Smart Work Has It’s Place,But There Is No Substitute For Hard Work.

” I can’t bear to think of working on Sundays.”

-This from a guy in his thirties, who has been an employee all his life and is only now thinking of setting up his own consultancy business.

Called me up on a Sunday and found me at work on a new launch. He wanted my help to arrange a loan.

So what was he proposing to do?

Hire a place and an employee and set-up in business.

Oh and he’d like my help in understanding cash management as his is a business that involves credit and his having to give 60-90 days payment terms to customers and having to pay very “competitive” salaries to employees.

And oh he doesn’t believe in working hard. He’s going to be the boss and take it easy and get his employees to work.

I’m thinking that living the start-up life will first teach him his limits.

“So jao. Itna tension kya lete ho !”

-This from a young man who is well educated but has never been able to make a living. A young man with a terrible attitude and sense of entitlement who tried to whine his way into a job in one of my businesses, even though he could prove no competence at anything of interest to me. A young man who sulkily settled for an internship of 4 months, where he was to pick-up marketable skills and demonstrate a willingness to learn on the job, but then proceeded to play hooky, refuse to substitute his ways for the better skills I was trying to teach him and lie to me about the quantum of his efforts and claim the results of my work as his contributions! Never mind that I have a system in place to track every person’s output.

If the boss puts in the hours, obviously the intern can’t get too far whining about long hours !

Smart work is crucial to success but hard work is inevitable. But find something you love doing and what others find brutal hard work and long hours becomes interesting play.