I recently saw a prestigious consulting firm’s post on LinkedIn about ‘sleep deprivation’ becoming a huge crisis, and how the ‘sleep-tech’ industry is coming to our rescue.
Really? On reading it, I felt like irony died a (sleep-deprived) death.
I have never been as sleep-deprived as when I was a consultant – not even as a cop! And when I did late nights in the police, it was often because people’s lives were in danger.
But post-MBA jobs are different. And I don’t know of any job as sleep-depriving as consulting, except probably investment banking.
Then why are we are looking for ‘sleep-tech’? Because it is hard to address the real problem – our culture of equating ‘late night work’ with hard work and commitment.
Mind you, I am not bashing consulting – I hold top-tier consulting firms in the highest regard. And I have met some of the finest people I know at the consulting firm I worked for.
But if you care about sleep deprivation, sleep-tech is not the answer.
The real answer is to stop glorifying late nights, reserving them only for crises. People should go home for dinner and sleep on time.
Come on – most of us are not running the police, fire force, or hospitals! We don’t even know what a real emergency is. Most of our crises are self-made, in our heads.
When we have real crises, I am all for whatever it takes, including late nights. Until then, let us sleep on time.
Then, and only then, do we need to look at sleep-tech.
– Rajan