Office and Politics
Life feels great after a week of slogging and with the beautiful fact of two days of sheer luxurious non-activity …. Wow…sitting with my laptop at 12:45 in the night with sweet music floating around me…hmmm… the last thing I want to think about is office and the problems it symbolizes…. But I am inadvertently pulled into thinking about it...
Office and Politics…I have never seen or encountered so much of the latter before in the former… Not that I have lived and seen so much… But it is so unnatural it hurts to see that people almost the same age as you revel in it…Office is the place of productivity where you are creating something, righting some wrong done, bringing order to chaos … It is the place where you can create wonders if given a chance... I maybe glossing over it too much…maybe am giving it a romantic angle where none exists… Even if it is not all the above it is the place which gives you your daily bread and provides you that good place in the society.
Where team spirit & good will should exist...I find just jealousy, anger and the thirst for power… suggestions are taken as orders …well meant advises are taken as insults…people are more interested in others case counts than their own …they are ready to notice the moles in your back comfortably ignoring the holes on their own faces…they do not want to take up responsibilities… Everybody wants to find out whose side you are in ...as if it affects the amount you take home as salary at the end of the month!
I remember the feeling of joy that came with being part of a young team six months back…There was much excitement and also apprehension thinking about the learning and hardship that we would need to put up with….But in that aspect it has been really good so far because of the good technical minds in the team…I can look up to any of them for solving any problems that I have faced in work… but even they are defenseless against the kind of ugly politics that has pervaded the team…
Some of my team mates are like me sitting and wondering what we can do to make it all clean and okay… some have actively joined the kingpins without knowing that they are giving themselves up as pawns…some knowing fully well that it is politics but still willing to play it in its terms …some (especially the top ones) just plain ignoring the rot that all this will bring to the team…or maybe they just cannot afford to, owing to the amount of needless and exhausting processes that they need to follow. The person above them – the Manager – well, he is a different story altogether.
I was blessed with wonderful managers in my earlier company. They were genuinely worried about my personal growth & that of the team. There were never any tensed situations apart from the fact that they paid less and gave maybe less work as compared to the work load we get here. But my manager here doesn’t know me from the next person and in the last and single meeting that I had with him he was throwing around some Management (read sick) statements typical of the manager character Bakshi in One Night at the Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat.I heard he drew graphs in a one-to-one meeting attended by another poor soul in the team. I would have laughed out aloud if I had not been so angry at that time. But I wouldn’t want to make this depressing post more depressing by dwelling on him.
The point I wanted to make was that there is no place for politics in the work place. One should throw away ego, jealousy and anger while coming to work. It is the thirst for knowledge & performance that should ultimately matter and not the thirst for politics.
I am not very hopeful of things changing much, but still, writing this was actually like thinking aloud on my part and made me realize where I stand. Maybe it is time to pack my bags??!!
Signing off
Sundari
Office and Politics…I have never seen or encountered so much of the latter before in the former… Not that I have lived and seen so much… But it is so unnatural it hurts to see that people almost the same age as you revel in it…Office is the place of productivity where you are creating something, righting some wrong done, bringing order to chaos … It is the place where you can create wonders if given a chance... I maybe glossing over it too much…maybe am giving it a romantic angle where none exists… Even if it is not all the above it is the place which gives you your daily bread and provides you that good place in the society.
Where team spirit & good will should exist...I find just jealousy, anger and the thirst for power… suggestions are taken as orders …well meant advises are taken as insults…people are more interested in others case counts than their own …they are ready to notice the moles in your back comfortably ignoring the holes on their own faces…they do not want to take up responsibilities… Everybody wants to find out whose side you are in ...as if it affects the amount you take home as salary at the end of the month!
I remember the feeling of joy that came with being part of a young team six months back…There was much excitement and also apprehension thinking about the learning and hardship that we would need to put up with….But in that aspect it has been really good so far because of the good technical minds in the team…I can look up to any of them for solving any problems that I have faced in work… but even they are defenseless against the kind of ugly politics that has pervaded the team…
Some of my team mates are like me sitting and wondering what we can do to make it all clean and okay… some have actively joined the kingpins without knowing that they are giving themselves up as pawns…some knowing fully well that it is politics but still willing to play it in its terms …some (especially the top ones) just plain ignoring the rot that all this will bring to the team…or maybe they just cannot afford to, owing to the amount of needless and exhausting processes that they need to follow. The person above them – the Manager – well, he is a different story altogether.
I was blessed with wonderful managers in my earlier company. They were genuinely worried about my personal growth & that of the team. There were never any tensed situations apart from the fact that they paid less and gave maybe less work as compared to the work load we get here. But my manager here doesn’t know me from the next person and in the last and single meeting that I had with him he was throwing around some Management (read sick) statements typical of the manager character Bakshi in One Night at the Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat.I heard he drew graphs in a one-to-one meeting attended by another poor soul in the team. I would have laughed out aloud if I had not been so angry at that time. But I wouldn’t want to make this depressing post more depressing by dwelling on him.
The point I wanted to make was that there is no place for politics in the work place. One should throw away ego, jealousy and anger while coming to work. It is the thirst for knowledge & performance that should ultimately matter and not the thirst for politics.
I am not very hopeful of things changing much, but still, writing this was actually like thinking aloud on my part and made me realize where I stand. Maybe it is time to pack my bags??!!
Signing off
Sundari
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