Getting promoted or inviting ambiguity

“Jhinuk, meetings should always be planned at least when it is with the head of the organization,” is what the people’s director at our organization told me today morning in response to the supposedly sudden meeting I fixed between the 3 of us – him, me and the India head of our organization.   

We have been talking about some employer branding activities through participation in industry surveys. This has been on for a while. And today one of those industry surveys begins. We needed to discuss some bit of it with the country head. Both me and the people’s director agreed that we need to meet the chief today. But his reaction my execution of the meeting thought and his subsequent behavior in the meeting, somehow surprised me, rather intrigued me. Every second statement between the two biggies took the defensive guise. It felt like as though I was watching a tennis match with the ball popping from left to right.

And this isn’t a unique case. This is one of the many events i have been witnessing ever since I started working. I have seen an individual contributor (IC) speaks more confidently and honestly with his/her boss than a manager. Why? Is it because an IC is clearer about his/her responsibilities and therefore where he/she stands vis-à-vis that than a manager for whom the role has been getting more ambiguous and unpredictable as he rises up and therefore cluelesness as to where he/she stands vis-à-vis what’s expected out of him? Or, is it the fat salary packages that we get? For instance I and I know many of my friends were much more concerned about the work we are doing than the salary we were drawing. Today most of my well earning friends only worry about how to save the monthly lakh that get credited into their account. And me, surprisingly, my attention is divided into a 50:50 ratio. Salary and the content of work surprisingly hold the equal amount of weight-age for me. Surprisingly because, it is the same me who a year back had left a cushiony corporate job to go back to a journalism job that didn’t even pay half of what the corporate one did. And all these, because I did not like what I am doing. Today I am back to the same corporate job and I do get jittery at the thought of that much money (quite a bit by my standard – for an average IT guy it could be peanut:) not being credited to my account. of course thankful, at least until today I still put in my thinking into my job and try to make it more interesting. but I do not know how long would that continue.

I have seen people tilting only towards money as their salary gets heavier than their work. I do not know if it’s unique to India or is it everywhere. For instance, if i miss a meeting for some reason I make no bones about apologizing and giving out the ‘real’ story, but I have seen my seniors either sliding the miss under the table or when caught becoming defensive if it’s the boss and or offensive and even retributive if it’s a junior. 

Why? Is it because the power gets into your head? Or, is it because you feel more powerless with the fear of losing the power and money you have. I do not know.  I am really really surprised to see the kind of show senior people put up to project they are busy and that they are doing their work. I mean of course that’s why you are where you are. Many a times when I would ask for responses from managers through emails, they would not respond or say the ‘this week is tight’. And in many cases when I land up at their work station I spot them playing cards, or games or on some social networking site at times or even at job portals. In meetings you argue not because you do not agree about a matter or because your are ‘thinking’ otherwise, fact is you might not be even ‘thinking’ about it, but you still argue to snub the other person’s statement lest others think you are dumb and he isn’t. Senior management meetings are like a snakes and ladder game!!

But quite oddly, most of the attrition at these senior management level aren’t because the companies have asked them out, or some other companies have voluntarily offered them but because they leave themselves. Given the kind of insecurities they have about losing what they have, I wonder why would they leave those themselves (so what if they are getting opportunities elsewhere, why leave this one in the first place and go through the hell of looking  for another job, when you have a cushiony one already at hand)? 

At this point I would imagine it could an insecurity within self. may be we think we aren’t good enough vis-a-vis what we are getting and as we rise that vacuum keeps growing, so we decide to quit before anyone finds out we aren’t good enough. Problem is there isn’t any fault within us. Actually rising up the ladder is all about getting more ambiguous about what you are doing, and that’s why getting more adaptive to any situation. Every time you get promoted your work gets more ambiguous handling which is the toughest job and that’s what the company pays those managers for – handling the unknown.

 

The school girl and her silly heartaches

Ah the school girl and her silly heartaches. I thought she’s grown up, alas like always am wrong again. Since morning I kept gyaning  her - who loves you how much and less than whom isn’t in your hand, it’s their right their freedom.

