Client appreciation, awards, tool generation, permanent fix, documenting, Leadership skill, Communication.....once again I confirmed whether I’ve put enough build-ups in my self-review form for last year. I assured myself inside, that this time there’s no chance to miss the top rating. This self-assurance made my confused mind half-happy for the time being and I went back to the Mainframe screens to do the SPUFI reviews. Completing the review, I was about to send the mail, but noticed a communicator popup by Divya.
Divya: Hi...
Me: Hello Divya, how r u? And wat’s news ther?
Divya: hey it seems, Renju is lil bit desp.
Me: wat hap?
Divya: Her appraisal results are out. And she got only EM. She was expecting EA.
Me: Huh! EM for her??! How come? She was striving hard for the R4 release with lots of night-outs and even skipping lunch and dinner no?
Divya: yesss...but....
Me: what But?? Lemme ping her....
I felt really bad for her and planned to talk to her. I tried to call her over phone. But she did not pick. I noticed she’s available in communicator. I told a Hi to her. She replied – ‘I’m on a call. Catch u later’.
I continued replying to the review mail, but something was processing at the back-end of my mind. I asked to myself, if Renju got only a second bucket, what would be my case??...hhmm...this thought again disturbed me. I ran through my activities and achievements of last year starting right from the 1st of January till December 31st and I couldn’t find even a single reason for losing a grip. But still if at all I lose it what will be the reason he is gonna give me? Before reaching the destination of my mind’s trip to find the answer, Divya’s communicator popped up again.
Divya: You talked?
Me: No da. She was on a call. Wil talk later
Divya: hmmm....I guess she won’t talk...anyhow leave it...
Me: how about your rating dear?
Divya: din’t get it yet. I don’t have any expectations.
Me: Oh! Y do u say so? You should definitely get nothing less than the BEST. You’ve been struggling for a long for the project no?
Divya: hmm...whatever it is, Managers will have some reason for not giving us the best...
Me: That’s right. But still, you should boldly give out your points; mention all the achievements, the appreciations, major bug fixes and all. Don’t just go and accept whatever they give to you as you did last year....
Divya: Anyhow, I know they’ll take me for granted. I’m going to request for a release if the rating is bad. I don’t want to strive anymore in this hell without a result.
Me: Let’s see how it’s gonna be. At any rate be prepared for a fight.
Huh! It’s the most useless and desperate moments of any Software Engineer’s life. A formality being done to rate the performance of the Employee for a whole year in the most formal way ever and taking in inputs from him in all the aspects of his technical, personal and business growth and the competency improvements, and the employee putting in his maximum effort for the whole year for the winning face of the Project leaving out or literally forgetting his sleep and food during many of the days and finally framing out his self review in such a detailed and stunning way as he can and the filled in form being sent to the so-called Manager and he himself does something called ‘Manager review’ and finally the result - when it comes out showing that it has no relation with what he did for the whole year!! What a ridiculous phenomenon in the corporate environment?!
I’ve checked my Outlook Client mailbox and found there is a new issue reported by one of the customers, an issue with one of the critical database in test region. Forgetting all the disturbing thoughts in my mind, I picked up the issue for analysis. I’ve checked the database definitions, cluster definitions and verified that everything is fine and in place. Tried to run an analyzer job on the DB and found that it has gone corrupted somehow. Communicated the findings to the user and requested for her permission for stopping the database and hence for the remedial actions. As I was waiting for the reply from her, I just had a look into my ‘To do’ list and found that there are few review comments to be addressed in the Change Management document. I started with the task of addressing the comments. It was then my dear team mates buzzed for a tea break. Happily took my cup and went with them to the tea-room where the most funny and talkative character among the clients - Raymon was killing his Indian colleague Shyam with his weekend adventure stories and the fun activities of his 6 year old kid Joe. Being there, we also had to give ears to his non-stop tongue for some time. But somehow we managed to make teas quickly and flee from there. We all gathered in our usual leisure room, and started off with the movie ‘Naadunissi Naaygal’ which Ganesh and Rajesh watched the previous day. Enough reviews were given for the movie and for Gautham Menon for his brave attempt by all the three of them – Ganesh, Rajesh and Selvam. Since I’ve not seen it yet, I patiently heard them talking about it. Then the concentration turned on to me, teasing me for the incident happened at ASDA; the billing counter lady holding me for buying a knife from there asking me for a proof of my age. (Here only those above age of 25 are allowed to buy knife). It’s always their favourite pastime to tease me for my miniature appearance.
