A corporate employee with experience working in three unicorn startups across several cities shared his frustration on Reddit. He highlighted the commonness of using Hindi as the default workplace language even in multilingual teams. ‘’Imagine walking into a meeting where it begins with a simple ‘How’s your day?’ in English and within minutes, the whole discussion turns to rapid fire Hindi,’’ the post stated. This linguistic shift can create an exclusive environment, particularly for those who belong to South India, the Northeast, or other non-Hindi-speaking regions.
Unofficial network zones
Beyond meetings, this cultural divide carries forward to informal settings like in Slack conversations, lunch breaks, office banter where inside jokes are shared further excluding those who are unfamiliar with the language. While unintended, these factors determine ‘’culture fit’’ and decide on professional growth and promotions.
Another major concern pointed out by the Reddit user was the role of smoking and drinking culture in networking opportunities. In many offices, important discussions related to projects, promotions, and office politics often take place during these smoke breaks or at social gatherings over drinks. Employees who don’t participate often find themselves excluded from these career-defining conversations. ‘’ The tech employee also highlighted, ‘’the office balcony is full of people sharing updates, venting about managers, and building career-defining networks every hour. ‘’ All those who don’t smoke are left out of this discussion.
Similarly, at office parties, employees who are not okay with drinking regularly usually find themselves on the border of the social circle, the Reddit user added in his post. ‘’If you are not drinking, suddenly, you have become the boring one. It’s not about the alcohol- it’s about the conversations and bonds that are built up during the shared drinks.
The viral Reddit post has over 1,200 upvotes with many commenting with similar views and annecdotes.
“I agree with you. Never seen a hindi guy facing same awkward situation in a Kannada majority group. I mostly noticed kannada employees start speaking hindi too make their non kannadiga collegue happier,” a reddit user replied.
‘I’ve noticed this at many places and it’s horrible,’ shared another. ‘It takes a lot of effort to try making a change, especially when the upper management is part of the problem. The entire smoking and drinking to be part of the “culture” is quite problematic honestly.’
