“Here i stand, head in hand, i
turn my face to the wall” so sang the beatles. Almost an year into my first
job, the words echo my feelings to the T. Although the beatles would never have
expected their words to be used in such a context. But then i don’t think the
beatles were made much aware of the complexities of an office life. My feelings
were heightened last week when announcements of a self-appraisal came in the
mail. Suddenly i am being forced to take stock of my hitherto ignored work
life.
The last many months have been
like a wild party nite out. That’s not to say that its been awesomely fun. In
fact, the other way round. In a drunken
binge, one sleep-walks through the night only to ask others the morning-after
“dude, what the hell happened last nite? Did i do something stupid?”. I asked something to that effect of my
colleagues regarding the work that i’ve been supposedly doing all these months.
But apparently, they’ve been busy doing nothing as well so instead i delve into
that existential question with the stationery strewn around me. After almost a
day of contemplating whether to make lofty claims (client satisfaction: ‘saved
client from raging fire in building and terrorist attacks on two separate
occasions. One of them being weekend/national holiday’ or individual
initiatives: ‘instrumental in election of the new world bank chief’) or be
honest (satyamev jayate, anyone?), still cant decide
how to go about it. So i use the oft-abused tool of procrastination (‘lemme
sleep over this’)
I try to rewind the past few
months in order to dig out any possible tangible contribution that i may have
unknowingly made to the world in general and my organization in particular,
still drawing blanks. Maybe i’m like that guy in memento. Only during office hours. Maybe i’m
doing things and not remembering them. I do remember loads of chai. Innumerable
cups. The daily office ‘chai-time’ is the biggest obstacle to our economic
independence. Look at china. They work like bloody machines. And us? My routine
can be roughly described as under
Alarm rings. Curse alarm. Check
mail. Curse boss. Snooze. Sleep. (loops 3 times). Wake up. Curse nobody in
particular. Brush teeth. Chai. Check mail. Shower (optional). Forward mail.
Reach office. Check mail. Chai. Open all of the MS Office tools and 3 windows in each. Ogle at hot news
presenter on TV (damn, wots with these news channels? They have more gorgeous women than that congregation of desperate me-too-upmarket shoppers a.k.a Phoenix Mall and MTV combined). Check mail. Curse boss. Chai. Repeat till
lunch. Lunch. Chai. Repeat activities of first half but with more chai’s before
7 pm and more cursing after 7.
But, I digress. Coming back to the entire cribbing-yet-working syndrome, I don’t blame myself (like any self-respecting narcissist, i rarely do). I still think i’m too young to be working (although my thinning hair and rapidly gaining paunch suggest otherwise). From looking under my bed for monsters a couple of years ago to intermittently checking the red beeping light on my blackberry for ‘urgent’ mails, fear has undergone a metamorphosis. But it is, people tell me, inevitable. After all ‘rozy-roti’ ka sawaal hai, they reason
| I think people were referring to these two |
So i decided to do a real
self-appraisal. Not the corporate ‘my poop better than your poop’ thing, but a
real heart-to-heart with my only witness being God. Apart from my neighbour . And the canteenwala who brought me my daily cuppa and decided to hang around.
Here it goes:
Achievement/key skills :
- To survive an year of corporate life (drudgery): I must say that this was an extremely difficult goal to achieve. Although quite simple to the naked unassuming mind, the first year is the most diabolically difficult phase of one’s life. Although i have not done it with particular flair or panache, i have managed to survive. I have also managed to sell 76% of my soul. I hope to complete 100% in the next year. Although pretty much has been downhill from the moment i received my first salary (at which point i must admit i did get pretty emotional and outrageously claimed that my entire life was a build-up to that particular moment) i have yet not been charge-sheeted with any crime. But I do have a knife in my drawer. Just in case.
- Presentation skills: This one is easy. For the past one year, there never has been a day where i have gone to office without pants. I guess that covers it. Literally. :P
- Team Playa:Throughout the year, i have made sure to not disturb the rest of the team when they were on strict deadlines. Hence, I have left early from office on most days so as to ensure zero disturbance from me.
- Stress management:Stress management is elaborated as “ability to maintain calm in times of pressure and handle stressful and crisis situation with efficiency”. I believe i have done exactly that for the past one year. Like when the canteen walla unexplainedly left before his scheduled time just when i was craving for maggi in the evening. Ok, so your friend met with an accident but doesn’t professionalism count for nothing?? I mean, he could’ve made maggi before he rushed like crazy. And true to its word, maggi takes just 2 minutes. I believe i was the better man in that situation as i “managed to keep calm”. And except for the odd incident where i ended up behaving like a freshly-beheaded chicken, the past year has really showcased my stress management skills at different points in time.
There was much more i could write, but it suddenly struck me that the office appraisal form required immediate attention. and the moral dilemma of whether to gas hopelessly or be truthful and fair returned to haunt me again.
In the end, i did what any over-educated man with advanced IQ and immense logical
reasoning skills would do when faced with such a dilemma. I tossed a coin.
P.S. : This piece was written
while listening to background music, which, though soothing, also has the
inherent flaw of making everything you write seem profound and funny. So in
case u think its lame, blame THIS (link) for it.
I believe i have wasted enough of your time. Let me make it up to you. Guys, please click the link below for an awesomely funny video. Girls can pls click the same link for the video of twilight-the movie. :P
