What they say and what they really mean

It's a slippery slope out here. Corporate world, that is. It's where the big mostly eats up the small and the shrewd eats up the naive. There is competition, alright, but not always a fair one. I hear many complain about the politics at workplace, favoritism, exploitation and mindless delegation of work. Some are quick learners. However, there are always others who just refuse to learn and make cribbing a routine.

Nevetheless, it's interesting to watch and learn from how people play the corporate game. I will throw some of the pebbles I have collected from the corporate beach. And I would love to see you add more, if any.

1. When you are in a meeting or a conference call with your boss and other people and you don't want to take responsibility of an assignment and want to delegate, you never say "Sorry, I can't do it". You cleverly pass it on to someone else by saying, "Given his experience, he is the best guy to perform this activity". Nice. Job done and your ass is saved.

2. This is an extension of the one above. Never say that you don't want to do something. Always show interest, irrespective how terribly disinterested you are. Once you come out of the meeting room, start first. If a deck needs to be prepared, be the first one to share the draft deck. Just put some goddamn slides and say, "Guys, I have put the first cut. I am sure you can make little modifications and complete this". The rest of the guys might scratch their heads for the rest of the week, but you have just earned yourself a week's worth of free time. And the good thing is you are the one who "initiated" it all.

God, I hate that word!

3. When you want to show that you are proactive in taking responsibility (especially when your boss is around), but don't really want to do the job, make an overuse of "WE". As in "We will take care of this", "Absolutely. We will ensure that it's done". Later at your convenience, you can take out the "I" from the "We" and have the rest of the morons finish the job. But I agree, doing this is easier said than done, especially you have smart guys around.

What I have seen people normally doing is talking a lot, giving all kinds of ideas (no matter how stupid they are) and asking the rest of the folks to just convert those ideas into text on paper.

4. If your boss has given you something to do and you have got it done from your juniors, don't mark them a copy when you send the task to your boss. Remove their names, remove "FWD" from the subject line and make it look like you have done it (And yes, remember to call up your juniors and tell them "I am not sure if boss is going to like it". They would be happy that their names don't figure, if they found out later that you have presented their work as yours.

5. Someone asks you for some information and you have absolutely no intention to do any work and provide the information. What do you do? You call up that guy and give him/her some great lecture on how the work must be done. Then you say that you would send him just the right info. You send out some irrelevant stuff you already had with you (a deck or a word file perhaps) and send an email marking a copy to your boss; "We discussed. As per the discussion, I am sending you the file we talked about. This should provide you all the info". You know what? Your job is done and that idiot would spend the entire day trying to figure out how to make any use of your file. But you have done your job, you are safe!

6. You are part of a team working for a common goal, say preparing a proposal document. What do you do if you want to minimize your workload? Don't tell anyone how much you have progressed. Even if you finished the task given to you in just a couple of hours, don't tell anyone yet. Release little bit of your work every day to the team and give the impression that you have been working hard everyday and making progress.

7. This is a bit similar to what's described above. To show that you are working hard, never send out a mail during office hours saying that the task in complete (unless there is a deadline, of couse). Finish the work during office hours but send it out only before you go to bed (1t 1.30 am at night, say). Man, you are working up so late!

Well, that's all I had in store inside my skull. If you have anything more, may I please request you enlighten us corporate servants?

Take care. Goodnight!

It's not their fault

"Does it have a SiRF III chip inside?" I ask.

The poor sales guy thought for a while and then said, "Sir sirf chip nahin hai...GPS bhi hai. Par kitna chip hai maloom nahin".

I didn't know what to say.

Well, those of you who are still wondering what the heck I am talking about, SiRF III is a high-sensitive chip that helps quickly lock on to GPS satellites. I was at a Croma store asking a sales guy if that GPS phone had a SiRF chip.

No Croma, contrary to what your tagline says, you don't help me buy.

I take pity on these guys who try to explain the basic features of a smart phone to me. When I ask them whether the phone has AVRCP, they say, "Woh sab nahin hai sir, par bluetooth hai is mein." AVRCP is a quite common Bluetooth profile found on most Bluetooth-enabled phones.

I think I made my point. Technology is moving so fast these days that for those of us who are tech-savvy enough, a decision to buy or not to buy something is getting increasingly difficult to make at a showroom. And the poor sales guy who is falling way behind can't help either.

It's ironical how things change. When there were no credit cards, you almost certainly knew what you were going to buy when you went out to the market. I remember when I was a kid, my father and I used to make at least two trips when we wanted to buy anything. First trip was to visit all the shops (there was no mall retailing then and one small shop didn't keep all varieties and brands) and decide what to buy. In many cases, we used to argue and counter-argue at home and a decision to buy was made only at home, not at the shop. In the second trip, we would take the exact amount in cash to buy what we finalized.

With malls and credit cards coming in, there was a complete shift in the way a buying decision was made. You go to the mall armed with a credit card, browse things, try them out there and just swipe the plastic. No going back home. No taking the exact amount of cash. Instant purchase. Instant gratification.

But now when I think of it, I think in some cases, we are back at square one. A decision to buy is no more being made at the mall. It's being made at home. There are of course no arguments between family members (because there are very few left in this world who can make sense out of the new features being constantly added to products). But yes there are arguments. On gsmarena.com. On mouthshut.com. You listen to the users, their experiences, their arguments, their feedback, review comments before making a decision. You read expert reviews, you gauge popularity from readership hits, you see the product in action on YouTube. Because at the store, you just can't test the battery life. You most probably can't test the sunlight legibility of a mobile phone. You wouldn't know about software compatibility. And boy, you wouldn't know whether there is a SiRF III chip inside!

I don't have to take the exact amount of cash. But yes, when I go out to shop for a gadget, I know what exactly I am going to buy. No salesman can ever sell me anything else.Because I know better.

How things change!