No wonder that the next topic was appraisal news. Rajesh shared some latest news about offshore and I heard one name amongst those who got top ratings – Siva! He is supposed to be one of my competitors. There are around 4 people of same designation under my manager and hence all 4 of us are supposed to be foes, as only one amongst these four is supposed to receive the best rating according to the existing convention. The news shocked me a bit. I did not respond to the news for a few seconds. Then with a long sigh I told –‘hhmm...I would be denied of the first rating since I’m given the Onsite opportunity’, just to show the audience that I’m ok with that, though deep inside I was badly realizing that all my calculations are going to be in vain this year also which made me feel a heaviness inside. They went on with some more topics. Though I was physically present there, mentally I was behind those ‘appraisal thoughts’.
After tea, we all were back to seat and started off with each one’s works. For me, the permission e-mail was waiting from Feather Daniel for stopping and taking actions on corrupted Database. I’ve got into the work, but in between with little chats in OC and gtalk. Every now and then, news updates were flying from Offshore about buckets and 1-1 meetings. In between, Hrithik from my team buzzed me in communicator and told that he too got EA rating. I felt happy for him and congratulated, and of course, fixed the treat date and times..!!
Huh! This girl has no other work or what? I murmured to myself thinking about the one sitting behind me. She is from Andaman, working for a different Client. But always she’ll be on phone, either a ‘sweet’ Knowledge Transfer with his Offshore boy or some gossiping with someone, whoever is free, else some build-up about her own work or talents. Whatever it is, I’m having a very good time sitting behind her. Anyhow she won’t come to my seat to brag. So I’m saved to a good extend. But Ganesh is always the prey, as he is such a silent and compromising guy. Now her talk over phone is nothing but enquiring to as many mobile company customer cares as possible in UK, to decide upon buying a new smart phone for her fiancée. And it’s quite evident that rather than getting knowledge on the phones, her main intention is to make everyone aware that she is gonna do something really BIG.
Submitting the Reorganization job I looked at my watch and it’s around 1.05 pm. I’ve had a look at Ganesh, Rajesh, Selvam and Bala. Everyone seemed to be so serious and busy except Bala. I can see his monitor and understood he is seriously browsing to fetch the latest score of Netherland for the WC cricket match going on. I turned to him and passed a smile showing that I’m hungry.
He dinged me in communicator and asked ‘You learned the pros and cons, price and offers of all the Smartphone available in market, eh?’ .
I gave a ‘:P’ smiley in reply.
By that time luckily Rajesh got up and came to my seat asking if we can go for lunch. Both of us along with Bala took all lunch kits and marched to the Oven room. We took each of the lunch boxes outside, which spread out the variety and tempting smells of Chicken pepper masala, Fish Fry, Prawns curry and Ganesh’s special ‘Mushroom poriyal’. An English lady came rushing into the room and asked if she can keep her food also inside the Oven. Though we said ok to her with pleasure, she ran back with the same speed. Seeing this Vishnu, one of our Managers commented that she might have pissed off by these spicy smells and escaped. We all laughed as it was a big truth. Heating everything, we started to the View point Restaurant and as always had a delicious lunch with variety non-veg dishes. Several interesting and boring topics were discussed and few funny fights also went on. And Bala commented about the most expected ‘Bucket’ also. He is also supposed to be one of the competitors for me as per the convention as I said above, though actually we are not.
On finishing lunch, I and Rajesh came back to seat together while others went out for some walks and chit-chats. On the way I talked to Rajesh about the possibility of getting a second rating for me and continued saying ‘if at all I’m getting I’ll fight’. And commented that I would be denied a good rating only for the Onsite Opportunity I’m given. But if my manager says so to me, I’ll tell him that it’s for the year 2011 and the appraisal was done for the year 2010. Rajesh smiled and wished good luck to me. According to him also, my manager will be giving top rating only to a single employee and that’s already given. So deep inside I was preparing myself for a big fight. Soon after reaching my desk, unlocked the system and took a notepad. I wrote down all the relevant points for the fights and it counted to around 20 points in my achievements list for the year of 2010 and only around 3 points which should be anticipated as my weakness which my boss might come up with. I even typed some points to defend myself if ever he comes back to me with negatives. I sighed and asked to myself ‘What a preparation for a one-one, it’s for the first time in my life, or in my past 5 and half years of career, I’m doing such homework for an appraisal meeting’. The reason is nothing but, I was much confident on my achievements and the efforts put by me for the project. Also the challenge I took to make the new DBA support stable, moreover the trust I’d in my manager and even the Senior Manager that they are well aware of all what I’ve done for last year. The long list of achievements including 4-5 major appreciations from Customer and senior Management, 3 awards, many Permanent fixes and solutions to problems, new suggestions in the support process, Creation of reusable components and documents e.t.c again gave me confidence that I won’t lose it this time.