But the more I give her these gyans, the more I realise my uneven growth internally and externally. While outwardly am a little short of completing three decades of being in this world (save my height), inwardly that silly teenager stopped growing beyond 15. Can you buy it, she still gets insecure about Ma loving other Jhumur more than me. Lol.  Hehhehe I still notice whenever Ma asks Sandeep to boil eggs for Monu and give it to her once she’s back home from office while she would miss ordering the same for me. I keep telling that teenager, “so what?” But would she ever listen to me?

Baba ‘towards me’ has again remained the same teenager of school days. So that silly girl doesn’t have any complaint. She enjoys the importance Baba gives her, how he treats her above everyone else at home, how he protests everytime Ma misses boiled eggs for me.

Many a times I feel it is this silly soul in there who fights with my Jandro. I never fight, she does. Ok with me if he doesn’t call for hours together, not ok with her. Ok with me if he sleeps of without saying good night, not ok with her. He keeps asking me, ‘how can you act so kiddish?’ How do I tell him who’s behind all these.

It’s really as though I came out to Guwahati, then stinted 7 years with Delhi University, and now in Bangalore. But she styaed on there, I know I can still find her at the entrance gate of my St Agnes convent school. I know she’s still sitting on one of those stairs at the gate.

Who does she wait for, what does she want to complete i do not know. But looks like there’s some ends yet to be met. I know I am yet to come over her. Everytime I dream, I do not see the I as of today, I see that girl in sky blue tunic white shirt red tie with a short red ribboned pony. It’s she who plays with Puchu and saves her from ghosts; it’s she who runs and runs and keeps running with Jandro from some odd enemies.

Looks like the formal churidaar clad, late 20s communications professional is something I aspire to be, what i am within is still that sky blue tunic and white shirt clad girl, who thinks her mother might like others but loves her the most. Who still thinks she can ’chowdhury’ for the rest of her life. But despite all these, that uneven-ness seems to be getting narrower. Do I still laugh like an idiot for no reasons? Nah I stopped that. Do i still dream that tomorrow morning God will suddenly come and make me tall and grow my hair below my elbow? Nah now I know that won’t happen. Do I still pray to God to make me look like Farah or Amrita Singh or Sridevi? Nah I know I can’t look any better.   

So I stopped a lot of those teenish stupidities. Any which ways, these days everytime I wake up in the morning, I see a stranger in the mirror.

What’s in the empty me?

Yesterday, someone at office raised a very intriguing question, so much so am still thinking of it. She said, “Look at what we working women are losing end of the day – our feminity. Because we are financially independent, people tend to forget that we are still the same delecate animals who need to be taken care of and handled with lot of pampering.”

That somehow ran a chill through me. I had plans to buy sofa and other stuff if Jandro was to delay a little more. But now, I won’t. It’s whatever he gives me or whatever he brings home. just for an expensive sofa, I don’t want to lose out being a woman. But is it an artificial situation am creating? Am I? I can afford something, yet I don’t buy it because I want him to bring home whatever he can.

May be, but it’s scary to think yourself as you and just you. I want to be a wife, a companion who needs others and whom others would need. You as just you? No way. It’s so empty, so purposeless, so dark. It’s such a failure. Trust me it’s not, you as in just you alone is such a failure, cause that you doesn’t exist.

Till you find a man, it’s your dad, mom, sis, bro and friends you make that ‘YOU’ in you. then he comes and makes you another ‘YOU’ and you remain that till your child comes. I don’t mind not buying what I can afford and settling down for whatever he brings home. But I can’t be the alone empty me. Yes he is my everything. he is the one who makes me, the me that i am – not the expensive sofa, or the gold work shakha pola.

We women aren’t free yet, nor will we ever be, or want to be free. Womanhood is all about being caged around his arms, his legs, and his need to be needed.

Confidence is all about NOT being self conscious

Come to think of it, isn’t confidence all about not being self conscious, or in better words accepting urself, just the way you are. i was talking to jandro, and was telling him how I no longer get nervous while taking conference calls with those white skinned accented souls from the West. And as I was talikng to him, I realised I am no longer conscious of my Bangla accented English. My god that’s all it required? Just getting rid of consciousness that I speak Binglish?

Looks like being confident, being happy, being nice – are all much easier than the other ways. You just don’t need to be conscious of anything. those words I have heard from Gita (only heard, never read) are at this moment coming so alove to me. ‘get rid of the I in you’. When i think of my fights with him, most of them are because of this ‘I-ness’ only.