Top 5 reasons why NOT to be a CEO

• Suit Up: To wear a suit for a meeting at a place with scorching 30 degrees temperature can be very excruciating. Imagine the Nile and Amazon flowing from the underarms. One can argue that if you are a CEO you will always have the luxury of an air conditioned room. It might not be the case all the time. Maybe you are at a small airport waiting for your flight without any fancy business class lounge. Even if it is not about the sweat, suits are so uncomfortable that it seems like a small kit for playing American football especially along the shoulders.

• Travel: It can be fun but maybe not when you have to fly somewhere every week to attend meetings. The fun of traveling dies after a couple of years unless you are Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) from Up in the Air. The artificial air at airports, the hotel rooms with a different mattress every time, the packaged food can all get nauseating after a while.

• Paparazzi: Of course, being a CEO can make your pictures appear on the front page of business magazines but at the same time one make himself prey to the information hungry journalists. It can be like 24-hour surveillance. One wrong move either in professional or personal life could prove damaging for the future. What kind of publicity will the company get if its CEO is caught bulging down Panipuris at Chopati or savoring Chole Bhature in Bengali Market, Delhi or even devouring stuffed Amritsari Naan on a highway!

• Stress: The biggest hurdle can be to maintain the work-life balance. With the constant pressure of delivering on time, keeping up to the expectations of the shareholders, proving better than every other competitor can take its toll on personal life. And imagine doing everything by abiding all the rules and regulations of the trade. Missing the first birthday of one’s kid, not being able to go to that local fest with family, being unavailable for one’s spouse when he/she is sick can prove to be an unfair bargain for being the CEO at times.  

• Saying: Like some people say …. it can get pretty lonely at the top!