this chiffon or silk? How much cloth will I need for a skirt this length?” Yet, she must not let go of the one cardinal rule of salesmanship: “Thou shalt not let the corners of thy mouth droop.” On top of everything, she must defy the law of gravity.
Even then, her job might not be secure. Talk of artificial intelligence taking over human work is like the persistent buzz of a mosquito hovering near you—you live in constant fear of the bite. AI might soon enough make its bite felt. According to a recent report by economists at MIT and Boston University, robots could replace as many as two million workers in manufacturing alone by 2025. In which case, this section of the work force might be the first to lose their jobs. After all, it is already happening. FASTag is making toll collectors obsolete. Telephones are disappearing and with them, telephone operators. Computers can easily do the work of cashiers.
Yet, all might not be lost. Humanity still has a trump card: Emotion. Every morning, I am cheered by the wave, smile or nod of the security guard outside my apartment complex. He might ask me whether I had breakfast, and I might reply that I did. And both of us would know that he did not give a damn whether I had breakfast or not, but he was simply tangoing to the eternal rhythm of this thing called ‘small talk’. It is the breakfast enquiries of hundreds of security guards, bellboys and hotel receptionists that ensure that the hinges of this country are well-oiled. It is what proves that in the great battle of Man vs Machine, man is still kicking some serious butt.
This is, of course, not to trivialise the work done by these ‘invisible’ people. Or to say that they are always ranting and raging at fate. Quite the contrary, in fact. A surprising number of them have found contentment, and it is not something they have learnt from a manual.
“Whatever I do, I do it with my whole heart,” says Kunjumol, the hospital cleaner. “My superiors always say that once you send me into a room, you can be sure it will be spotless by the time I am done.”
“I just want customers to be happy with their shopping experience as that is what I am supposed to ensure,” says Swati, the sales assistant.
“I like interacting with foreigners so I can learn new English words,” says Asharam, the bell desk attendant. “I love to ask questions, but without being intrusive.”
In the ultimate scheme of things, it might be the have-nots who have it all.