I News India - Empowering Ideas!

Talk about any kind of group; informal or formal, permanent or temporary, heterogeneous or homogeneous- they are all consequential in producing gender inequality.

There is a delicate but obvious demarcation between the official rank and the gender rank in offices.  Many men have authority over women but very few women have authority over men. A man who bosses a woman is his boss on 2 counts: official rank and gender rank. A man who bosses only men or a woman who bosses only women is superior only in official rank. A woman who bosses men is superior only in official rank but unfortunately considered inferior in the other rank (gender). Moreover, a woman who bosses men finds it very difficult to gain their compliance and support. To add to her challenge, she has little leeway to commit any kind of mistake. She is constantly on parole. Her successes are viewed as coincidences, but her mistakes are taken as confirmation of incompetence, proof that there’s a fraud lurking underneath. Unfortunately women cannot gain respect or acquiescence if they are anything short of being a perfectionist. And this bondage of being a perfectionist demands unrealistically high standards and sacrifices of important responsibilities from them. In the bargain, the cost women pay may be too high for them and may lead to gradual disenchantment with their work and a deadening of the real person inside.

Let’s analyze it with the help of the most common example available today. A software professional’s life. Till a computer engineer is given the initial training, males and females are all equal. But once they plunge into serious coding, their boundaries are marked. Since majority of the IT companies work on off-shore – on-shore model with strict adherence to timely deliveries, it becomes almost impossible to leave office before dinner time (sometimes rather many times the clock strikes at midnight as a reminder to pack up). It’s not difficult for bachelors to stay back late and gain kudos for the hard work they put in. But it’s not always feasible for females to sacrifice the rules of discipline at the altar of work. The result: early promotion and ticket to fly across Atlantic for the male and increasing frustration for the female.

Men and women are expected to demonstrate gender-appropriate behavior- words, mannerisms, facial expressions, tones of voices, emotions etc at all times and all places. As a result women generally face problems in leadership roles where they have to exercise their authority and bend some so called norms associated with their female status. Our society operates on the myth that “leadership” is a male-normative behavior and “following” is a female-normative behavior. As a result women are trapped in the whirlpool of conflicting ethics. They are criticized to be ruthless and incompassionate if they violate the norms associated with the status of women and are adjudged incompetent if they fail to behave like a leader.

Open the newspaper and it’s flooded with news about sexual harassment against females at work. This disgusting exploitation takes place right from the clerical level till the managerial level of work. The reason for this kind of violence is nothing but the patriarchal values and dominating attitudes of men. They are aimed at reminding females of their vulnerability and subjugated status in every field if life.

The prevailing methodology of discriminating against females on the basis of gender has a substantial effect on their work. If we want a woman to contribute towards development in an equal and healthy way, we need to discontinue the practice of pulling her down just because she was born as a female and encourage her to add value to the work with her knowledge.

Tags: Boss, Boss's Gender, Gender, Gender Ranks, Office, Official Rank, Software Professional, Women

Do you take your laptop when you go for a holiday with your family? If yes, avoid this habit in your future as it is warned by psychologists that these new age wireless tools are spoiling holidays and can be a reason to ruin family relationships.

“People simply should not take laptops on holiday with them. They are taking their office with them and they just shouldn’t do it,” said Cary Cooper, professor at Lancaster University management school’s department of psychology and health.

Wireless tools are the demand of today’s tech world but the same thing should be used intelligently. These tools are becoming inseparable part of life and a large mass of people take their laptops and wireless internet connections on holidays with them. The psychologist considers the laptops as a hindrance in the holiday. People find it difficult to switch off their laptops and spend most of their hard-found leisure time in working on laptops; news daily quoted a psychologist as saying.

“The rise in mobile phone and Internet technology has already affected our weekends and now it is invading annual holidays. Sensible bosses and workers should insist that holidays are computer free,” he suggested.

Cooper warned the problem as “mushroomed with the spread of wireless hot spots”.

People used to monitor their e-mails during vacations and instead of spending time with family they feel insecure about their jobs and keep stick to their systems for a long time during free hours. All this is possible because of existence of wireless tools. Hence the later can be considered as a hindrance in a relaxing vacation of a family.

“People worry about a backlog and that things will be missed while they are away. They feel a need to be constantly online and checking their emails. This insecurity is endemic to the service-based industries,” said Cooper.

Survey reports also agree with us. According to a survey by IT security company Credant Technologies, almost two-thirds of brokers in London said they were contacting their offices through phone or emails while on vacation. A whopping 83 % admitted to taking their office mobile phone or Blackberry with them while they are away. The survey said that more than a quarter said they check emails daily and 14 % admitted to doing so more than once a day.

“I can understand why people take mobile phones, but they should only be used sparingly, as a ’security blanket’. They should be kept switched off most of the time,” he stated.

According to him, taking work on holidays could deprive people of “much needed rest and recuperation” from demanding jobs and it could also lead to family break-ups.

He also said those who show that they can work for their organization even on holidays are actually cheating themselves. It may lead to exploitation as they are showing that they are available for the organization 24*7.

People should understand the needs of their family and should remember that a vacation is not just a resting time but to attach more closely with the family and your kids. Work should be done honestly but do not make it over to avoid your family.

