Housekeeping in my office works more than me and gets paid less and is valued less!

I have been observing my office housekeeping since many days and I realized that they work more than me, more number of days and have no value at all!

My office is not very big in size, so we have just two housekeeping members, one lady and one man. Both of them do not know Hindi, they speak Telugu. Lady must be between 40-45 age and man must be around 30-35. When I come to office the lady says “Namaste” to me and on my reply the same way, she feels good and gives a pleasant smile. The man says “Good Morning” when I come. They do the same to all who come to office in the morning. Lady doesn’t talk to many since not many reply to her wishes and looks kind of scared among office people. Since I keep talking to them frequently so the lady now has started talking to me freely without hesitation. She asks me if I have had my breakfast/lunch on respective times.

One day when I was taking coffee in pantry, both the housekeeping members were there, then suddenly lady asked me,

“What is your salary?”

I was feeling uncomfortable within myself on being asked this question from the lady since I knew that my salary would be 10-15 times more than what they are getting and if I tell them my exact salary right away then they might feel low or might start considering me very high or might feel uncomfortable to talk to me next time, so to make the situation lighter I asked them another question without myself answering theirs,

“When do you come to office? And when do you leave?”

She said, “I come by 7:30 and go back by 7 or 8 in the evening”.

“How much do they pay you?” I asked

She said, “I get 3 thousand and this man gets 4.5 thousand”.

I was shocked! It was less than my expectations.

They work for around 12-13 hours a day and that also 6 days a week and get paid just 3-4 thousand!

I work for 8 hours a day and 5 days a week and get paid 10-15 times more than them!

Their work involves a lot of physical work also and in my work I just in front of a computer do some coding.

I asked them to which places they belong, they named a few villages in Andhra. I asked them then why did they come to Hyderabad, they said, for job and their kids do not want to do work in villages. In their jobs they have a lot of insecurity too. I remember the time when our last office boy was expelled from the office without mentioning any reason.

It was not the first time when I was seeing all this. This happens daily and everywhere around us.

After reading what I have written probably most of us would think, “What’s wrong in it? This is how things happen; intellect is paid and valued more than physical labor”. This is the kind of system we live in. This is a servant owner system. If I do not own any natural resource then I am a servant of one or the other. Whatever thing is assumed to be “valuable” in the system, people in production of those things are “valued” and they earn a lot and others are exploited. Now those who are being exploited want to become like those who are exploiting. In this system I can make production in my house continuous only when my kid is also servant or owner of something in the market and is able to earn money and is ready to feed me when I am old. Since in this system there are a lot of insecurities involved so to get rid of those insecurities I am bound to accumulate, continuously and more and more accumulation, which causes many other problems of production and distribution. Now the question which comes is why the thing which is “valued” in the system is “valued”? The stuff which I produce (i.e. Software in my case) is valued in the market and I am earning. Who is the market? Who is creating the market? I am the market and I am creating it. I am making those things valuable in the market which I am making myself and others to produce them for me.

This is really a very big issue and I just mentioned a microscopic glimpse of it. A bigger picture of it can be found at following link

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

It is the missing purpose in every aspect of our life which makes those things valuable in the system which do not have any value really. And if we ask ourselves if we are happy with the system we are living in? If we feel secure in the system we are living in? If we are able to ensure continuous happiness for ourselves in the system we are living in? Then answer comes as NO!

If I myself am not able to make me happy in the system I created then I need to recheck what am I doing? Where am I going? Is there any direction or it has no direction?

Ultimately the question comes what is the root cause of all this which is happening? And the answer comes that root cause is Understanding. It is the understanding which can make the purpose of life clear, it is the understanding which can make purpose of everything clear, it is the understanding which makes a person self-organized, it is the understanding which develops absolute self confidence in every individual, it is the understanding which makes relationships stronger which ultimately leads to prosperity in every family, it is the understanding which can thus bring fearlessness in the society and peaceful co-existence in nature. This all starts with understanding at the level of individual, because individual is the basic entity of world, nation, state, society, family.