Travails of the Blue Collared Laborer-Chapter 1

The feeling was funny, but I was ready to take on the world. To compete with every Goddamn employee and beat them at their own game. I had been doing this all my life- competing with idiots and deriving immense satisfaction in beating them. College was fun, but I was so looking forward to working. I thought I would find some meaning in life. I would find a way to reach closer to my dream of world dominion(ok this is not an exageration, I did dream of world dominion). Well, so training period passed and the starry eyed dreams persisted and then something hit me.....it hit me hard on the head and it was called "Project Allocation".

Arun Chindolkar greeted me with a warm smile and my faith in the effervescent Indian Software industry was reaffirmed with what he had to say. I had expected Arun (Zymbian Tech was following the norm of every other tech co....we adress even the chairman on a first name basis...how cool after the years of adressing pieces of poop as sir....now we could adress pieces of poop with their first name...though my fantasy of actually calling them dog dung has still not been satisfied...okay enough of the long unending bracket) to be a 34 year old careworn employee who had grown with time to his present position of Account Manager. On the contrary he was 27 and had earnt the position of Account Manager over a period of just 6 years. I was not at all surprised, afterall it was well known that you get rewarded for hard work and come up in life with sincerity(stop laughing....I did sincerely believe in all this crap).

"Welcome to Zymbian Ramesh. I am Arun Chindolkar and I handle the Unitech account. We currently handle have 3 projects in this account. Well the project you have been allocated to is Zeo-FIN 3.2." I was all ears listening to every word and noticing that exuberent smile and sincere face that Arun held. Though the lines seemed rehearsed they had that incredible element of sincerity and genuineness. "See Ramesh, this project is really challenging and the learning potential for a fresh graduate is tremendous. You have been handpicked for this project precisely for this reason. We observed your academic record and performance during training and realised that we needed someone competent and resposible for such a crucial and complex project." I was listening to a Beethoven symphony and couldn't have enough of it. "You will be given a huge amount of resonsibility and over a period of time you may have to even start leading a team of 2-3 people under you. So I just wanted to get you in tune with what is in store coz I'm sure your upto every challeneg that will be thrown at you out here. We in Zymbian choose only the best and Zeo-FIN over the last 3 years that has established itself as a project where only the fittest of the fit survive. I think we should get down to business straight away. I'll intorduce you to the team and you could probably go through some of the project documentation then. Come along then."

We started walking from the room into the large cluster of the software dungeons-the cubicles, but I had to say something to Arun first. "Arun just one thing. Well in college I was called by my last name - Daude'....and I do prefer to be called that way if you really don't mind.So when you do intorduce me to the team..."
"No issues(I was to soon find out "No issues" was a phrase managers were most adept at using...it actually meant "I hate your fuckin guts for sayin what you just did,but professionally I have nothing against it"...so even if a subordinate were to tell a manager that he was sleeping with his wife, the manager would be trained to just turn and reassuringly say "No issues"). From today you will be called Daude' if thats how you want it to be. Chalo abhi Daude." The last remark was a joke and he did gesture with his eyes that it was time to laugh. So I laughed at the non-existent wit and humor in the remark. I was already used to the laughs in college created by punning on my last name and it ceased to stir any particular emotion in me now. So we both laughed for a good 30 seconds, and I artifically produced a slight tear of laughter as well from my eye. That was sure to impress him a great deal. A subordinate with a good sense of humor and the ability to take jokes on him sportingly is well treated. This notion I still hold to this day although bear in mind...no jokes on superiors are taken well even if it results in them laughing. They are just faking like any of us and the only actual result is a comment on the appraisal which reads as follows "Does his work satsifactorily, though he is not performing to his full potential. His present quality of deliverables is excellent and he could extend it by proacively shouldering more responsibility." Subtle isn't it. Makes you wonder how you don't get much of a raise even though the manager has showered such praises on you. Ah the simple pleasures managers derive on our grave. But it did take quite a while before I came across all this. A whole 3 weeks.
I now expect entrants to realize in 1. Well thats just me, I do set high expectations on fresh entrants when I see such great potential and zeal in them.