An Ode to my manager

Wow!!! Feels exhilarating to be an author on management. Just for the record, I have not done any kind of MBA nor am I a veteran self proclaimed manager. I am just on the brink of joining an MBA college. But I have worked in a corporate company for more than 2 years and have been fortunate to get the worst manager one could get. The fortunate here is not a sarcasm but it really is the best thing that can happen to me because now I understand that what a manager is supposed to be and the “do nots” that the manager should follow to earn the respect of his subordinates. I have learnt some valuable lifelong lessons which cannot be taught by a tutor. He is mean, evil, rancorous, a bully and a swellhead (never noticed the similarities between him and a spoilt bossy toddler until now) and still I love him. Why?? Read on.

This is not the “chronicles of a disgruntled employee”. This is a “on the job” learning for any person even remotely interested in becoming a manager, entrepreneur and a person who would not like to be shot by his subordinates. I take back the alleged accusations I showered at my “revered” manager (although it felt like having a pizza with extra cheese topping on the moon after a particular uneventful and hungry journey from earth) but I would still like to give the unsolicited advice and “do nots” from my precious experience.

Disclaimer: I do not wish to malign any person no matter how disgusting they have been in their miserable lifetime. This is just my personal opinion and is in no way related to any person living or dead (I have ceased to consider him as a dignified life form). The characters and incidences in this blog are 100% real and authentic.

For the readers convenience I would call him Mr. M. You can interpret as Mr. Miserable or Mr. Manager – that’s up to you. So this M has lots of Tics. No please do not mistake him for a patient of Tourette syndrome as these Tics are not medical but something that he has ingrained in his lifetime. One of his Tic is he loves to speak. So you’d say, what’s wrong in that?? Speaking is our fundamental right, I agree. What I meant is that for him garrulous and loquacious are under statements. If his mouth was somehow attached to a dynamo he would be a marvel in the field of regenerative energy. He has to give a comment or suggestion in each and every thing that is going on even if he does not have an iota of idea about that thing. Now I am the ubiquitous software engineer and like all software engineers do, I too have to talk to lot of people to get ideas and clarify my points. I have a policy – Talk only as much as you know, listen a lot, do not interrupt and don’t act oversmart. M obviously does not believe in my ideals and when in a group of respected people he tends to make a fool of himself. Not that I mind, but this sometimes costs my group a lot of humiliations and people tend to think that we too are as stupid as him.

Lesson 1: If you are discussing something in a group, it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people wonder if you are a fool than open it and confirm their doubts.

M’s a unique fellow. Well if I think deeply about it, he is not a unique fellow. The world is brimming with such people. The world is brimming with Hypocrites. I once asked M for leave. Considering the M’s liberal use of leaves and his disposition to skip working Fridays, I considered my leave to be readily accepted. Was I doing something illegal? Was I being illogical by asking to go home after a period of 6 months? Was I asking him to allow me to remain absent without using my paid leave quota? Negative. I was a fellow who thought that since he as a manager gets to go home early and take unofficial and undeserved leaves, I am atleast entitled to have some reasonable leaves using my paid leaves quota. What naivety. I was subjected to 100s of irrelevant reasons why taking leave was going to bring the company’s shutter down. Suddenly from a lowly corporate laborer I was the most important person in the company. Leaves, I was told, was a rare commodity not accessible to me. Hypocrites are a specie in themselves. They have this amazing brazenness about suggesting something that they religiously fail to follow. This leaves all your subordinates angered, one thing leads to another and then there are protests, back bitching and suddenly the office becomes a good prospect for realty show.

Lesson 2: Practice what you preach

M is like a bread. You either have to fire him up or butter him up in order to make it taste good. He style is more suited to Indian Government employee. He will be ready to do something for you only if you lick and slurp him like a candy or if you fight and pressurize him to go your way. He could never be an easygoing person even if I were to choose different Ms from a billion parallel universes. The curses that he gets everyday due to this is are so plenty that I could live like the king of Brunei for the rest of my life if I were allowed to encash them.

Lesson 3: Sycophancy can only be popular among pets vying for their owner's attention.

I have never understood the workings of IT company. There's are popular joke about some cannibal employees joining a company. They work hard and are appreciated until one day the director mentions that an old employee is missing. The leader of the cannibal group admonishes the rest of them telling "now which of you ate the employee?? we were eating the managers till now and no one noticed" M is like that. He does not do any worthwhile work for the company. He says that he has a brand vision and we are that vision's facilitator. I try to keep a straight face everytime I hear that but a smile always escapes which is interpreted, thankfully, as a sign of approval of his wisdom. So all the hard work is done by the subordinates while the manager keeps dreaming the vision. Recently there were chances that he was going to be laid off so he had to try his hands on the technical stuff to appear for interviews in other company if need arises. The crash course was given by the same subordinates who are paid 1/10 of his salary while they work 10 times more than him. Do I need to say how he fared in that crash course?

Lesson 4: Deserve before you desire.

Maslow’s pyramid says that when you get the basic things like food you aspire to have a good job, home and family and when you attain that, you aspire for a good position in the company you work and when you achieve that, you become a sadist. Well that is what I have experienced and if Maslow disagrees then he is welcome to work under M and see for himself. He likes being a sadist, he enjoys and revels being a sadist. This is the top of the pyramid for him. He derives his life energy by seeing people under him suffer. You go to him for a leave and he will make you beg for it. You make a mistake and he will insult you infront of everyone. His sadistic pleasures are an epic in the company.

Lesson 5: Live and let live

These invaluable lessons which I have learnt will forever be imbibed in me and the only fear I have now is that I don't turn into M one day. Love you M for making me a better person. You have turned the clay into pot with your fire.