Workplaces and work cultures can be toxic on multiple levels. One of them is making the employees work after their stipulated working hours under the guise of hard work AKA hustle. One of the hustle culture’s ideas is the promotion of working for extended hours, usually at the cost of one’s mental health and personal life.

Hustle culture is notorious for blurring the lines between professional and personal life. So much so, that one’s sense of self-worth is derived from the hours of work they put in and not the quality. And in our country, this idea of working late hours has become an obsession.

In a Twitter post, a user pointed out this toxic workplace culture. In his tweet, Abhishek Srivastava noted how the idea of working late and unusually more than required is deeply embedded in Indian workplaces. So much so that it is “well accepted and expected out of people”. And usually, this comes at the cost of one’s mental health.

The user notes how the toxic culture is promoted right at the time when a candidate sits for an interview. Because a candidate needs that job, he “has to accept this in compromise” and is left with “no other option”. The reason this is promoted is that managers and superiors take late hours for quality work. While here’s the fact, working for late hours ≠ quality work.

Working for late hours has been accepted as the norm in workplaces like “breathing air”.

The only reward working yourself to death brings is a “meagre 5% raise and that eye wash promotion”. While personal relationships go for a toss.

The tweet has more than 8k likes and 1k retweets, which definitely speaks volumes. People working across various sectors related strongly to the tweet and spoke about their experiences.

It’s high time workplaces start promoting a culture that keeps the mental health of an employee also in focus.