Kudos to Kanika Datta for her insightful and thought-provoking column “Know your company” (Swot, November 10). Though I completely agree with the ideals expressed in the piece, I cannot help but think of the possible perils of an employee knowing his or her company too well. Particularly in the cookie-cutter organisations run by Indian business families, in which loyalty and obeisance are put at a premium. “Fit in, don’t stand out” being the key survival-kit.
A few years ago, a president, HR of one of the largest Indian media houses, in an attempt to quell the growing dis-enchantment with the enforcement of dubious journalistic practices and convergence of editorial and marketing functions, gave a long, meandering lecture with the concluding punchline “Fit in or F**** off”. Most of the audience comprehended just the last bit anyway.
So, is a dumb employee is a good employee? Since on the flipside, a too well-aware an employee risks the label of a dissenter. And modern HR tools can easily detect them from the coffee-machine banter or the so-called open-house brainstorming. And that is never being a good fit. The alternative suggested by the author of always having an updated CV handy, too, may not be practical. To paraphrase a movie catch line: “There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, ‘cause there’s no one like you here anymore.”
It’s worth remembering McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest who had to die and the deaf-mute act of Chief Bromden is a tough one to follow, but the only escape hatch.
Ajoy K Das, Kolkata
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