I went back to the fixing of issues and some other routine tasks. The Bangalore team member Surya called and asked me about the new Change management process and had a chat with him for some time. Completing the daily checks and status mails, checked the time and found it’s 4.30 pm..!!Time is running so fast, it seems. Sending the update mail to Feather Daniel, and closing down each application, I’ve started my daily leisure activities like checking Facebook updates, and personal mails. I’ve checked the Office mailbox to confirm once again if any forward mails are missed out and got one with the subject line ‘DO YOU LOVE YOURS ENOUGH?’ from Reshma. It was such a touching short story that I felt really bad for the mom in the story. I thought about my mom and realized that I’m missing her so badly. Renju buzzed me in gtalk, as she reached home and I asked her why is she sitting so late before gtalk though I know the very reason behind, that she is waiting for someone. By the time, I noticed everyone started packing up things as the car owners or our transport providers were about to start. I also stood and up and started bidding bye to Renju. The worrying thought about the mom in the story again hunted me and I took my mobile to ring to my mom. Unfortunately there was no network and I hung up the call. We started back home. Ganesh did not forget the health capsule that he used to give me every day – an orange. It’s a most wanted Vitamin (I’m not sure which one, something in Vitamin A-Z), according to him and we two enjoyed Orange and he had his apple too. He shared some stories about his home and I felt sorry to hear that his Grandma’s toe was cut because of high diabetics. After talking for a while, gradually his neck started the interesting steps which made me aware that he is into deep sleep. I began to flow in my own dreamy world, drifting from one thought to another and on reaching the turning where I saw a black board with ‘Pillowell Drive’ written on it, I realized my thoughts has again reached back to square one – my mom. She too might be badly missing me; I thought and decided to call her soon after reaching home. Collecting the laptop bags and lunch kits from the dickey of the car and telling ‘Good night’s and ‘See you Tomorrow’s to all, I rushed to home and dialled mom’s cell number. I dint take pains to realize that it’s midnight 12 back in India. Hastily I told a Hello to mom when I felt that she picked the call up. But I could hear was “don’t you know it’s too late here? Call tomorrow” and she was about to cut the call. But luckily my loving dad grabbed the phone from her and gave me a sweet hello. We talked for a while and planned some funny revenge against mom and cut the call. I started my evening routine and while praying I took and extra five minutes to ask for recommendation for my first Bucket. The evening went on as every evenings with little bit of browsing, my favourite face-booking, cooking, eating and by around 9.45p.m I went to bed. I did not forget my daily Goodnight messages to be sent to my local friends Ganesh and Vani. Ganesh, as usual sent back a reply asking something and the sms chat went on for few minutes and amidst I slept off.
“It’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up, it’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up, it’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up’ the speaking alarm in the support mobile started to annoy me. I peeped into the mobile screen with one eye and that too half opened and pressed the ‘snooze’ key and again slept off. Twice or thrice the same key was pressed and after sometime somehow managed to wake up and directly went to kitchen to warm up the food prepared at previous night for today’s lunch and took out two pieces of bread and butter from fridge and went back to the morning routines, finished it off, had breakfast, packed lunch and started to ‘Finsbury House’ where everyone would be waiting for cars. As usual, on the way called home and talked to my sissies.
On reaching office, eagerly checked for my Outlook inbox and as expected, got to see a mail from my Manager with the subject ‘Appraisal Discussion’ and it said –
‘Please make yourself available for appraisal discussion by 5 PM IST. I will make your document available for your review soon.’
