Bosses at work!

I was having this on my mind since a long time now, and I think I will dedicate this to the species called ‘bosses’ at work. I am a great Dilbert fan, and thanks to some of my experiences at work, I know from the bottom of my heart that some bosses can be a real pain. This post, in fact, would be recounting some of my experiences I have had during the four years at work!

To begin with, in my first company, an automotive giant (but does not have a significant presence in India due to its focus on the high end luxury car segment), I had a good manager. He was a good mentor, and understood what work should be given to whom, which made everyone feel happy and worthwhile to the organization. His best quality was that he was very vocal about the problems his team faced, and got things done from other teams whenever needed!

In the same team, my immediate boss, Mr. D, used to come to office wearing a sweater, (and would keep it on till the end of the day) however hot it may be, on the prior day of any important audit! Naturally, the day of the audit used to be his sick leave!! After a while, I could predict with 99.99 percent accuracy (!) the sweater day and the sick leave day of Mr D.

We had a client visit once in our office. A colleague of Mr D, Mr T was supposed to be the host and the guide for the international guests for his department (a section of the assembly line). As all trainees do, I used to stay late in the office doing some of Mr D’s work which was given to me, most likely at the very end of the shift, and after Mr D had happily left for the day. (After all how is a trainee supposed to learn new things? He is getting exposure you see! Anyways I did not have any complaints against this) So here I was, on the assembly line on a typical ‘sweater-day’ doing some preparations for an audit. I saw Mr T at a distance, waving in the air, as if he was showing somebody some section on the assembly line. I was amused, as there was no one on the line except me and Mr T. I chose to stand at a distance, behind some material shelf, acting busy. Mr T then went to the next station on his line, again waved in the air and spoke something loudly (I could hear him this time). Stopped, went to the next station, indicating his ‘international guests’ to accompany him, and again explained them something there!!! Well this might seem to some as a good rehearsal, but believe me, this was totally hilarious at that point of time on the empty assembly line! One more thing that I can recollect of Mr. T is that whenever he had to discuss something or give work to someone, he would tell you when you met him on the line (that is where most of the managers are during the shift, since there is no fixed desk as such). After everything was told, he used to continue on his way. After going a couple of steps in that direction, he would turn back, “Did you understand what I told you? What I meant was….” After I became used to this, I used to wait at the same place after he continued on his way, for him to turn back and perform the rituals of the second iteration!

A big boss of mine, Mr. K used to stand on the line with hands on his waist. He had this typical style and used to be in the same posture each and every time he was on the line. Mr K had a bit of a dark complexion, not his fault anyway, but had this habit of maintaining an expression-less face, whatever you told him. At times, I used to wonder if I was able to get through my point to him! Mr K was often called “Vitthal” by many operators on the line (and later on, I learnt that this name was popular amongst many middle level managers as well!!!)

After about a year in this industry, I decided to join the software bandwagon, and I switched my job from the mechanical industry to software. After the completion of my first appraisal where I got grades less than my expectations, I went to my Project Manager, and asked him sincerely about areas and scope of improvement for the next cycle. Mr. Manager became very serious. He mentioned me to come over to his desk, offered me a chair. By now, I was feeling that something had gone wrong awfully. Mr. Manager said “See, it’s all a game of chance!” … “Someone gets good grades, someone, in spite of being good, does not”. (And I thought it was your performance on the job which mattered) I smiled. Mr. Manager smiled. The meeting ended.

This same Mr. Manager used to come over to our desk every Friday before lunch time, if someone was busy, he would rap the chair like a policeman, and shout “submit your timesheet for the week”. This ‘gentle’ reminder was over and above a reminder which was sent out every Thursday. He was aptly christened “Hawaldar”.

I once had a Team Lead who used to ask for updates every 15 minutes. God, that was irritating. As if this was not enough, he used to open a conversation on the internal messenger every morning and keep it open till the end of the day, and ask there “Hey, what’s the status on test case number 2? Have we completed it? When are we starting test case number 3? We have to complete the testing in this week!” I chose not signing into the messenger one fine day. Mr. Team Lead came over, “Hey – is your messenger not working? You are not online!” We used to have three meetings a day with this team lead at one point of time during the project. J

Once, I got a feedback “Can do better” in a particular task in some appraisal. I asked the manager as to what went wrong; I was prepared to hear the ‘game-of-chance’ answer this time, but something different happened. When I called up, the first response was “Don’t worry we will change the feedback!” I did not know just calling up can make such a tremendous difference to the feedback!! Anyways I had a short discussion; and the ‘new and improved’ feedback was “Good work done!” Well.

I got back a particular appraisal with grades less than my expectations (again). When I had a meeting with Mr. Team Lead, I was questioned “So, just by looking at these tasks, how do I know what work you have done for what request?” I just clicked a link corresponding to that task in the internal application that we have, and it opened up the comments area where I had mentioned all the details. The conversation went something like this
Manager : “Oh…”
Me : “What are we going to do now?”
Manager : “I overlooked the task details, I will go through and re-evaluate”!!
(I don’t know how the evaluation was done in the first place though.)

I have had some very good managers. I have had managers who maintain very good relations with each and every member of the team. I know managers who have maintained a very good and a positive team spirit. I have had managers, working with whom was a pleasure and one actually felt like coming to office every day!

To wind this up, I remember someone having this signature: “Dilbert is not a cartoon strip, its real!”