No feelings please… Respect your Boss!

The other day the husband returned home from work on time after eons. 

They've got a new recruit and the team has now some breathing space, he said.

"How's the new person?" I asked. "Young chap. Fresher..."

"Please. Please. Please... Respect him," I pleaded.

"Of course, I do!" the husband was puzzled. "Don't play The Boss," I threatened. Now he was completely lost.

Bosses - they come in varied specifications - men, women, fat, thin, tall, short, long haired, bald head,   bristled, moustached... but essentially they are same. Barring a few. In my 18 years' experience in 7 organisations across two countries I've had just 3 bosses who wouldn't make it to the omnipresent 'Boss Breed'. My salutes and respect to the three great leaders.

Include them in your prayers for their wellbeing and sanity 

Today, lemme write only about 'The Boss Breed' here.

I have a request - Please don't hate this breed. That doesn't mean you ought to love them. If you think it's necessary to harbour any feelings at all, then please pity them. Never forget to include them in your prayers. Most of you would be already doing it. But include them in your prayers for their wellbeing and sanity. Ask the Lord God Divine to bless them. To bless them with maturity and a sense of security, too. They need abundance of both.

Especially those...

Boss Floss #1: Who do not know how to end a compliment or a remark with a period. Compliments for them are on these lines..."Excellent job. Well done, but you could have done it quicker." Remarks go like this... "You are a senior, how could you have let it pass, it's not acceptable listen, I know how hard-working you are, but..." [Breathing exercise must be made mandatory at workplace to teach them when to pause. Breathe-in. Pause. Breathe-out. Pause.] 

Boss Floss #2: Who always point out your mistakes and mention about the volatile market scenario in the same breath until they have an emergency and you become the perfect candidate who knows it all. [They’ve all mastered in fear pyschosis] 

Boss Floss #3: Who always have to resist and hold up your leave application no matter how and when you present it to them. When you apply a few days before you need it, you are given a list of others on the team who have already applied during the period. 'No overlaps, please. Change your dates'. Now you think you are wiser and apply four months in advance the next time, and you are asked to first ensure no one else plans to go while you are gone. [Signing without resisting is injurious to their esteem!] 

Boss Floss #4: Who raise their voice at juniors at their slightest error while they let go graver and serious overlaps by others like a meek lamb. I overheard one swearing at a junior, 'I feel dirty cleaning your shit' - irked at having to edit an article written badly by the latter. One of my previous editors, over the two years I reported to her, never once okayed a headline I wrote.  She always asked one of her cronies to redo my work. One day, passing my work to her trusted aide, she muttered, 'Useless good for nothing ******' [They believe they single-handedly sustain the company] 

[Earlier in my career, I had a boss who taught me English grammar with a cigarette in hand. Read the fun here...]

Boss Floss #5: Who consider themselves God's gift to the profession. No matter how rotten their proposal or how irrelevant their idea is, they will huff into your collar until you give in to them. [Remember your kindergarten rhyme yes sir, yes sir three bags full sir. Peace.] 

Boss Floss #6: Who do not know to differentiate between personal attacks and general banter in the name of making conversation to bridge designation gap. 

Boss Floss #7: Who do not realise their staff also have only two hands, one head and a life just like they do. Forwarding a dozen mails to be actioned all within the same deadline and then asking for explanation why they aren't done is not an act of authority. Even a secretary can do that.

Ask the Lord God to bless them with maturity and a sense of security  

I can go on…

Until we learn to RESPECT one another. Respect the other person who is working with you. No matter how inexperienced, how junior, how senior he/she is. Oh yea, it's pathetic to see how office boys are treated. They serve tea, water, wash the cups [lipstick-stained and cigarette-smelling ones, too] and they do not deserve a look. Forget a smile. Respect folks.

If he or she is with you now it's for a reason. Trust me. The Universe, thankfully, doesn't act like you whimsically. Just consider them to be a soul who's sharing the time and space with you at this phase in your journey in this lifetime. We are all constantly moving. We will all one day walk the bent and disappear from one another’s sight.

Make an attempt to understand this simple logic, and see how the equation changes.

My coffee date with the mesmerizing boss

The other day I arrived at the café a good 45 minutes early for my scheduled meeting, for three reasons. One: I love studying people; Two: I wasn’t sure of the location and didn’t want to be late; Three: I wanted to enjoy my cuppa alone!

Picture Courtesy: MorgueFile

Sipping the latte as I sat engrossed assuming the nationality, age and mood of passersby, I saw my friend step out of the elevator at the far end of the lobby. She was with another woman [she had told me that she was bringing her boss along because she had to be dropped enroute.]