I felt a thorn is pricking me and the thought that he is about to reveal the most awaited appraisal result made me a little thoughtful. I buzzed him in communicator and asked him whether he should be ok to discuss the same by 4.30 pm IST as I’d booked a conference room for the status call and he replied he’ll confirm on the same. Also he asked me to check my mailbox as he released the appraisal results for my review. Impatiently I went to the PeopleSoft-HCM application and took out my performance document, scrolled down till the end to see the rating and score. I saw ‘Exceeding Most’ along with a 9.0, I tried to believe that I took the wrong document for review and I came out of the application. Again rendering the username and password correctly took the document and I’d to believe that it’s a ‘SECOND BUCKET’ with one of the least scores!! It was really hard to believe though. Soon I dinged Rajesh and updated him about it. He gave me strength to fight against it. I realized that it’s time for me to use all the pre-listed points to argue, at one fell swoop I comprehended that all those fights are surely gonna be a waste effort and nothing is going to change.
A new popup window in the right hand corner of my desktop inviting me for a conference chat moved my concentration away. It was Ranjitha leading the conference chat and Divya and Renju in loop, they started discussing about the ratings in Divya’s team, hinting that Divya is also going to get a second rating only. I did not feel at all to advice her to fight against this blunder. Instead, I was slowly realizing that all these ratings were already decided ‘impartially’ by the so called Management pool and the great yet undefined phenomenon named ‘Normalization’ comes as a handy word in English vocabulary for them to justify themselves for leaving the ones like us out! - those who are taken for granted, those who are supposed to make no blast and accept whatever is being ‘awarded’ to them, those who are not in the list of people who spent time for ‘sweet talks’ with them. I typed in the chat window
Me: Mine is also EM with 9.0
Ranjitha: Huh! When is the meeting?
Divya: Are n’t u going to talk against it?
Me: Y Divya, it’s all of no use, I understand
Renju: True. I’m just back after such a waste and long meeting. The meeting, as always began with so many words ‘excellent’, ‘fantastic’, ‘marvellous performance’ as Usha Uthupp used to extol the contestants in the reality show and gave me a feel like I’m the creamiest of the creamy layer. But the talk ended in the typical manner and I realized I should not have opened my mouth.
Me: That’s what Renju, even I’m thinking. I’ll simply go and hear whatever he has to tell and happily come back. See you once I’m back. I’m going for the status call.
I took printout of last week’s MOM, along with my appraisal document and the list of points which I’d to talk about. But left the list on my desktop and went to the conference room. The status call went on in the usual way, discussed about the deliberations, action items, status of each items, leave and training plans e.t.c. Though my manager was also involved in the call, both of us talked as if nothing wrong has happened. Once the call was finished I confirmed with him, if he’ll call me for the appraisal discussion and he said ok.
Had a cold coffee and rushed back to the meeting room again. I made myself believe that I’m alright and I’m not gonna blast. The phone in room started ringing. With cold hands I picked it up and let out a soft ‘hello’. The ‘hello’ received from other end was bit serious though! He initiated the call asking ‘what do you feel after checking the review form?’ for which I’d to coldly respond that ‘whatever I feel, it’s of no use now right?’. The meeting started in a ‘discussion’ mode, progressed in a ‘fighting’ mode and somehow ended up in a ‘frustrated’ mode. Though I’d yelled out whatever I’d in mind and questioned all the shortfalls of the appraisal system, the so called manager tongue could rule out the significance of each and every point I put forward. And he might have felt himself contented that he is successful in letting me believe that whatever achievement I’ve made myself and contributions I’ve done for the Project were irrelevant. But I felt contented that the last whole year and last one hour appraisal discussion have made me believe that whatever I do or however I fight for my rights is going to be in vain, before the most competent appraisal words ‘Normalization’ and ‘Bell curve’. Anyhow, before giving up the call, I’ve told him ‘don’t think that my sincerity towards the work is not going to be effected because of this rating, don’t worry about it’ as a show of ‘magnanimity’ within me or you may use any other words to describe it!
Coming back to seat with an irritated mood, the first thing I’ve done was logging into my Facebook account and putting the comment – ‘Again got 2 buckets ....: D, thus for past 3 years, 3*2=6 buckets!!! What shall I do with all these??' and continued replying to the interesting comments I got for the status update. As obvious, I’ve not touched any of my pending tasks for the day, but continued with Facebook-ing and a little bit of chatting here and there. As any other day, started from office by 5.00 pm, had a boring evening, next day to work, again the same old routine....gradually forgot about the appraisal, ratings and buckets, set the new set of ‘foolish unreachable’ goals for 2011, started taking up the responsibilities, as any other dumb IT employee, my days at work continued as ever before....with not much of expectations....jus looking ahead for the month end to get the pay and waiting for 15th of next month to look at my bank account with a satisfaction of making it empty...!! <<>>>
Divya: Hi...
