Work Dynamics V.S. Life’s Dynamics
I couldn’t believe that I could cope up with this sort of a work pressure again… but I had to. I bid leave from the corporate sector and its big pay scale for this reason alone. But it came back to me – yet again! Too many one-to-one and exclusive sessions, correspondence, workshops, interviews, screening, short listing, negotiations, roll backs, re-strategizing and yea counseling…. I was multi- multi- tasking. Sweating it out on and off location, burning my mid night oil, reading thru document even while riding the public transport on my way to and back from work. Working, strategizing and battling it out on too many fronts. Battling it out with goof ups and glitches of the system. People make the system; and people can mess up and be really messed up as well. Messing up is ok with me, we all make errors, blunders etc …occasionally…but there is nothing one can do, if the person is messed up. It’s an illness. While conducting the induction interviews up till now, I came across a bevy of interesting people; my juniors from the varsity, my own teachers, a possibility to even interview my ex boss [the role reversal within a matter of few years was freaky]. Those who talked too much, those who talked too little, those who tried very hard to make an impression, and in the end failed miserably. I am not that good a judge of people. I go by instinct….it fails me sometimes….the rest of the times, it works ok. But how can you make your instinct and your gut feeling a criterion? One that is justifiable to others? That has always beaten me. Anyways. How would you feel if you put enough faith in a person, faith enough to bring him on board, to give him a chance, a chance for him to gain experience as well as good money? You spend time with him (one that you couldn’t afford, time that no one spent with you when you needed it), walk him through procedures, and attempt to put everything in black and white, increase payment rate, when you could have easily held back and saved more. The person commits and then disappears on you at the last minute and you learn through an informal source that the guy plans to “sit at home and sulk” [his exact word] rather than honoring any professional commitment. His reason for sulking? A few disappointments in his regular work place (ours was a part-time freelance arrangement). Understandable to some extent but not justifiable! He didn’t have the guts to tell me this; he never came around to do so! He just vanished, although he knows very well that he is bound to bump into me sooner or later at some other professional forum. It’s sad, it’s pathetic! It reflects the sad truth about what life itself. A commitment is a thing, one can break veryy easily. Sometimes the gravity of our disappointments even more intense and yet no matter what, one has to make it to work, make it to life every day, fulfill your responsibilities, meet your deadlines and its not a matter of work only. It’s life itself. Work dynamics are very much like life’s: chaos, passion, energy, ebb and flow of power, setbacks, break downs, small ululations, dead ends, windfalls, bickering, gossiping, bitterness, lovability, goofiness, rebounds, retreats and what not. I am sure the list goes on and on. Just like life itself, no matter how tough it gets…it goes on, You decide to go on, in spite and despite of all odds. No! No bravados here…This is all one’s got! There is no other option. When I came to that crunch point in my life, I thought that was It! I couldn’t go on. Yet Work helped me to plod on with my sanity wrapped around my wounded soul like tattered rags – but with dignity. Work has been the drug I feed on, it sharpens my dull senses, it keeps me alive, it lends and at times takes away the structure to my life. I have been called a workaholic by those who couldn’t cope up with my single mindedness, my silent and furtive tendency to tread thru work. I wonder why it’s a wonder to everyone else. Sometimes in the stillness of night when u wake up, there is nothing there…nothing to look forward to in my life….besides waking up the next morning and going to work, making to it. It doesn’t matter if the heart breaks, the soul gets crushed or maimed, or the mortal bones creak and crumble….life goes on. Amidst this whole drama of interviewing people, lied the question of my own yearly evaluation. I got a merely “Good” grade and not the “excellent” one. Something my boss couldn’t justify, because there weren’t any unhonoured commitments, failed or messed up tasks. I didn’t press her further, it hurted very very much! I couldn’t change her perceptions and I would never beg for anything that I deserve. My work is my life, I work for life, to be alive. This is my last resort. Despite the disappointment, I carried out my usual activities, survived the pressures, covered up the higher up’s glitches by doing the ‘damage control’ for them, accommodating where I could, taking a stand where I could. And then I get the call from the HR one fine morning…: “errrr good news! Someone messed up in calculating your scores. You have an “excellent”, it has always been an excellent!” Sure I was happy, but I am amused on my own boss’s lack of justification or opinion or even the lack of ability to smell a rat even, even if it was the HR who messed up. And I recall how my subordinates had in the past and have always “opted” to work in my team inspite of my “workaholic ways”. It is for the simple reason that I acknowledge their efforts on personal levels, and I never forget to put in a gud word for them at the appropriate forums. No matter how crazy work gets, I send in a one-liner thank you note to the person. It’s all a matter of acknowledgment and gratitude as well. But all positive feeling sometimes boil over.
Today I had a melt down with one of my coworkers, while the other one looked on. Since my presentation a day earlier went better than hers, she was feeling insecure and tried to butt in with irrelevant question during the course of the presentation. I let go of that! I understand how she wanted to be the center of attention always. I have been putting up with her loud and incessant chattering at all hours. But today she tried to butt in my area, my domain with her usual idealistic mish mash, regarding how I should make a radical and revolutionary work structure and dictate it to the higher ups. I held on, but when her insistence begins to eat thru my already over worked nerves, I snapped and told her that “I would rather spend my energies on things that have a tendency of working out, working within the system rather than outside it, achieve my deadline, let results speak my point and speak for themselves rather than waste my time in making idealistic structures that just don’t hold. Top down approach is the reality for now! I work aggressively yet very silently and privately!” Her eyes grew bigger and bigger and then she finally shut up. Later on our third coworker who witnessed this ‘pressure cooker letting out the steam moment’ told me that it was the kind of tone that she heard me speaking the very first time in a year. But then the shut up call was much needed. It’s simple. People need to be put back into the limits. My cordialness and soft tone should be seen as an invitation for all and sundry to barge in. I would be the team leader if the need be, I would be work as a team member, a subordinate as far as collaborative projects go, but if somebody dare tries to interfere in my domain, I would take them apart and tear them down piecemeal. Period!