Tags: backlog, E-mail, Family, Future, Health, Holiday, Internet, Internet Technology, IT, IT Security, Laptop, Mobile Phone, Office, People, Systems, Technology, Wireless Technology

Today is a highly competitive world which demands hard work in right direction. Amid this pressure spending long hours at office become a usual norm. Late hour working is become a trend now-a-days. People are getting workaholic to survive in the competitive area of their field. They become so habitual of working that they soon get a tendency to work late. But these continuous long working hours are stressing our daily routine and giving a negative impact on our health also.

Working on computers and laptops till long hours can be seen in any office. Reasons for working late hours are different for different people. Most of the people stay at office to finish their work, meeting deadlines. Others are bound to late working hours because of different time zones and immediacy. Some of the guys work till late to impress their boss and make their image of a sincere and har worker employee.

However, there is a necessity to work in late hours in some organizations where effort and dedication from its employees is needed to devote extra working hours to reach the target. No matter what position the employee hold, they have to work in late hours.

Long working hours are giving a serious blow to our life and health. The impact cannot be ignored. Due to overwork, people got stuck to office and his/her work only and his personal life becomes squeezed out of the routine. No quality time for friends and family. Employee get cut off from the outer world and the brain is only occupied with work, work and work.

Major impact is on our health as late working hour’s gives stress and tension leaving people with so many problems like insomnia and loss of appetite. Rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disorders were also reported to be higher in over-night workers. Many of them also experience BOSS, burn–out stress syndrome. These problems gives rise to many other diseases like ulcers and anxiety disorders leading to heart attacks, kidney disease and dementia. Stress is the major problem of late working hour which attracts other problems. It not only disturbs the normal functioning of body but may lead to unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking leading to a complete deterioration of physical as well as moral part of an individual.

Employees are the backbone of any organization. If the employee is unhealthy, this will definitely affect the concerned company and the organization. Late working hours provide work to the company but a stressed and tired employee can’t to his/her best. He/She will reduce efficiency of working and the employees’ productivity level soon drops when they are tired and overworked. This may lead to staff resignation, retention and recruitment problems. Employee must be healthy to work and give a positive output for the company.

Working in late hours can lead to mis-happenings also. Specifically, workers on the night shift have a 20 percent greater chance of being involved in a severe accident and make five times the “serious” mistakes that their daytime counterparts make.

Work gives money to live a better life but if the same work is making our life worse than what is the need of hard work?

I am not saying that you stop working and start enjoying life all the time but don’t you think there should be a proper balance between work and for other activities? Just give a little time to yourself and your family also. Take care of your health by practicing morning exercise and Yoga to relax your mind and to get rid of stress. This will take hardly half hour but will give a full day energy and relaxation.

Increase your efficiency by timely lunch and dinner. Energetic mind will complete your work faster. Increase productivity by paperless technologies.

These small but super tips may help you and you will then enjoy your working and can avoid late working hours also. Happy working!

Tags: Employee, habit, Health, Job, late hour working, Lifestyle, Money, Office, work, working

Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 with a dream to provide an edge to micro computing, Microsoft has been the greatest success stories of all times.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen studied together in Lakeside Prep School. Gates and Allen approached the manufacturer of Altair 8000, a small computer, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) to launch a programming language for the computer. The interpreter worked at the demonstration and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC.

With a huge potential in the software industry that time, Gates and Allen formed their own firm called Microsoft (microcomputers + software) in Albuquerque which became a registered trademark in 1975 itself.

Microsoft’s success turned into a thunderstorm after the development of MS DOS (The Disk Operating System), the most popular and the most widely used machine independent operating system developed during those times. It was a technical breakthrough. With IBM joining hands with Microsoft in 1980, to distribute this operating system with their machine, Microsoft was bound to gain immense popularity in the world market.

Besides this Microsoft gave itself a new look in 1986 by changing its name to Microsoft Inc. with Bill Gates being the president and Paul being the Executive vice president of the company. After a successful entry into the operating systems market, Microsoft started developing office products such as spreadsheets, word processors, database processors and their own versions of open source languages and software’s to be sold in the market.

In 1989 Microsoft developed its own office software package called Microsoft Office which had all the above features. In 1990, Microsoft created the world’s first graphical user interface based operating system called Microsoft Windows for micro computing devices. Microsoft Windows took over the whole software industry by selling millions of its copies in the world market days after its release. With different versions of windows released in the coming years, this operating system became a necessity for every computer user.

Microsoft today has more than 78,000 employees, spread across 105 countries and has revenues of $51.12 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2007. From July 2008, Gates will hand over the entire responsibility of running the software giant with one of the world’s most aggressive CEO’s, Steve Ballmer.

Although Microsoft has been a really successful software story, it is criticized by loads of open source developers for its commercial policies. One of them wrote about Microsoft that:

“If it was not for him, Computers would have been cheaper and accessible for everyone. The greed that he started has been picked up by all in the software industry. Imagine paying UK one cent for every alphabet you use when you write in English. Yes that’s the atrocity of this person in the name of intellectual property (which also was purchased).

When you buy software you should have all the right to use it the way you want, the number of times you want and to share it with your friends or anyone anytime you want - just like when you buy a car. Imagine buying a car from Maruti and signing an agreement which does not allow you to have someone else drive the car, open the hood if something goes wrong, buy petrol only from Maruti and every 3 years you have to buy a new version.”

This is fairly justified on his part. And thus one can conclude that although Microsoft has been the most successful firms of all times, it has made software users its slave as one cannot do without its latest products once a person starts following this company from the start.

Tags: Basic, Bill Gates, Dos, Microsoft, MS Office, Office, Paul Allen, Window