My mind

I am not sure if this happens to you, but I tend to visualise things when people speak to me... sometimes only. I remember my boss once saying to me during my review, "this more than a job for you". To which I was horrified.... because I had no clue. I immediately started imagining an ad for the Indian Army and I saw a soldier saluting the flag on top of a rocky hill... with trumpets playing. Recently my boss said, "you are good, you will be ready to hit the floor quickly". This basically means that I have been in the same organization for donkey ages now... so I will need very little training and can start immediately in my new team. To this my mind visualized someone grabbing my neck and banging my head to the floor.

When these visualisations occur, I go silent usually because I am between shock and a trying to control a smile. And then I continue to be silent as I missed my moment to speak and hence remain silent for an eternity. :)

Has this ever happened to you!

Year-end review of God

Firm management: Welcome, please take a seat. I know it's a bit late to do a year-end review, with the new year already, but the firm thought it is a good opportunity to combine the year-end and goal setting for the new year, all together. So lets start with you review shall we.

God: (Smile)

Firm management: So the goal set for you were pretty simple, lets see the first one - change sloth's boss. unfortunately not much progress on that front. It remains the same and if I may add it is getting worse.

God: I am working on it, but it will take sometime for Sloth, you see I am trying to get a permanent solution.

Firm management: That brings us to your second goal, speeding-up completion of projects. God you take too long to make any significant progress. This is a fast paced industry and our clients really dont have much patients.

God: I am trying, but it takes so long for Sloth to get the picture, doesnt matter how many bumps I put there, she doesnt seem to take the right path.

Firm management: This brings us to your third goal, communication. You and Sloth seem to have trouble communicating. You need to be crisp and to the point, you cant keep beating around the bush. This industry is all about getting information and analysis out there in the most clear and precise manner. Our clients have a very short attention span.

God: I need to tell her all the points, she needs to know all her options, before the right one comes her way. Hence I find it hard to be brief and precise, you see God is in the details (smile). I do admit a few mistakes get made in-between but there is a point behind each one of them.

Firm management: This brings us back to your final goal, reducing the number of mistakes. You see we need to stop making mistakes. In this industry there is a very low tolerance for mistakes.

God: But with each mistake, Sloth learns something, otherwise it will be a very long and uneventful life. Plus I always make new ones.

Firm management: yes we know and we need to work on that too!

(Pause for dramatic impact)

Firm management: Let us formulate new goals for you, for 2012.
First: Change Sloth's boss
Second: Let's work on being more efficient on completion of projects, maybe you could improve your communication, lets say instead of sending bad gut feeling before something goes bad, let it not happen. And if you feel Sloth is taking the wrong decision, maybe you could put a billboard up and say "WRONG".
Third: The finish product needs to be client ready, we cant keep double checking everything you do. So maybe you could try to get it right the first time.

God: I will try, I am working very hard, its a process you know. Each time you learn something new and come up with a inbuilt prevention mechanism. And it is important to know what is around the bush, so finally when you find your spot you know its your spot.

Firm management: God this explanation will not fly with any organisation and Sloth is not a person who will let this situation drag on.

God: I will try to work on it. (Gulp)

Funny God's review sounded so much like mine, looks like I am not the only one with a bad boss. Maybe we should give him a chance, as we all expect one. I realize this is a confusing post so wanted to add a clarification - God's boss is me and Firm management is just intermediating and transferring my feedback to God. 

A lesson for future bosses

I didn't write current bosses, because I think they are beyond help, so I focus on the people who can be reformed. Sometime from now all of you current slaves will get the privilege of having a slave all to yourself. When that moment comes I want you to remember the following:

Lesson 1> If something makes you angry, don't let it rip all the time. Sometimes it’s needed and helps, but if you consistently blow someone up, what will happen is either your one and only slave runs away or grows extra layers of skin. In both cases your dead, so what’s the point.

Lesson 2> If you have made a mistake, accept it. You will grow in importance in the eyes of your slave. Don't go blame it on someone else, that will just make you ordinary and most importantly, your slave will lose respect for you. That is dangerous because when that happens all your future firings will have no impact on your slave, as he or she will think you are nuts!

Lesson 3> Build someone up. It’s easy to break someone down, easy to keep pointing mistakes, but its hell of a lot tougher to find something good in a job not well done. But it’s important to find that positive otherwise the person will not be receptive to the negative you are pointing out. It’s important to develop that person, to mentor not torment. What is the use if you make someone feel lousy, break them down, all that will happen is they just won’t care anymore.

