BOREDOM: THE INVISIBLE CAUSE OF RISING ATTRITION

They deliver on the job, but many employees are just going through the motions with one eye on the exits

- Devina Sengupta

After enduring New Delhi's extreme temperatures and lung-killing pollution for two years, the 27-year-old IT engineer took a transfer to his employer's office in Bengaluru. It was meant to be a new beginning amid pleasant weather, easygoing people and pubs aplenty.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite turn out that way. Perhaps it was the city's infamous traffic jams, or the way it alternated between water shortages and floods. Or perhaps it was something else altogether. But instead of letting his hair down and making the most of all that life in Bengaluru offered, the engineer, a high performer, slunk off at the end of the day to the accommodations where he lived as a paying guest.

Once back in his room, he would lock himself away, pull out his laptop and spend three hours watching video clips one after another. Not the ones that some Indians derive vicarious pleasure from, featuring a bunch of strangers cooped up in a house for months, viciously attacking each other. Or clips of standup comics lampooning life, or replays of India's cricketers outdoing their rivals on the field.

Instead, just as surely as night follows day, it was videos on adult sites that grabbed him by the eyeballs and short hairs every evening. Rather than spending time in the real world, he would immerse himself in these marathon pornography-watching sessions, with all else ceasing to exist. He was an addict looking for a fix. But no amount of ogling at performers having sex in all kinds of ways would sate him. It was akin to eating through a giant bag of potato chips, seeking to hit the spot with that one elusive chip but failing to do so, only to reach for the next one, hoping it would get him there.

Soon, things literally began to get out of hand.