There is always at least one villain in every story, period. No arguments, no ‘world is beautiful’ theories, not even from the folks living in a world of luminous optimism. My story spanning across 5 years of corporate slavery is no different and thereby between the pages of each of these office tales hides a villain who goes by the alias: ‘The Boss’.
But I was not to know this yet, as at the stroke of 9, I entered the imposing stone building of my very first workplace with stars in my eyes, a spring in my step and a naïve heart bursting with positivity. Little did I know that destiny was playing a dirty game, a game with the sole aim to cut the spring in my step to size and crush the stars in my eyes to dust. My foray into the world of management was to begin in the daunting shadows of one of the worst variety of bosses– ‘The She Worm’.
Being a borderline feminist I am all for gender equality and when I was told that I would be reporting to Ms. J, I felt I had hit jackpot. My elation quickly spiraled down the drain as Ms. J turned out to be my first She Worm. In the following years many more ‘She Worms’ plagued me as a result of which I deciphered an overarching trend in their behaviours and although I have always looked up to the league of women who have successful careers and blossoming personal lives - all at the same time - I developed a strong distaste for the ‘She Worm’ variant. ’The She Worm’ comes from the very same league of dynamic women but her success seeps into her head like a virulent acid eating into whatever modesty and humility it finds in its way leaving behind a hollow shell of narcissistic arrogance. Her narcissism washes over everyone else like a wave of mucky street water splashing over unsuspecting pedestrians. What exacerbates the situation is when, in her quest to be the only success story around, she incongruously doles out additional flak to her women subordinates. With at least one sycophant male subordinate under her armpit, she casually tramples the rest of the staff-subordinates and coworkers alike- under her feet.
I was reeling under the after effects of the She Worm when I was thrown in the arena with another bizarre specimen – ‘The Smitten Kitten’. Just when I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of not reporting to a female supervisor, the Smitten Kitten started showing his colours and boy, were they not to my liking. Mr. Smitten Kitten, as his name suggests, had his eyes and heart set on a pretty young thing in our team and nothing could stop Ms. Pretty Young Thing from making the most of it. She simply had to bat her eyelids and feign distress for him to scoop large portions of her work into other people’s plates. As the ‘Smitten Kitten’ conferred one exclusive perk after the other on her, she hopped, skipped and jumped her way to the top, rubbing her luck in our faces on the way up. Exploiting her benefactor’s benevolence to the hilt she enjoyed extended vacations, perfect performance ratings, recommendations to senior management for early promotions and the list goes on. As for the rest of us, we couldn’t do much except turn a new shade of green every time a new favour was bestowed upon her.
From the claws of the ‘Smitten Kitten’ I landed straight in the lair of ‘The One with a God Complex’. I held my breath each day as I witnessed a specimen of this variety in its full glory. This guy knew his stuff like the back of his hand. However, his cockiness and overly self assured demeanor were quite the killjoys for most people working with him. Despite all this, he has by far been the best boss I have worked for. His God Complex made him a good teacher as he liked to show off his breadth and depth of knowledge to a perpetually awestruck audience. Oozing confidence from each pore in his body, he made his presence felt wherever he went. To some he was intimidating, to others he was infuriating and to still others he was odd. But to me he was someone whose each action meant something – a learning experience to be made use of at work, a funny anecdote to be related to friends later or simply a shrewd move which resembled a tactical chess strategy. Working with him meant hard work - unimaginably late nights owing to crazy deadlines and perplexing tasks. His motto of pushing people to the maximum to bring out their true potential did not improve his chances of winning a popularity contest at work.
As if they weren’t enough, the above were interspersed with specimen from other interesting varieties as well. For instance, there was ‘The One without a Spine’, who had no qualms about thrusting his unarmed juniors headlong into enemy lines so that he could escape a sticky situation, there was the ‘King of Sarcasm’, who only spouted sentences laced with vicious sarcasm whenever he opened his mouth and the ‘Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest’ trinity, a set of three inanely brainless supervisors who would zone off into a world of their own as soon as conversation around them took an intellectual turn. Another noteworthy specimen was ‘Mr. I-love-massacring-the-English-language’. True to his name, he repeatedly slaughtered the language of the world. Sentences like ‘Saar, if you don’t finger me, I won’t finger you (read: Sir, if you don’t trouble me, I won’t trouble you)’, ‘I could not able to do it, you could able to do it (read: I wasn’t able to do it, were you able to do it?)’, ‘What ball in my court, ball in his court, I want your balls in your court and his balls in his court’ (read: I do not understand the phrase: ‘the ball is in their court’) would render us breathless with peals of laughter.
As each boss left an indelible mark on me, it appeared as if I was stuck at the receiving end of a damaged assembly line which produced only faulty bosses. Notwithstanding the trauma and strain they inflicted on me, I managed to learn a little something from each of them. ‘The She Worm’ and ‘The Smitten Kitten’ taught me what not to do when in a position of power, ‘The One with the God Complex’ taught me the importance of confidence that comes from being thorough with one’s work and ‘Mr. I love-massacring-the-English-language’ taught me how bouts of laughter at work could be highly effective in beating stress and work- blues. Lessons learnt from each specimen, odious or otherwise, now seem precious and I hope to put them to good use someday.
