The Dilbert Principle

Last week I had a word with my manager for the release from the project. After being corporate victim for quite some while, now I realize the universal truth about managers, ‘They are always right.’ I wonder whether they get this talent in their genes or there is some secrete corporate training program going on to teach them this attitude. Whichever is the case, I am sure their seniors must have been well acquainted with this potential of theirs before promoting them.
This month we had our objective settings done by lead. After 15 min. speech about my objectives in coming year, his expectations and my achievements (?) in last quarter he asked me whether I always nod to everything or do I want to say anything? Well, I was not at all interested in discussing my goals for the year, as by now I understand, ‘IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER’. First thing, the goals are never meant to be achievable, second if you try hard enough and lets say really achieve all of them your performance review will be discussed on what was silently expected from you and how you failed to read between the lines, and the last thing you can get good raise or even promotion for just being in good books of the manager (and for that you don’t really have to work hard and achieve all the goals). The good part of the story is, I got good remarks in my performance diary and even some appreciation for my work for the quarter. That’s really funny, because I haven’t done anything different than last year, infact if I go by the statistics I worked less - less hours, less call handling, less defect fixing, less defect verification, less test case execution. This might be the effect of my improving (?) relations with my manager after I asked for release in last performance review meeting!
Anyway, so I opened my mouth to inquire about the status of my release request. This followed by my meeting with manager. This lady has amazing skills of convincing one, how always she is right. I was told that rating below three out of five is quite fair and how she overlooked many negative aspects raised by my other senior (I wonder if all of them were being considered what was my offering then, one or 0.5? Thank god we don’t have negative ratings!). Being firm on my decision I again requested for the release timeline, which is not committed yet, but definitely not before this December. That means, it takes more than six months to release a guy below average (less than 3/5 rating) while others (might be with better ratings) get released in less than a month (even though they didn’t ask for it). Finally I was told that, I am being pessimist and I should think about it.
Why did this happen? I really had thought about it many times. I still have no answer. The performance award in first three months, 5 out of 5 rating in probationary appraisal after six months, early promotion in nine months and suddenly below average performance for next one year, ironically this all happened under the same manager. It would have been better if she would have shown some trust in me and judged me by her own experience rather than just blindly following others perceptions. I was going through very bad era of my life those days, I was always tensed and that could have been seen on my face. Ofcourse that’s not any excuse for degrading performance, infact I always tried to keep my professional life unaffected from my personal dilemma. Going by pure stats I can really prove it, my self evaluation always put me in much better ranks than my work in first nine months. But their remained something unsaid from my manager which I failed to read and this followed series of review meetings. Almost every 15 days or month we had this meeting where I was told that my performance has too many crests and dips, it’s not steady (as if a chromatogram ;)). So going back to my desk I tried even harder to make it ‘steady’. But it never helped as I failed to realize the real problem and it was never told clearly.
It was late November when I began to realize the real issue which had nothing to do with my work, it was more about satisfying my senior’s ego. So there enters this new character in the story about whom I haven’t mentioned yet. I have a senior in the team (not my manager or lead, I don’t know where to put her in hierarchy, but surely she is senior in the team). I don’t have any friendly relations with this lady. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect her or I have any enmity with her. And I don’t consider doesn’t liking somebody is to hate him/her. I always had this feeling that, when I was new on the project, really required help to grasp the project, she hardly helped me, even ignored sometimes. This senior was then looking into only one module of the project, and the manager assigned me tasks from different modules. Unfortunately even though I was primary resource of the module where this senior was leading I was hardly assigned 10% of the total work I did. The reasons were different, there were two dedicated resources (apart from me) for that module out of which she was quite knowledgeable and the other was equally competent, the workload for that module was less and for the other modules I was working, I was the sole owner. So I reported her for very less time, and even put some of the tasks asked by her on low priority. But this gave her different impression and she raised the point to my manager which followed all the fuss I explained earlier. I started making mistakes and in process to correct them made more. This was the real vicious circle. In one of the last few meetings she humiliated me so badly that I decided to quit. I don’t know where I am heading but I think it’s better to turn around the page to start a new chapter in life (both personal and professional) when people lose faith in each other.
Moral of the story is, this Dilbert is in complete agreement of Murphy’s law,
‘If anything can go wrong, it will’

Mumbai – University, Swapnil, Ameya and Sea link

Last weekend in Mumbai was fantastic. For the first time I noticed that University Physics Dept. is heaven for nature lovers. ;) After that eyeful feast of bird-watching we (Vaibhav and me) headed towards Andheri to meet Swapnil. Not to mention, as usual in his unique way he showed all his love for us and this time it was witnessed by our ears and hair. I just wonder how somebody can give such torture to a man behind wheel in bumper to bumper traffic.

Ameya’s office is in Pawai, Hiranandani. That’s the wonderful place. Hardly ever I saw any builder/developer putting so many efforts on the exteriors. Buildings in that part of the city are as beautiful as crowd over there.

That night we went to Warali Sea link. Fortunately Vidyadhar was there to direct us. This guy knows every road and every lane in the city may be because he lived all his life in Dadar or may be due to his marketing job. And when Ameya and Vidyadhar both are there its obvious to keep all the gossip we had about Spectrum unmentioned.

It was almost fifty minutes in more than half kilometer queue which allowed us to enter Sea link. People were so crazy to watch it that they came in taxies, buses and even in tempo with entire family. It was more like tourist spot than a mere bridge connecting two shores of the city. But the beauty of this sea link made my hour long struggle with clutch and break really worth.

I don’t know whether it’s my perception or what but I hardly ever saw any building, any structure in independent India made with eye of beauty. Look at those made during British rule, whether it’s GPO in Mumbai, Railway Terminus like CST or even Mandai in Pune, all these places were made for public use, but are so beautiful that any visitor to these places will obviously praise them. Definitely it was not proud feeling for me while I was on the sea link but certainly it was great pleasure to watch the most beautiful sculpture in independent India by Indian engineers.

That day was Ashadhi Ekadashi and it started raining heavily on that day, as if Vitthal has heard Marathi people’s cry. I love rain, but I think I will write about it sometime later. It’s getting too long here (and I am feeling sleepy). So… Goodbye Mumbai.