BIG BOSS – Season 11

(This post is dedicated to all my bosses over the years. Without you all, I would not have reached where I am right now. I might have gone a lot more ahead.)

My psychiatrist tells me the recurring nightmares I am getting are my past demons coming back to haunt me. Yes, I informed her, all 10 of them!

They were the bosses I have had in the 10 jobs I changed in my short 13-year career. In retrospect, it seems all of them shared a single soul (stone black at that), although they came in varied sizes, colors and cultures. Like brothers lost in some global ‘Kumbh ka mela’. They are the sole reason my resume tops the ‘Jobhoppers’ list at every recruitment firm :(

Bosses are invariably associated with ‘appraisals’, which are yearly rigmaroles akin to police 3rd degrees – where the beating continues till you agree to sign on whatever they want you to.

During one such appraisal, as I entered the torture chamber, I mean, the boss’s cabin, he said, or rather commanded, “Yes sir! Please have a seat.”

The ‘sir’ had a double coat of sarcasm over it. ‘Sir’ing you, right at the start, usually means that you will end up somewhere near the bottom of the heap. Excellent start!

“So, what have you been up to this whole year? Done any good?” he began.

Remember, appraisals are like you versus Mike Tyson in a boxing ring. You need to keep your head down, hands up and desperately pray for the bell to ring. So I kept my gaze riveted on the soles of my shoes. Forgot to polish them, damn it!

“What are you going to do about the GTC project?” He asked in his most depreciatory tone of voice. Not that his voice is any more silken than that, but maybe it was the context that made it harsher.

“Have already sent out the response, boss”, I said, thinking, of all the 7 projects in the year, he had to choose that one. No coincidence this!

“Yes, I saw your ‘response’, and hence I am asking you whether you can manage to sort out the mess on your own? Frankly speaking, I have my doubts.” he retorted.

Ever noticed, just before the appraisal, how the boss goes completely ballistic, hitting you at every opportunity he gets (not the Rahul Dravid kind of hitting, but the Virender Sehwag variety).

As I patiently explained the response I had provided, it irked my boss even more, primarily because I had provided a solution, that too without consulting him. Hell hath no fury like a boss with a bruised ego.

“Earlier also, you had goofed up the dates and timings of a project meeting. I had to spend 2 hours trying to pacify their MD. And there were no minutes of that meeting as well!” he went on, raising his already shrill voice by one more decibel.

An astonishing quality about bosses, very much like wives, is their ability to remember – and reproduce verbatim – anything that can be used against you because of something you might have said or done anytime during the past year.

Sometimes I wonder how a boss would behave at home in front of his wife. Like an immovable force meeting an unstoppable object. Imagining the situation brought a smile to my face ;), which was instantly wiped off, since this 16-tonne truck was on a collision course with a hapless lamp post. Only one result was possible. Complete Annihilation!

The undesirable effect of his raising his voice was that my own came down a few decibels, to the point of being almost inaudible.

“Well, er…, the thing is the project manager at their end had goofed up. And the minutes were also to be circulated by them, that is, since…”

The last part sounded like a tape recorder, just after the spool of tape gets caught in the head of the recorder.

“Why do you always have to blabber?” he stormed, “Can you not talk clearly? Or even that is an effort now?”

I liked the ‘always’ part. A mistake was elevated to a habit, which served to provide the boss with that much extra ammunition. He was on a rampage now.

“Okay, what about the BTS project?” he asked sourly, picking on another goof up, “were you not supposed to make a synopsis and discuss with me yesterday?”

Was I? I was about to ask. Instead I said, “I was waiting till 9 p.m. for you. Since you did not return, I kept it on your desk and left.”

This answer sent him into overdrive. I knew he would now scale newer peaks of humiliating me.

“Who said I did not return?” he asked “I was stuck in a meeting with the MD which got over only at 11:30. But you were nowhere to be seen. And I DID NOT find it on my desk.”

11:30? Really? If you had told me I would have brought my bedding along, I wanted to tell him. As to his desk, it’s a wonder he can even find the keyboard on it.

“So tell me” he said, changing tactics and looking at my appraisal sheet for the first time in 40 minutes, “why do you rate yourself so high?”

Because I know you do not want to rate me at all, so I am just compensating for what is going to come.

“Well, actually, since I have finished 2 projects successfully and have managed to add an important account, I thought …” I chirped in.

“Oh, you thought, hmm... Interesting” When the boss says your thoughts are interesting, it is time to take cover. “Ok. I would not like to discuss this project by project (Oh really!), but rather look at the summary of your performance over the entire year (I am speechless!) and then see where you fit (like in your trash can, maybe?) and which areas you can improve upon (how about a complete overhaul, transforming myself into a clone of yours?).”

Suddenly his voice dropped down a couple of notches. Zor ka jhatka, dheere se lage!

“You see” he continued in a softer voice, “I actually like you (even I like you, somewhere deep down, from the bottommost portion of my …), and therefore would like to give you some advice (how to look for a new job). First and foremost, you need to take charge, take the initiative (ya, right!) ...”

What followed was a boring lecture on virtues that only 2 people can ever possess. Boss and God! And even God might have difficulty in sustaining all of them. No point in re-iterating the entire conversation here, but the summary of it was that my rating was slashed by 2 points, thanks to the ignominious bell curve, which obviously, was out of the boss’s control; increments and bonuses were never discussed, since they will be decided by the board of directors anyway and promotions were out of the question, since by now I was thinking how I ever managed to reach this far.

It was a lesson on narcissism combined with escapism. Chetan Bhagat wrote in a novel, that if you like someone, their mere presence evokes a warm feeling in you. It seems to be true, for by now, I was feeling as warm as one would in Antarctica.

“I have done all I could, to the best of my abilities”, he said in a somber voice.

A hospital scene – with a doctor coming out of an operation theater and saying these exact words, trying to console the grief stricken relatives of a patient he could not save – swam before my eyes. For a moment I felt like strangling my boss with the imaginary stethoscope.

With the bile rising in my throat making any conversation impossible, I angrily pushed back the chair and got up to leave, making as much noise as possible (my only form of protest). The parting shot came just as I was about to close the door of his cabin on my way out.

“Sir, you should have at least got your shoes polished before coming for the meeting!”

Amen!

(Once again, thanks to Vinay, Rajesh, Archana for edits and expert comments)