Me: Hello Divya, how r u? And wat’s news ther?
Divya: hey it seems, Renju is lil bit desp.
Me: wat hap?
Divya: Her appraisal results are out. And she got only EM. She was expecting EA.
Me: Huh! EM for her??! How come? She was striving hard for the R4 release with lots of night-outs and even skipping lunch and dinner no?
Divya: yesss...but....
Me: what But?? Lemme ping her....
I felt really bad for her and planned to talk to her. I tried to call her over phone. But she did not pick. I noticed she’s available in communicator. I told a Hi to her. She replied – ‘I’m on a call. Catch u later’.
I continued replying to the review mail, but something was processing at the back-end of my mind. I asked to myself, if Renju got only a second bucket, what would be my case??...hhmm...this thought again disturbed me. I ran through my activities and achievements of last year starting right from the 1st of January till December 31st and I couldn’t find even a single reason for losing a grip. But still if at all I lose it what will be the reason he is gonna give me? Before reaching the destination of my mind’s trip to find the answer, Divya’s communicator popped up again.
Divya: You talked?
Me: No da. She was on a call. Wil talk later
Divya: hmmm....I guess she won’t talk...anyhow leave it...
Me: how about your rating dear?
Divya: din’t get it yet. I don’t have any expectations.
Me: Oh! Y do u say so? You should definitely get nothing less than the BEST. You’ve been struggling for a long for the project no?
Divya: hmm...whatever it is, Managers will have some reason for not giving us the best...
Me: That’s right. But still, you should boldly give out your points; mention all the achievements, the appreciations, major bug fixes and all. Don’t just go and accept whatever they give to you as you did last year....
Divya: Anyhow, I know they’ll take me for granted. I’m going to request for a release if the rating is bad. I don’t want to strive anymore in this hell without a result.
Me: Let’s see how it’s gonna be. At any rate be prepared for a fight.
Huh! It’s the most useless and desperate moments of any Software Engineer’s life. A formality being done to rate the performance of the Employee for a whole year in the most formal way ever and taking in inputs from him in all the aspects of his technical, personal and business growth and the competency improvements, and the employee putting in his maximum effort for the whole year for the winning face of the Project leaving out or literally forgetting his sleep and food during many of the days and finally framing out his self review in such a detailed and stunning way as he can and the filled in form being sent to the so-called Manager and he himself does something called ‘Manager review’ and finally the result - when it comes out showing that it has no relation with what he did for the whole year!! What a ridiculous phenomenon in the corporate environment?!
I’ve checked my Outlook Client mailbox and found there is a new issue reported by one of the customers, an issue with one of the critical database in test region. Forgetting all the disturbing thoughts in my mind, I picked up the issue for analysis. I’ve checked the database definitions, cluster definitions and verified that everything is fine and in place. Tried to run an analyzer job on the DB and found that it has gone corrupted somehow. Communicated the findings to the user and requested for her permission for stopping the database and hence for the remedial actions. As I was waiting for the reply from her, I just had a look into my ‘To do’ list and found that there are few review comments to be addressed in the Change Management document. I started with the task of addressing the comments. It was then my dear team mates buzzed for a tea break. Happily took my cup and went with them to the tea-room where the most funny and talkative character among the clients - Raymon was killing his Indian colleague Shyam with his weekend adventure stories and the fun activities of his 6 year old kid Joe. Being there, we also had to give ears to his non-stop tongue for some time. But somehow we managed to make teas quickly and flee from there. We all gathered in our usual leisure room, and started off with the movie ‘Naadunissi Naaygal’ which Ganesh and Rajesh watched the previous day. Enough reviews were given for the movie and for Gautham Menon for his brave attempt by all the three of them – Ganesh, Rajesh and Selvam. Since I’ve not seen it yet, I patiently heard them talking about it. Then the concentration turned on to me, teasing me for the incident happened at ASDA; the billing counter lady holding me for buying a knife from there asking me for a proof of my age. (Here only those above age of 25 are allowed to buy knife). It’s always their favourite pastime to tease me for my miniature appearance.
