Chapter 2 – A different day at the office
The next day began early as I had several ‘Samosa’ attacks in my stomach reminding me of previous day experiences. At first I thought of skipping my office. But the stomach ache excuse had already taken two leaves for me that month. Also, I had a meeting with the client that day.
So after having the mandatory lectures from my mom, I caught the office bus at last moment. The bus was quiet and sleepy like every Monday. However, I felt something new that day. Whoever saw me appeared smiling and I was surprised to find everyone happy, that too, on a Monday morning. Did they come to know about my resignation plans?
Filled with curiosity, I asked my bus-mate Kunal
“Is there something wrong with my face today?”
“No man. It’s just that you look great today.”
That was strange. I was not wearing anything new. I didn’t have a haircut that month. And I had a morning stomach problem. Even that cute girl who sat with her odd boyfriend at the extreme corner gave me some appreciating looks. Things were so bad that even the ever quiet Manager who comes in my bus came to show me something important in the newspaper. It was not only with others but even I was feeling nice inside. Something had changed in my life.
Back at my office, an important teleconference with the client awaited me. And as usual, my manager, Mahesh was taking the lead to disgust the client and us alike.
A project manager is not the person who knows about the project. You see, such a person won’t be considered ‘innovative’ then. A project manager is actually the person who can make you do unimaginable things in manageable time with manageable salary and still get the credit of projecting. My manager ‘Mahesh’ was an excellent specimen to justify this definition.
“Yes Richard, we will do it in twenty days. No, don’t worry. It is a bit difficult but not impossible.”
“But Mahesh, how….?”, I was going to ask something
“Sssh! be quite. We will discuss it later.” replied my Manager
“Yes, Richard. What? You will like it in ten days. Fine, we will deliver in ten days then. No, not a problem at all. We will put four people instead of two for the job.”
Things were going bad. It was as if due to time crunch nine women were being employed to produce a baby in one month. For managers, we were machines to deliver the code and not engineers who design and develop the software. My manager Mahesh was even a step further as he would never negotiate for time, but only for money with our client.
“But Richard, early delivery will have some cost escalations as more resources will be deployed for this project”
As soon as he got over with the call, I asked him
“How is this possible Mahesh? How are we going to complete it in ten days?”
“O Rohit! You look very good today.”
“Mahesh! But…”
“I understand, see it is not that difficult. ‘We’ have to put little more effort. I know that you both can complete this work in ten days...”
“We both! But you just told Richard that four people will work on it.”
“ That was for the client to hear. Don’t take that seriously. Two more people will fill the same charge number in timesheets for billing the client. You just ensure to complete the work on time.”
So that’s how our companies work. Even after cutting down our increments, employee benefits and paying us 1/10th of our counterparts in US, we still need to cheat our clients to earn the profit. Life was going to get tough, but I had other ways of handling it. Over the years I had learned to manage the manager’s management. And for those who don’t know, this is the first step towards climbing the ladder and becoming a manager yourself.
“That is alright, Mahesh. But there is another issue. For building module X, we need an understanding of module Y. This module was built by Keshav who has gone on leave for four days.” I knew that my manager would ‘understand’ this as he had little knowledge of the project. To tell you the truth, yes we did require the understanding of module Y. But that was not actually going to block our current activities.
“O! Is that so? Then we have a serious problem. I will have to inform Richard about this”
My manager quickly sat down to write a mail to Mr Richard. Would Mr Richard come to know about my mischief? Of course not, as he is also a ‘manager’. My next task was to convince my Team-lead. Today my energy levels were at a new high and I was prepared to use it to the fullest.
As I approached his desk, I found my Team-lead ‘Rajiv’ giving the same stale advices to a poor fresher who had no idea about the game. Giving such moral speeches was one of his greatest talents which got him his promotion and also the reason behind his numerous on-site trips and awards.
“I understand that you are relatively free. But that doesn't mean you can browse the internet. You are in a corporate world now. You have to be proactive. Look at me, in my free time I try to find new work. Do you remember the install script I created in my free time?”
“But Rajiv, that script is not working.”
“Exactly; now I use my free time to improve upon it. Don't expect people to give you work every time. You need to find work on your own. Do you remember how I suggested some code improvements to the client? The Client had accepted it. And now we are debugging the bugs due to those code improvements”
“Ahem! Sorry to disturb you Rajiv. But I need to discuss something.”
“Yes, Rohit, please go on.”
“We have to design module X in a ‘bandwidth’ of ten days but by ‘critical analysis’ we see a dependency ‘traceable’ to module Y. The complexity of module Y requires training by an expert on the subject.” This technique was necessary here as Rajiv was a fan of technical jargons. But did he understand what I was saying? Yes, he did as he is too on the path of becoming a ‘manager’.
“Hmm… In that case we need to plan the training for module Y. This can happen only after Keshav comes back. Till then you can get on with the other activities”
So what do I do now? Don’t worry guys, I also have a junior to delegate my tasks to.
When I arrived at my desk, I found the first mail from the lady herself. It was a short mail from Trisha with her brother’s resume attached with it.
“Hi,
How are you doing? It was lovely meeting you yesterday. My father has given our horoscopes to the pundit.
I am attaching the resume of my brother. Please forward it in your company.
Thanks
Trisha”
Well! Well! Now that Abhishek had sensed my boredom towards his career, he was using his lovely sister to forward his resume. But I dislike women who get in touch with the guys only for their needs. Her first mail could have been more special. Anyways, as the tradition goes, I had to write a reply.
Before sending it to HR, I had a look at the resume myself. As I read it, I understood the risks of forwarding it in my company. Neither the guy had good education nor did he have outstanding career. But he surely wanted a great pay as was evident from his choice of expected salary. I thought for a moment and decided against forwarding it to the HR. Instead, I just wrote back just for her satisfaction.
“Hi,
It’s nice to hear from you. I am doing fine. We had a nice time yesterday.
I have forwarded Abhishek’s resume to the HR. Let’s hope that he gets the call.
Cheers!!
Rohit”
In spite of the shortcomings, her mail had some positive effects on me. I was in a cheerful mood for the rest of the day.
Was it love? No it couldn’t be. How could I fall in love so soon?