But I was not to know this yet, as at the stroke of 9, I entered the imposing stone building of my very first workplace with stars in my eyes, a spring in my step and a naïve heart bursting with positivity. Little did I know that destiny was playing a dirty game, a game with the sole aim to cut the spring in my step to size and crush the stars in my eyes to dust. My foray into the world of management was to begin in the daunting shadows of one of the worst variety of bosses– ‘The She Worm’.
Being a borderline feminist I am all for gender equality and when I was told that I would be reporting to Ms. J, I felt I had hit jackpot. My elation quickly spiraled down the drain as Ms. J turned out to be my first She Worm. In the following years many more ‘She Worms’ plagued me as a result of which I deciphered an overarching trend in their behaviours and although I have always looked up to the league of women who have successful careers and blossoming personal lives - all at the same time - I developed a strong distaste for the ‘She Worm’ variant. ’The She Worm’ comes from the very same league of dynamic women but her success seeps into her head like a virulent acid eating into whatever modesty and humility it finds in its way leaving behind a hollow shell of narcissistic arrogance. Her narcissism washes over everyone else like a wave of mucky street water splashing over unsuspecting pedestrians. What exacerbates the situation is when, in her quest to be the only success story around, she incongruously doles out additional flak to her women subordinates. With at least one sycophant male subordinate under her armpit, she casually tramples the rest of the staff-subordinates and coworkers alike- under her feet.
I was reeling under the after effects of the She Worm when I was thrown in the arena with another bizarre specimen – ‘The Smitten Kitten’. Just when I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of not reporting to a female supervisor, the Smitten Kitten started showing his colours and boy, were they not to my liking. Mr. Smitten Kitten, as his name suggests, had his eyes and heart set on a pretty young thing in our team and nothing could stop Ms. Pretty Young Thing from making the most of it. She simply had to bat her eyelids and feign distress for him to scoop large portions of her work into other people’s plates. As the ‘Smitten Kitten’ conferred one exclusive perk after the other on her, she hopped, skipped and jumped her way to the top, rubbing her luck in our faces on the way up. Exploiting her benefactor’s benevolence to the hilt she enjoyed extended vacations, perfect performance ratings, recommendations to senior management for early promotions and the list goes on. As for the rest of us, we couldn’t do much except turn a new shade of green every time a new favour was bestowed upon her.
From the claws of the ‘Smitten Kitten’ I landed straight in the lair of ‘The One with a God Complex’. I held my breath each day as I witnessed a specimen of this variety in its full glory. This guy knew his stuff like the back of his hand. However, his cockiness and overly self assured demeanor were quite the killjoys for most people working with him. Despite all this, he has by far been the best boss I have worked for. His God Complex made him a good teacher as he liked to show off his breadth and depth of knowledge to a perpetually awestruck audience. Oozing confidence from each pore in his body, he made his presence felt wherever he went. To some he was intimidating, to others he was infuriating and to still others he was odd. But to me he was someone whose each action meant something – a learning experience to be made use of at work, a funny anecdote to be related to friends later or simply a shrewd move which resembled a tactical chess strategy. Working with him meant hard work - unimaginably late nights owing to crazy deadlines and perplexing tasks. His motto of pushing people to the maximum to bring out their true potential did not improve his chances of winning a popularity contest at work.
As if they weren’t enough, the above were interspersed with specimen from other interesting varieties as well. For instance, there was ‘The One without a Spine’, who had no qualms about thrusting his unarmed juniors headlong into enemy lines so that he could escape a sticky situation, there was the ‘King of Sarcasm’, who only spouted sentences laced with vicious sarcasm whenever he opened his mouth and the ‘Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest’ trinity, a set of three inanely brainless supervisors who would zone off into a world of their own as soon as conversation around them took an intellectual turn. Another noteworthy specimen was ‘Mr. I-love-massacring-the-English-language’. True to his name, he repeatedly slaughtered the language of the world. Sentences like ‘Saar, if you don’t finger me, I won’t finger you (read: Sir, if you don’t trouble me, I won’t trouble you)’, ‘I could not able to do it, you could able to do it (read: I wasn’t able to do it, were you able to do it?)’, ‘What ball in my court, ball in his court, I want your balls in your court and his balls in his court’ (read: I do not understand the phrase: ‘the ball is in their court’) would render us breathless with peals of laughter.
As each boss left an indelible mark on me, it appeared as if I was stuck at the receiving end of a damaged assembly line which produced only faulty bosses. Notwithstanding the trauma and strain they inflicted on me, I managed to learn a little something from each of them. ‘The She Worm’ and ‘The Smitten Kitten’ taught me what not to do when in a position of power, ‘The One with the God Complex’ taught me the importance of confidence that comes from being thorough with one’s work and ‘Mr. I love-massacring-the-English-language’ taught me how bouts of laughter at work could be highly effective in beating stress and work- blues. Lessons learnt from each specimen, odious or otherwise, now seem precious and I hope to put them to good use someday.