No wonder that the next topic was appraisal news. Rajesh shared some latest news about offshore and I heard one name amongst those who got top ratings – Siva! He is supposed to be one of my competitors. There are around 4 people of same designation under my manager and hence all 4 of us are supposed to be foes, as only one amongst these four is supposed to receive the best rating according to the existing convention. The news shocked me a bit. I did not respond to the news for a few seconds. Then with a long sigh I told –‘hhmm...I would be denied of the first rating since I’m given the Onsite opportunity’, just to show the audience that I’m ok with that, though deep inside I was badly realizing that all my calculations are going to be in vain this year also which made me feel a heaviness inside. They went on with some more topics. Though I was physically present there, mentally I was behind those ‘appraisal thoughts’.
After tea, we all were back to seat and started off with each one’s works. For me, the permission e-mail was waiting from Feather Daniel for stopping and taking actions on corrupted Database. I’ve got into the work, but in between with little chats in OC and gtalk. Every now and then, news updates were flying from Offshore about buckets and 1-1 meetings. In between, Hrithik from my team buzzed me in communicator and told that he too got EA rating. I felt happy for him and congratulated, and of course, fixed the treat date and times..!!
Huh! This girl has no other work or what? I murmured to myself thinking about the one sitting behind me. She is from Andaman, working for a different Client. But always she’ll be on phone, either a ‘sweet’ Knowledge Transfer with his Offshore boy or some gossiping with someone, whoever is free, else some build-up about her own work or talents. Whatever it is, I’m having a very good time sitting behind her. Anyhow she won’t come to my seat to brag. So I’m saved to a good extend. But Ganesh is always the prey, as he is such a silent and compromising guy. Now her talk over phone is nothing but enquiring to as many mobile company customer cares as possible in UK, to decide upon buying a new smart phone for her fiancée. And it’s quite evident that rather than getting knowledge on the phones, her main intention is to make everyone aware that she is gonna do something really BIG.
Submitting the Reorganization job I looked at my watch and it’s around 1.05 pm. I’ve had a look at Ganesh, Rajesh, Selvam and Bala. Everyone seemed to be so serious and busy except Bala. I can see his monitor and understood he is seriously browsing to fetch the latest score of Netherland for the WC cricket match going on. I turned to him and passed a smile showing that I’m hungry.
He dinged me in communicator and asked ‘You learned the pros and cons, price and offers of all the Smartphone available in market, eh?’ .
I gave a ‘:P’ smiley in reply.
By that time luckily Rajesh got up and came to my seat asking if we can go for lunch. Both of us along with Bala took all lunch kits and marched to the Oven room. We took each of the lunch boxes outside, which spread out the variety and tempting smells of Chicken pepper masala, Fish Fry, Prawns curry and Ganesh’s special ‘Mushroom poriyal’. An English lady came rushing into the room and asked if she can keep her food also inside the Oven. Though we said ok to her with pleasure, she ran back with the same speed. Seeing this Vishnu, one of our Managers commented that she might have pissed off by these spicy smells and escaped. We all laughed as it was a big truth. Heating everything, we started to the View point Restaurant and as always had a delicious lunch with variety non-veg dishes. Several interesting and boring topics were discussed and few funny fights also went on. And Bala commented about the most expected ‘Bucket’ also. He is also supposed to be one of the competitors for me as per the convention as I said above, though actually we are not.
On finishing lunch, I and Rajesh came back to seat together while others went out for some walks and chit-chats. On the way I talked to Rajesh about the possibility of getting a second rating for me and continued saying ‘if at all I’m getting I’ll fight’. And commented that I would be denied a good rating only for the Onsite Opportunity I’m given. But if my manager says so to me, I’ll tell him that it’s for the year 2011 and the appraisal was done for the year 2010. Rajesh smiled and wished good luck to me. According to him also, my manager will be giving top rating only to a single employee and that’s already given. So deep inside I was preparing myself for a big fight. Soon after reaching my desk, unlocked the system and took a notepad. I wrote down all the relevant points for the fights and it counted to around 20 points in my achievements list for the year of 2010 and only around 3 points which should be anticipated as my weakness which my boss might come up with. I even typed some points to defend myself if ever he comes back to me with negatives. I sighed and asked to myself ‘What a preparation for a one-one, it’s for the first time in my life, or in my past 5 and half years of career, I’m doing such homework for an appraisal meeting’. The reason is nothing but, I was much confident on my achievements and the efforts put by me for the project. Also the challenge I took to make the new DBA support stable, moreover the trust I’d in my manager and even the Senior Manager that they are well aware of all what I’ve done for last year. The long list of achievements including 4-5 major appreciations from Customer and senior Management, 3 awards, many Permanent fixes and solutions to problems, new suggestions in the support process, Creation of reusable components and documents e.t.c again gave me confidence that I won’t lose it this time.
