The Great Bombay Summer has come early this year and has had the whole city panting. And not just that, but the brutality of it is has been felling down even the strongest.
There’s been no respite even in the mornings and evenings. So, for the average office goer, who does at least an hour-long commute to and fro home, this may spell decreasing productivity. Lately I have noticed this in the training room. People are more restless and seem exhausted in the morning too. If they have to commute back from one of those overcrowded railway stations like Kurla and Dadar and the connecting transport is unreliable, the restlessness is even more. They are ready to compromise on the breaks if you could just leave them a bit early so that they can dodge the rush-hour madness.
So what can be done to counter this downer? May be employers can offer efficient transport, at least connections to railway stations, if not all the way home. May be people can work longer hours and take an extra day off instead of coming for half-days on Saturdays. May be offices can give air conditioners as Diwali gifts.
Interestingly, summer lowers productivity in other parts of the world too, though for different reasons sometimes. I learnt this when I was on a scholarship many years back in England. I was interning in a large corporation. Around mid-morning, I happen to look around and notice that there was almost no one in his or her seat. A girl was asking her boss if he had any work for her or could she step out for a couple of hours and he generously said she could take the afternoon off. I asked a colleague to explain what was happening. He told me that it was, after all, summer. After a cold winter the spring had brought a promise of better times. And then suddenly it was summer and the sun was shining. And everyone who wasn’t in his seat that morning, I discovered, was actually outside, in one of the two pubs just down the road, standing and drinking beer and sunning himself. I went back after lunch and found the office as empty. It stayed that way on every sunny day of the few weeks that I worked there.
