UK magazine COO
Amidst the ongoing debate over long working hours week and work-life balance, a UK magazine COO – Parminder Singh – recollected how his Indian boss once rejected a “capable” marketing candidate only because he played the guitar and ran marathons, reported Moneycontrol.
Singh further stated that the candidate was rejected because his hobbies made him unsuitable for the job.
Taking to X, Singh wrote, “Once a candidate applied to my team for a marketing role in India. Besides being a capable marketer, his CV mentioned that he runs marathons and plays guitar. My boss didn’t let me hire him, saying, ‘Yeh aadmi yeh sab kuchh karta hai to kaam kab karega (This man does all this so when will he work)?’ I thought such managers were extinct. Turns out they aren’t.”
Singh also regretted not being able to hire the candidate.
“I couldn’t hire him, and I regret it,” he wrote in a separate post.
“This happened many years ago. I’ve been away from India and assumed things would have changed, but it looks like they haven’t. Compare this to my time at Google, which had an unwritten policy: if you excelled in the Olympics, you could walk into a Google office and get a job. Excellence is a transferable skill!” he concluded.
Before joining British magazine Tatler Asia, Singh worked with Google for over six years as a managing director for Google’s advertising business in the Asia Pacific region, followed by managing director for X (then Twitter) for three years.
SN Subrahmanyan’s comments on ’90-hours work week:
Recently, during an internal interaction, L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan suggested employees should work 90 hours a week and even on Sundays to stay competitive.
Following the video surfaced on Reddit, it sparked widespread criticism and he was compared with Infosys founder Narayana Murthy.
In the video, Subrahmanyan was responding to an employee’s question on L&T mandated working on Saturdays, to which he responded, “I regret I am not able to make you work on Sundays, to be honest. If I can make you work on Sundays, I will be more happy because I work on Sundays also.”
He had added, “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wives stare at their husbands? Get to the office and start working.”
Later, L&T spokesperson clarified Subrahmanyan comment and said, “At L&T, nation-building is at the core of our mandate. For over eight decades, we have been shaping India’s infrastructure, industries, and technological capabilities. We believe this is India’s decade, a time demanding collective dedication and effort to drive progress and realize our shared vision of becoming a developed nation. The chairman’s remarks reflect this larger ambition, emphasizing that extraordinary outcomes require extraordinary effort. At L&T, we remain committed to fostering a culture where passion, purpose, and performance drive us forward.”
The comments by Subrahmanyan has been criticised by several CEOs, filmstars and influencers.