I went back to the fixing of issues and some other routine tasks. The Bangalore team member Surya called and asked me about the new Change management process and had a chat with him for some time. Completing the daily checks and status mails, checked the time and found it’s 4.30 pm..!!Time is running so fast, it seems. Sending the update mail to Feather Daniel, and closing down each application, I’ve started my daily leisure activities like checking Facebook updates, and personal mails. I’ve checked the Office mailbox to confirm once again if any forward mails are missed out and got one with the subject line ‘DO YOU LOVE YOURS ENOUGH?’ from Reshma. It was such a touching short story that I felt really bad for the mom in the story. I thought about my mom and realized that I’m missing her so badly. Renju buzzed me in gtalk, as she reached home and I asked her why is she sitting so late before gtalk though I know the very reason behind, that she is waiting for someone. By the time, I noticed everyone started packing up things as the car owners or our transport providers were about to start. I also stood and up and started bidding bye to Renju. The worrying thought about the mom in the story again hunted me and I took my mobile to ring to my mom. Unfortunately there was no network and I hung up the call. We started back home. Ganesh did not forget the health capsule that he used to give me every day – an orange. It’s a most wanted Vitamin (I’m not sure which one, something in Vitamin A-Z), according to him and we two enjoyed Orange and he had his apple too. He shared some stories about his home and I felt sorry to hear that his Grandma’s toe was cut because of high diabetics. After talking for a while, gradually his neck started the interesting steps which made me aware that he is into deep sleep. I began to flow in my own dreamy world, drifting from one thought to another and on reaching the turning where I saw a black board with ‘Pillowell Drive’ written on it, I realized my thoughts has again reached back to square one – my mom. She too might be badly missing me; I thought and decided to call her soon after reaching home. Collecting the laptop bags and lunch kits from the dickey of the car and telling ‘Good night’s and ‘See you Tomorrow’s to all, I rushed to home and dialled mom’s cell number. I dint take pains to realize that it’s midnight 12 back in India. Hastily I told a Hello to mom when I felt that she picked the call up. But I could hear was “don’t you know it’s too late here? Call tomorrow” and she was about to cut the call. But luckily my loving dad grabbed the phone from her and gave me a sweet hello. We talked for a while and planned some funny revenge against mom and cut the call. I started my evening routine and while praying I took and extra five minutes to ask for recommendation for my first Bucket. The evening went on as every evenings with little bit of browsing, my favourite face-booking, cooking, eating and by around 9.45p.m I went to bed. I did not forget my daily Goodnight messages to be sent to my local friends Ganesh and Vani. Ganesh, as usual sent back a reply asking something and the sms chat went on for few minutes and amidst I slept off.
“It’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up, it’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up, it’s 7 ‘o’ clock, time to wake up’ the speaking alarm in the support mobile started to annoy me. I peeped into the mobile screen with one eye and that too half opened and pressed the ‘snooze’ key and again slept off. Twice or thrice the same key was pressed and after sometime somehow managed to wake up and directly went to kitchen to warm up the food prepared at previous night for today’s lunch and took out two pieces of bread and butter from fridge and went back to the morning routines, finished it off, had breakfast, packed lunch and started to ‘Finsbury House’ where everyone would be waiting for cars. As usual, on the way called home and talked to my sissies.
On reaching office, eagerly checked for my Outlook inbox and as expected, got to see a mail from my Manager with the subject ‘Appraisal Discussion’ and it said –
‘Please make yourself available for appraisal discussion by 5 PM IST. I will make your document available for your review soon.’
I felt a thorn is pricking me and the thought that he is about to reveal the most awaited appraisal result made me a little thoughtful. I buzzed him in communicator and asked him whether he should be ok to discuss the same by 4.30 pm IST as I’d booked a conference room for the status call and he replied he’ll confirm on the same. Also he asked me to check my mailbox as he released the appraisal results for my review. Impatiently I went to the PeopleSoft-HCM application and took out my performance document, scrolled down till the end to see the rating and score. I saw ‘Exceeding Most’ along with a 9.0, I tried to believe that I took the wrong document for review and I came out of the application. Again rendering the username and password correctly took the document and I’d to believe that it’s a ‘SECOND BUCKET’ with one of the least scores!! It was really hard to believe though. Soon I dinged Rajesh and updated him about it. He gave me strength to fight against it. I realized that it’s time for me to use all the pre-listed points to argue, at one fell swoop I comprehended that all those fights are surely gonna be a waste effort and nothing is going to change.