What height! I have a thing for tall people. And this boss was towering over my friend. Her demure strappy stilettos stole no credit for that, possibly her pixie hairdo stretched her neck up an inch, if at all. Her flashy red lips paled the Louis Vuitton on her elbow joint, as her carved legs strutted with precision kissing her knee-hugging skirt.

I had to hurry for they were nearing… Noticed the peacock-blue silk scarf teasing her plunging neckline and I imagined measuring her slender waist with my palms, so much so when she extended hers on arrival, I couldn’t say a ‘hello’ because I was holding that breath hard to tuck my tummy in.

And wow! her nails were polished the same shade of her eye-shadow that highlighted the hues of her scarf. She sat diagonally on the chair, crossed one knee over the other delicately, took off the shades from atop her head delicately as if a piece of melting cheese and placed it next to the classy iPhone.

My friend, meanwhile, had started briefing me on the agenda as she was in a rush. I couldn’t concentrate because I had not consumed her boss to my satisfaction yet.

I have this thing about women who carry themselves well; as in moderately-yet-glamorously-but-attractively-and-not-over-the-top sort of well! And yes, my latte turned odourless and gave up when her perfume took over. So dainty and lilting and...I had to remind myself not to nuzzle the space between us.

“What will you have?”

“Nope. We had lunch, and we need to go quick…” my friend volunteered.

“That’s wonderful of you..” began the mesmerizing boss and I turned to her greedily. 

“Thanks Nisha. But I’m full…”I didn’t hear the rest of what she said, nor do I remember the expression I sported or the conversation that ensued.

The remnants of her salad were on her teeth!

Now, I also saw white powder on her tailored black shoulders. Then again for the first time I noticed her index finger going to her scalp.

Time to leave, she dabbed her lips with a tissue, took her lipstick case and used the same index finger to extract the piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth!

I have this huge thing against women who embarrass me. You ask why the hell I felt embarrassed? That’s the thing about me!

How my boss taught me with a cigarette stick

I’ve learnt the least common denominator of a common normal human being is a good joke.  With the prefix ‘good’ being ‘yourself’.

So I pepper my speeches with an overdose of my fallacies and even those of my family’s and colleagues’. In fact, my local club is so familiar with the people whom I sit, eat, sleep and work with, that they guess my protagonist before I could even gesture.

Recalling one such incident

Here’s a pick from my first workplace that I’ve recounted several times over…

The first editor whom I worked with [am too modestly averse to use the cliché - ‘whom I had the privilege to work with…’]. And trust me, I don’t fool my readers. That’s  against my salt.

Well, he was a gentleman, nevertheless. Always marching in on polished black pointed shoes, thick rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, wearing full-sleeved striped shirt and thigh-hugging trousers. Now, that’s something I’m in the process of understanding. Why do men flaunt their figures?  Check this space, I’m nearing the secret.

Okay, getting to the man, he wasn’t that gentle ‘cos his pet peeve was to teach me English grammar, with a pencil, cigarette stick and coffee cup.

I’ve lost the number of times he tapped the burning stick on my story to explain a compound adjective. The complexity of the term would be lost on me while I gaped at how his hooded eyes protected the pencil end from rupturing his eyeballs as he drained the silt off the cup onto his smoky teeth.

One day, he was his usual angry self. He wrote [I’m yet to see a man with such a beautiful handwriting, I admit] the sentence - ‘The truck driver had a near death experience’ and asked me, puffing in his stick, “Is there a mistake in this sentence?”

As I sat recollecting all the grammar I learnt and unlearnt, he was fast losing patience. I heard him, stern and coarse, “Did he die?”

And my mind raised in a totally different direction. “Need to check with the reporter.”

“You asking me to check….” He was glaring from across the table.

“No, I mean, I’ll do it.” I replied in all innocence.

“When did those **** write in English? And the light blinked inside me. Meanwhile, he had lost it completely. He began underlining the sentence. With each puff he scratched harder on the paper. For the life of me I couldn’t think of the answer as his actions were more gripping. He was tapping the cigarette end into the coffee cup after each puff as he held me with his burning gaze.

After a minute of scratching and tapping and staring, he barked, “How many times do I explain this”, and emptied the cup into his mouth.

His bushy ash-laden moustache, set above angrily quivering lips and those blazing eyes looking for cover was a sight to behold.  

Thanks to Mr Banerjee, I’ll never miss hyphenating a compound adjective.