Unlock phase has renewed the spirits of people who were furloughed or forced to take unpaid leaves from office during the lockdown. Though the offices have resumed, many professionals are still facing issues due to their localities being put in containment zones or other restrictions. Kamakshi Choudhary, a 26-year-old MBA from Pune was forced to take unpaid leaves for two months during the lockdown phase. When her FMCG company, that sold consumer goods such as refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines etc, resumed with the 30% worker rule, she was more than just happy to see her name in the email but lost all her hope the very next moment when the police arrived in her society.
She said, “After two whole months of no salary I was finally relieved to receive the mail from my office to join back. It meant that I will start getting my salary back. But, I never even thought that going out of my society would be an issue but when a family of six people were tested COVID positive just one day before my job was to resume, my whole society was locked under the containment zone rule. When I mailed my Team Lead telling about the whole situation, he did show enough sympathy considering I was a woman looking after my old parents, and struggling with a difficult situation but, he was not confident about my job and promotion anymore. And instead he asked another colleague to join in my place. Mine is a sales job; asking someone else to take on my targets can prove to be a death knell for me.
Until now, I was taking everything patiently just to push-up my chances of promotion in the next six to 10 months post lockdown. Where mailing the authority or creating a scene about how it was unfair to not consider me for a promotion just because I was in containment zone seemed logical, I did not want to come off as a rude, adamant, unworthy employee and toss my salary raise or bonus later. But now being in the containment zone is affecting not just my chances of a good promotion but also my job on the whole and it is getting really stressful for me. I will not be given any sales targets and hence will not be earning my commissions either.
I had chosen MBA and wanted the promotion or salary raise just to prove to my father that I am no less than a son or a man. Now with all this mess and a high chance of me losing my job, my father would get an opportunity to get me married off as soon as the condition is safer. All through the lockdown, my father has been showing me different profiles and photos of eligible bachelors, I am just scared that I would lose all my status if I get married before making my own career.
Why does it always happen with women, that we have to prove our self-worth? Why is it that the conditions are never favourable when I get a break-through? This whole situation is getting too much for me to handle. The exhausting savings, the forceful enrollment of the containment zone, the fear of losing all my professional opportunities, the family pressure of marriage is now against my simple wish of making my own life. Is it a crime to wish for something good to happen? This mental stress and anxiety followed by now depressing thoughts is something I want to end, but is it even possible?”