The Considerate Manager

Recently when driving down to work I happened to enjoy the company of a Manager. Mind you a very busy manager at the same time one who is very considerate to his/her employees. For convenience sake let us assume it’s a ‘she’.

A few minutes down the road and she had to make a few calls. All Managers have to make phone calls when they are sitting idle. It’s a manager thing. If they don’t do that, then they are not true managers.

Its 9:00 am, and the call goes to a poor soul who I presume was a developer in a support team. The conversation went like ..Hello ! , a quick check on some status followed by some other instructions. Then she asked. Did you check you email? He said no , Some more instructions after which the call ended.

Subsequent to the call I came to know that this guy’s working hours are from 1pm to 9pm, since he works on a shift. Of course a person whose regular working hours are for 8 hours starting at 1pm, would check his mail at 9am. This is a fact that only managers know.

Going by the same yardstick it would imply that anyone who starts work at 9am would always check his or her email by 5am. If you are not doing this, you are lucky your Manager doesn't know it yet.

After the call the developer probably would have heaved a sigh of relief wondering what to do, now that his sleep was ruined. But not for long, because don’t forget, our Manager is a very concerned people oriented person. So she calls back to enquire about the health of the same guy.

Apparently from the conversation it appeared that this guy was slightly ill suffering from a minor ligament related ailment. In rolls the next words of advice..
How are you feeling? Oh.. ahem .. hmm Oh no .. if that’s the case you should take rest. Don’t bother to come to office. Long Pause .. You can work from home.

Work From Home !! Of course yes, we don’t want you to waste time getting to office with that injury.

I thought the call was done.. but apparently not. The conversation continues..
If you are not well, Then you should take care .. take the day off today, don’t bother about work. You know you can always finish the work on Saturday and Sunday.

Me thinking ..Saturday and Sunday!!!. Phew .. thank god I don’t have a considerate manager.

Now this is what I call having the knack of being all so considerate and yet getting all the work done at the same time. This does not mean that managers should not be considerate. Just try not to be over considerate by helping your employees plan their Saturdays and Sundays too.

Enough of flaming managers, because not too long ago I too was a manager for 5 years. But not anymore. Given this I know how difficult it can be as a manager. You have to deal with a wide flavor of employees. While some are excellent in their work, others believe they are gods gift to the Organization.

So a tip to all Managers ,When all else fails, Use the old "Mule rule"

i.e. Some you can stand in front of and coax them along with a carrot. Some you have to stand behind and kick them in the a**.

The key to management is knowing which mules are which.

The Wedding Lunch

When was the last time you were invited for a wedding thali lunch? Served on a plantain leaf. Here are some of my experiences, which many of you may have experienced.

It all starts with the washing of the leaf once its placed in front of you. All the servers would insist that you first wash the leaf. The definition of washing here is sprinkling a few drops of water on it and wiping it with your bare hands. How clean can this make it? Imagine you asking your maid to wash the plates at home in the same way!! i.e. sprinkle 14 drops of water over the plate and wipe it. But here this is considered a perfect way to wash the leaf.

All now settled down and the food supervisor signals to start the serving. In marches the congregation of servers. All our lady friends have a beaming smirk on their faces, cause turns out that today’s group of male servers are all topless.

However with changing times and importance given to hygiene demand for the topless battalions are dwindling. It shouldn’t be long before caterers realize this and get their topless servers shaved and waxed before every meal.

The next puzzle is when the serving starts. Most of the time side dishes are served in minuscule quantities. You feel like you are a wine sampler on the job. The suspense is that you are never sure of how many more dishes are on their way.

Because of this you either eat too much in the beginning and are stuffed by the time the rest of the dishes arrive. Or you eat too less expecting the best ones to turn up later, only to find that the meal has ended.

I think an Electronic board should be installed which would give the current live status of the meal. A sample would read

• Item: status
• ---------------
• Papad: Served
• Pickle: Served
• Rice: In progress
• Sambar: In progress
• Lemon Rice: Scheduled
• Curd Rice : Available on request
  
• Sweet: Scheduled
• Ice Cream: Scheduled
• Paan: Self service (Age proof required)
• Coconut: (Take away..., only 1 per family, Proxy collection strictly prohibited)

This way one can perfectly plan the quantities of portions to eat.

Lunch over, now its time to thank the host. Here again there is only one standard question to which there is a standard answer. Deviating from this standard would be a violation of the 1965 veg thali Act.

Question asked by the host
How was the food? Did you eat well?

Answer that you are supposed to give:
Ya the food was excellent, In fact I am so full that I feel like going home and taking a nap.

Although what you are thinking may be:
huh' I could’ve gone and had that Biryani I was thinking about.

Life in a Tempo Traveler

With the growth in outsourcing & offshore development, the volume of traffic has increased by leaps and bounds. However the development of roads and parking space could not keep pace. The net result, utter chaos on the road.

This forced all corporates to get thinking on the transport problem. They had to invent a means of conveyance, which would carry more people than a car, be smaller than a bus and yet have the maneuverability akin to a small boy riding a bicycle. Thus the Tempo Traveler (TT) was born.

Looks-wise the TT may be a little smaller than a bus, but when it comes to maneuverability it can pass through the narrowest of narrow lanes where even a Maruti 800 would not pass through.

Meet the TT drivers, one of the drivers I've seen always has his eyes half closed. With this half an eyelid vision our dude can zip between cars, lamp-posts, cows, dogs, buses, pedestrians and fellow motorists. All this while keeping an average space of 2.5 millimeters between the vehicles he brushes past at breakneck speed.

It’s not uncommon to see other motorists who after almost having a rub with our TT losing their calm and yelling at the TT driver. Our driver however remains calm and raises an eyebrow at max as he continues in his path. He is in a state of mind that is free from craving, anger and other afflictive states, one with the road, the footpath and the mud patch beside the footpath. There is no terrain beyond limit

Now lets step inside the TT and meet the esteemed folks in it. We have Rip van winkle who will get in and go to sleep only to wake up at the office gate (I envy these types, as I can never sleep in a TT), Then the "thinkers" who like to be left alone.

The Droid from Star wars who would stare into thin air and keep talking on his blu-tooth. Folks who are immersed in their cell phones, unfortunately they do not keep the conversation to themselves, but speak at a volume which everyone in a radius of half a kilometer can hear. To them it seems every other person in the TT is just an inanimate object that happens to be traveling in the same direction. Not to mention the far too many stupid ringtones you hear in there.

Some people travel light, while others don’t mind lugging a desktop, CRT monitor and a UPS in their backpacks. Then we always have the handful of people who for some reason could not make it into CNN-IBN, nevertheless they do the same task in the TT making sure they are audible to everyone. Like usual sitcom comedies they sprinkle their conversation with hilarious laughter at the end of every alternate sentence. This is so you know which were supposed to be the funny parts.

At dusk, with the days work done you are now on your way home in the TT. Here you see another beauty about the TT. You can alight just about anywhere you please. .

It’s not uncommon to find some celebrities who have to be dropped at an exact latitude and longitude. It does not matter if this spot happens to fall right in the middle of a major ring road intersection, and at the precise moment when the color of the signal light there has turned from a red to a green. The TT driver has to manage this stop, and wait till out esteemed friend alights. This is irrespective of the fact that there would be one million other motorists behind him honking the hell out.

All in all the good thing is unlike the folks who were assigned to your team, here more often than not you have a fair opportunity to choose the person you would like to sit with.

To sum it up I would say its a wonderful experience. We should be thankful to the TT driver because of whose skill we reach the office in the fastest time possible.