"I am burnt out." These three simple words, posted recently on Reddit by an Indian employee, carry a heavy weight. The writer lists their reasons with careful detail, almost apologetically. They have a stable job, a good paycheck, and trust from their organisation. Yet, they confess, "I'm losing my life to the long working hours, daily travels that take 3-4 hours due to traffic, office politics, high customer demands."
The Exhaustion Behind the Words
There is no visible rage in this post. Only a deep, palpable exhaustion. The employee makes a telling request to the online community: "Bring me back to reality. Be my big sister or brother who's been here too." This plea highlights a crucial shift. The core question is no longer whether work is hard. It is whether extreme depletion has become the standard cost of staying employed, ambitious, and respectable within India's white-collar economy.
A Familiar Pattern of Depletion
The employee describes a routine many will recognise. Home has become merely a place for sleep. Days revolve entirely around the commute. Time for family, hobbies, and exercise has slipped away completely. "I've lost time for my family, for my hobbies, for exercise. It's been really soul-crushing," they write.
Perhaps more unsettling for organisations is what comes next. The employee, once a top performer, has dialled back. "I've always been considered a top talent because I deliver, but lately I've just been doing the bare minimum." This is not simple laziness. It mirrors a withdrawal from a system that no longer feels reciprocal or sustainable.
The Dream of a 'Soft Life'
The life this employee imagines is not one of idleness. "I still want structure, stability, and boundaries," they clarify. "Just ones I have more control over." They dream of slow mornings, a proper breakfast, time with pets, and the ability to pause when their body demands rest. Their vision of a "soft life" is, upon closer inspection, a life with clear, healthy boundaries.
This tension between gratitude for a job and the reality of depletion sits at the heart of India's current burnout debate. Employees are constantly reminded to be thankful for stability in an uncertain economy. Employers champion resilience and growth. Yet, the personal cost of maintaining this balance is glaringly obvious in endless commutes, the expectation of constant connectivity, and a workday that never truly ends.
A 'Pressure Cooker' Environment
Even industry leaders acknowledge the problem. Zoho CEO and co-founder Sridhar Vembu recently described the modern work environment as a "pressure cooker." In an interview, he pointed directly to burnout, loneliness after migrating to big cities, long commutes, and stressful conditions as forces pushing people to their absolute limits. He warned that companies pushing workers "very hard" may not sustain that pace forever.
The striking fact is not that burnout exists. It always has. What has changed is how normalised it has become, especially among those who are supposedly doing everything right—educated, employed, valued, and utterly exhausted.
When Burnout Becomes Systemic
Management research consistently shows burnout is not solely an individual issue. It flourishes when work conditions chronically exceed a person's capacity to cope. Key factors include excessive workloads, low autonomy, poor support, unclear expectations, and stressed leaders passing pressure down the chain. In such settings, exhaustion predictably leads to cynicism and a feeling of ineffectiveness.
The Reddit post describes this exact progression. The employee still functions and shows up, but their sense of purpose has faded. "I don't have lofty dreams of climbing the corporate ladder anymore," they admit. "I want out of this rat race."
The 'Right to Disconnect' Enters the Fray
This sentiment is not a rejection of work itself. It is a rejection of a specific bargain—one where salary and benefits are considered fair exchange for time, energy, and emotional availability that spill far beyond official office hours.
This bargain is now facing political scrutiny. Recently, Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule introduced a private member's proposal called the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025. The bill seeks to grant employees the legal right to ignore work communications outside official hours and on holidays. Employers violating this boundary could face penalties.
The proposal acknowledges a widespread reality. Digital tools have blurred the lines of the workday. Messages ping late at night, calls come early in the morning, and constant availability is often seen as a sign of commitment. The bill argues this relentless connectivity contributes directly to sleep loss, emotional fatigue, and cognitive overload.
While private member's bills rarely become law, they often highlight pressures that are already pervasive. The debate is not just about emails and calls. It asks a deeper question: has the simple ability to disconnect become a privilege, rather than a fundamental right?
Seeking an Exit Without a Clear Path
For the employee on Reddit, this lack of boundary is part of a larger erosion. They dream of remote work, freelancing, or digital roles offering "freedom of time." Simultaneously, they acknowledge real-world constraints—a family to support, no room for risky leaps. "I know the grass isn't always greener," they write with sober realism.
This practicality complicates the narrative. Here, burnout is not a dramatic, sudden collapse. It is a slow, careful narrowing of life, managed diligently so that nothing shatters all at once.
When Personal Strategies Are Not Enough
Organisational research indicates a point where burnout surpasses individual solutions. Exercise, meditation, and better time management help, but only to a limit. When core job demands remain excessive and unchanging, the cost is merely deferred, not eliminated.
The employee's post reads like someone nearing that limit and pausing to ask if continuing makes sense. Not just for themselves, but as a model for what success should look like.
India's corporate growth story has long celebrated sheer endurance. Long hours signal ambition, gruelling commutes are accepted as inevitable, and exhaustion is framed as a temporary phase to power through. Those who step away are often labelled as having "opted out."
Redefining Success
As more employees voice this deep unease, the framework is beginning to shift. Burnout starts to look less like a personal failing and more like a critical design flaw in how we work.
If companies and organisations rely on sustained overexertion, they may achieve short-term gains while eroding their own long-term foundation. High staff turnover, widespread disengagement, and declining creativity are not individual failures. They are direct outcomes of a flawed system.
The uncertainty expressed by employees may be the most honest part of this story. Many are not seeking an escape from work altogether. They are searching for proof that a professional life can coexist with a personal life, rather than relentlessly consuming it.
The pressing question for Indian workplaces is no longer whether burnout exists. We know it does. The question is whether we have quietly accepted it as normal. And if so, we must all ask: what kind of success are we really building on this exhausted foundation?
