Monday, February 20, 2006

Kayame Ithu Poyyada

I was sad when I started my computer this morning. I had received a very very sarcastic mail from my boss implying I was not working well - either I was buckling under pressure, am unable to organize properly, have lost the enthusiasm, or he was simply expecting too much from me. It was for some minor infraction in some document I sent for his review before leaving for the weekend. Turns out it was just a copy-paste error (I pasted it twice) and it had no bearing on the validity or accuracy of the document. He was like, because of that he couldn't carry on further. On friday itself he had (sarcastically) told me that I was not working properly. This was just the icing on the cake. After cursing silently a little bit, I composed myself and looked at the errors he told me. I explained them to him, s.l.o.w.l.y.
I got another job after that, and I sent it promptly as it was some work which I had done a month back. Again, the devil was in the details. He caught on some minor mistakes (I removed some stuff, but forgot to remove the stuff that said this stuff was present in the document) and (again, in a sarcastic tone), some stuff which I knew didn't exist, but he said they existed anyway. I composed myself (again) and checked it properly, checked it again, and again for the third time. This time I was bloody sure I was not wrong. I walked to his cabin and explained everything properly. What I did not tell him was we had the same dialogue about two months back, with the same result. This time, he told to make some changes (the current version was approved by him) and I put it in anyway. I predict, I will just copy and paste this paragraph again in the next quarter.
Coming back to that email, I read through the old emails he sent me and every one was written in the same sarcastic tone. I have seen his emails to others, with a friendly tone, some jokes thrown in, tons of smileys, etc. But I don't know why he has to be unduly harsh on me - I actually like this guy and offered to help him personally many times.
After pondering for a long time, I realised, everything is just a Maya. You make your own version of the Matrix and my version is the mootrix.
I am not sad anymore :)
I was wrong in saying I am entirely innocent, I accept my errors and oversights. (Thanks Prabhu, for bringing me down to earth)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude,Just pay attention to trivial issues if thats what your boss wants you to be careful about..

And now u realize ,u sit ur but only b/w 9-5 and chill around mumbai..
Goodluck !!

Lumbergh-in-training said...

"Kayame ithu poyyada, Verum katradaitha paiyada"
- Thirumoolar
The meaning is "this body is not real, it is just a bag filled with air"

Ananth said...

Hi,
Being a new employee myself, i know what it is to be at the wrong end of my manager. Hence i empathatize your feelings. In fact at some time in my life, the expectations from people arround me drove me so wild that my mistakes only got more numberous. And not just that it also got more simple. It was in these circumstances that i attended a yoga program and i realized that all these anxiety was because of expectation. We desperately want something back. We have this calculation all the time. All our actions are based on either greed or fear. The buddists have a word for this: The seventh hell. It is a kind of state in which a person expects something in return for his actions. Good that you found that there is no point in losing sleep over this. :-)

Lumbergh-in-training said...

Thank you Anto :-)