Apna bhai Manager

I have by now lost count of the number of times I came here, scribbled something and decided against continuing. But this one's seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for sure. Shouldn't I be bombarding scores of those online fans of mine who make it a point to drop by this slightly less occupied space on the internet with many of my insightful thoughts?

It's been quite some time, isn't it? An year since I obliged you people with that last post of mine, right? By the way, before you take any further pains to go through this whole post and comment that it was probably the most ridiculous work of mine (which probably means quite pathetic I would think for I am not P G Wodehouse whose most ridiculous work could be worth a read too) I would like to let you know that I might appear to be dumb here but then it's not me! Been quite some time since I have used either the left or the right part of my brain, that is neither the artistic or the analytical part of my brain.

People often ask me questions like, How do you like Singapore? How is work coming along? I need to be prodded in the ribs to answer such questions. Most often the person who is asking me these questions is just trying to make a conversation and I just can't vent out my frust outpourings in front of quite a few white-lies formal friends like those. :)

So, in stead of wasting my time writing about how I like(?) Singapore or my job let me share with you a very Dilbert-like incident that took place very recently in one of the casinos errr bank in Singapore.

A very good friend of mine, let's call him Hari again, (for the yo yo kewl kewl junta he is Harry and for the normal beings like me he is Hari for Hariharan) works in an investment bank here. As part of that Bank's continuous Nurturing Talent Through the Graduate Programme scheme he is supposed to be moving to a different team than what he had been working in for the past 6 months.

Out of "excitement" Hari mailed the future manager of his asking him for a meeting time to "facilitate his smoother transition" into his team. I don't know exactly how jobless was the manager either that Hari got a reply in 1 minute followed by a meeting request in the next minute.

Following this Hari went to meet him (probably he didn't have any choice either or maybe he chose to accept it rather than working on the desk ;) ) the next day. According to Hari the manager was thinking for some reason that Hari was quite enthusiastic and motivated to work in his team. So the conversation began.

Manager - So, I need to put you in one of these extremely challenging teams. What are you skills like?
Hari - Umm...I am a good team worker, I can contribute effectively to the resulting synergies because of the organic growth of the firm. (Hari thanks god for somehow keeping him awake through those HR presentations where at the end of every presentation you start from where you began.)
Manager - No, I mean technical skills
Hari - Ohh..
Pause
Manager - Yeah, so what are they like?
Hari - ...
Manager - So you know about databases?
Hari - No, I know that we have Sybase and SQL databases.
(I don't know what did he think about my database abilities after this answer but he moved on.)
Manager - Hmm, Networking?
Hari - Yeah, we had quite a few networking events in the graduate programme. We have always been told to know more and more people as it helps. Building contacts, meeting people, knowing people, knowing the bank culture is of paramount importance for a graduate. So, I have done quite a lot of networking.
Manager - No, I mean computer networking. The way computers connect to each other.
Hari - Oh, wasn't really interested in that.
Manager - Unix?
Hari - I have worked a bit on Linux but nothing substantial.
Manager - What have you done on Linux in the past?
Hari - I managed to install it.
(He changed the topic again.)
Manager - Web services and web development?
Hari - I have heard that HTML is pretty simple.
Manager - No, I mean Apache Tomcat and all?
Hari - I know of Apache Indian. I used to love that Chock There song of his.
Manager - Hmm, Programming?
Hari - I know very basic VBA but that's it.
Manager - Windows Server Administration?
Hari - No
Manager - Hmm, good (don't know why he said good there). Send me your C.V. and I will put you in some team accordingly.

Following this Hari didn't send his C.V. either.
Apparently, all along Hari was just deliberately pondering over his skills, which ones to share for any admission to knowing something worthwhile would have led Hari to be put in the respective team and an extremely high risk of having to work hard was lurking in his mind.

After 2-3 days Hari got this mail.

Dear NAME
Hari has been put in the [team name] Operations and Project Management.
Please add him to the rota.
Regards,
[Name of the sender]



This came as a shocker for Hari!! Most of us have had the ambition of getting into management since a long time I believe. In fact it came as a shock to me too. I really envy him. Out there Hari's joys knew no bounds. Hari had finally broken through all the obstacles and made his way into management, just by saying "I don't know" to any of the skills questions that he was asked. Kudos to Hari and all the management gurus all around. For the time being, let me get back to doing something...for I am not a manager as yet! :)