Lesson 4> Communicate. If you think this just applies to family then you are an idiot. It applies to anyone you have to work with or / and live with. You need to give feedback on the work done, otherwise your slave will feel he or she is sending emails to a black hole. It’s important to let someone know their work is being read and where is it being used.

Lesson 5> Feedback. Always give feedback on work done; your slave will feel you are trying your best to improve them. If you find room for improvement, point it out otherwise it will remain room for improvement. But if you find something well done it’s equally important to point it out. The number one reason why people find it difficult to stick to their weight loss plans is because the results take time to show, so you have to stick it out till you reach that point where you start losing weight and after that you are hooked. Same thing for work life, you need to give negative + positive feedback, otherwise the slave will give up.

Lesson 6> Learn to read what type of person you are working with. If after working for donkeys’ years you still can’t judge a person then really, what is wrong with you? It’s easy to figure out what type of person you are working with. If it’s a shirker, then he or she will shirk work simple, if it’s a hard worker he or she will work hard. Each needs to be treated differently, the shirker with a pinch of suspicion so that they know you’re watching them, the hard worker with trust. If you treat them equally - either both with a pinch of suspicion then the hard worker will hate you or both with trust, then the shirker will take you for a ride.

If this post has reformed any current slave, even one I will be very grateful, because then there will be one less future boss tormenting one less future slave.

Saying no to the carrot

When the logical next step of you present state of misery is moving ahead - getting to a better place, a higher pay, more future. But then you think do I want this, wasn't I looking to find something I love to do, rather than looking for things that people generally look for when they are forced to do things they don't love. Why is it that I cant do my work properly, why I don't dig deeper, why I give-up so easily. Why is it easy for me to say no thank you to the carrot and stay with the rotten apple. Maybe its easy to maintain status quo, easy to do nothing. But then I find it difficult to push myself towards something I am not convinced about. I wish I had thought about my future, where is it headed, before I started walking towards it. This whole, it all adds up in the end, is too risky and you have to grow old before you find out this strategy worked. There are many people whose life doesn't add up, they remain disjoint pieces, good and bad moments. Nothing falls into place, you just end up with these random experiences. In my case the one experience which is adding up is living alone, I needed to go through it to realise I cant live alone. The office experience I guess I realise I am done, but then now what?

Work life

Work Life is all about being at the right time and place. About pushing yourself, being aggressive and putting yourself out there without any fear. But I don't think I could rise to that, I tend to keep my mouth shut. If someone important is coming to office people push themselves, they tell their bosses what about me, what about my future. I didn't push nor ask, I guess as a result I didn't go anywhere. Even artists need to market their work, not just be lost in their creative worlds, for normal people like me this is even more true. Everyone keeps saying you must market yourself, get a soundbite in. My first boss told me on my last day - "There are some people who undersell themselves, they don't rise and frankly you are one of them". Doesn't matter what happens today, if I make a fool of myself or not, I will always be grateful for my family. I have got one of the best and I didn't even have to try too hard. They just came or I just came would be more accurate.

Boxed in!

This is how a day in my weekday looks like:

I saw that green sign in the corridor - "Exit", and next to the word there is a green man running towards the door.
Its all I could see .... Exit
Conversation running in my mind when i comeback to my desk which is in a box and stare into my comp which is a box..
"What am I doing"
"Where am I going"

I sit in a box, look at one 12 hours a day and then go home to a box.
My mind is in a box, locked up somewhere and someone threw away the keys.
How am I investing 12 hours a day into something that is sucking my mind out.
Welcome to my mind - on edge, almost dead and completely tired!

Car trouble

There is this car that is going down hill, it knows that there is a huge gap up ahead. The car can feel the road caving into it. The car tries to slow down, it hits the hand breaks but no use the hill is covered with ice so it’s too slippery. The road is thin with no sidebars, so the car has to be careful when it breaks or it will fall off the hill just to avoid the gap. What does the car do. Jump the gap on prayer and a revved up engine.
So what does it take to jump the gap –
Special fuel aka a miracle > well there is no gas station nearby and the breaks don’t work.
Incredible driving skills aka good judgment > this seems to be the only option.
Jumping the gap would mean that speed needs to be increased which in turn would imply that the car would approach the gap faster. The faster the car goes, lesser is the margin of error. The car needs some kind of ramp so it jumps up. A slight elevation, medium elevation or just plain huge. So the following are the options:
Slight elevation aka driving into another similar job.
Medium elevation aka an MBA and drive into another similar job but big brand name and bigger salary.
Simply huge aka drive into a very different job, pay might be half and lets not talk about the brand name.
On the other hand if the car does nothing it will fall in the gap anyhow.