A new popup window in the right hand corner of my desktop inviting me for a conference chat moved my concentration away. It was Ranjitha leading the conference chat and Divya and Renju in loop, they started discussing about the ratings in Divya’s team, hinting that Divya is also going to get a second rating only. I did not feel at all to advice her to fight against this blunder. Instead, I was slowly realizing that all these ratings were already decided ‘impartially’ by the so called Management pool and the great yet undefined phenomenon named ‘Normalization’ comes as a handy word in English vocabulary for them to justify themselves for leaving the ones like us out! - those who are taken for granted, those who are supposed to make no blast and accept whatever is being ‘awarded’ to them, those who are not in the list of people who spent time for ‘sweet talks’ with them. I typed in the chat window
Me: Mine is also EM with 9.0
Ranjitha: Huh! When is the meeting?
Divya: Are n’t u going to talk against it?
Me: Y Divya, it’s all of no use, I understand
Renju: True. I’m just back after such a waste and long meeting. The meeting, as always began with so many words ‘excellent’, ‘fantastic’, ‘marvellous performance’ as Usha Uthupp used to extol the contestants in the reality show and gave me a feel like I’m the creamiest of the creamy layer. But the talk ended in the typical manner and I realized I should not have opened my mouth.
Me: That’s what Renju, even I’m thinking. I’ll simply go and hear whatever he has to tell and happily come back. See you once I’m back. I’m going for the status call.
I took printout of last week’s MOM, along with my appraisal document and the list of points which I’d to talk about. But left the list on my desktop and went to the conference room. The status call went on in the usual way, discussed about the deliberations, action items, status of each items, leave and training plans e.t.c. Though my manager was also involved in the call, both of us talked as if nothing wrong has happened. Once the call was finished I confirmed with him, if he’ll call me for the appraisal discussion and he said ok.
Had a cold coffee and rushed back to the meeting room again. I made myself believe that I’m alright and I’m not gonna blast. The phone in room started ringing. With cold hands I picked it up and let out a soft ‘hello’. The ‘hello’ received from other end was bit serious though! He initiated the call asking ‘what do you feel after checking the review form?’ for which I’d to coldly respond that ‘whatever I feel, it’s of no use now right?’. The meeting started in a ‘discussion’ mode, progressed in a ‘fighting’ mode and somehow ended up in a ‘frustrated’ mode. Though I’d yelled out whatever I’d in mind and questioned all the shortfalls of the appraisal system, the so called manager tongue could rule out the significance of each and every point I put forward. And he might have felt himself contented that he is successful in letting me believe that whatever achievement I’ve made myself and contributions I’ve done for the Project were irrelevant. But I felt contented that the last whole year and last one hour appraisal discussion have made me believe that whatever I do or however I fight for my rights is going to be in vain, before the most competent appraisal words ‘Normalization’ and ‘Bell curve’. Anyhow, before giving up the call, I’ve told him ‘don’t think that my sincerity towards the work is not going to be effected because of this rating, don’t worry about it’ as a show of ‘magnanimity’ within me or you may use any other words to describe it!
Coming back to seat with an irritated mood, the first thing I’ve done was logging into my Facebook account and putting the comment – ‘Again got 2 buckets ....: D, thus for past 3 years, 3*2=6 buckets!!! What shall I do with all these??' and continued replying to the interesting comments I got for the status update. As obvious, I’ve not touched any of my pending tasks for the day, but continued with Facebook-ing and a little bit of chatting here and there. As any other day, started from office by 5.00 pm, had a boring evening, next day to work, again the same old routine....gradually forgot about the appraisal, ratings and buckets, set the new set of ‘foolish unreachable’ goals for 2011, started taking up the responsibilities, as any other dumb IT employee, my days at work continued as ever before....with not much of expectations....jus looking ahead for the month end to get the pay and waiting for 15th of next month to look at my bank account with a satisfaction of making it empty...!! <<
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