It started with the trash can. Funny, when one thinks about it. Last Monday, I inadvertently kicked my trash can and since it was the time to train with the MD, I was too rushed to clean it. Gerard, my European boss, did it in my absence (would you believe that?) and then sent me a mail saying: “J, I cleaned your trash can today. I won’t do it again.”
That was a bit much, don’t you think? I replied: “Gerard, you are my boss, not my dad, so stop behaving like one. It’s my trash can. I will clean it when I have the time.”
Right, so even that wasn’t all rosy! But what is one to do? He is not right in the mind, this boy Gerard. A bundle of nifty contradictions. He admonishes us when we speak in Hindi but does not bat an eyelid when he’s fooling around with the MD in French. He is particular to a fault about the way we dress but is completely unaware of the giant sweat patches that decorate his underarms. He behaves like one helluva disciplinarian but writes this to inform us of his leave: “I am missing Mommy terribly!”
Man, why do I get the weirdos?
From the day we entered this organisation, it has been knocked into our heads that no matter what we do, we must meet our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). That means meeting the targets assigned to us: interview these many people, make so many phone calls, see that many clients, and so on. These numbers, assigned rather whimsically by the MD, are sacrosanct. The quality of your work doesn’t count for much as long as you move the numbers.
Now for the real thing. I was asked to leave by these people yesterday. Yes, I was fired. There I said it. The world really does go on fine.
On Wednesday evening, Gerard took me aside to discuss my KPIs. I was supposed to have made 100 calls and arranged 30 candidate interviews by Friday. My numbers were 29 and 7. His face red with anger, he whipped me, neat and clean. He made some calculations to show that out of 11 hours in office, I was doing productive work for only 5.5, insinuating how the '14-lakh package that the company was showering on me was a travesty and how Indian B-schools are nothing short of a sham. He was so furious he had to stop twice to take gulps of ice-cold water.
It was surreal. I watched his performance unaware of the context, the explanation, the expectation. Until that point, I was certain I was learning fast and meeting expectations. Hell, I was even beginning to like it. Gerard walked in and crapped on all of that.
There’s more. The next morning he took me to a private chamber and started with the small, soul-withering stuff again. His eyes were beads of fury, mixed with a certain glee. It was hard to read him. He forced me to speak, at one point kicking my leg with the front of his boot, on why I was “so difficult to work with”. I said I refuse to be treated like this and that I could no longer work under him. I remember being so full of it that, humiliatingly, I started to shed tears in front of him. They wouldn’t stop and that made it worse. Until that day I was reporting to one person, and now suddenly, I was reporting to his doppelganger. It was eerie.
Later, he huddled inside the MD’s room, which was unoccupied since she was on leave, and got on the phone with her. For a full two hours, his wild expressions and energetic gestures betrayed the artifice that he was spinning to get me fired. And the curious thing is: the MD bought his story, lock, stock and barrel. No communication with me. Not a word. Wow, to think they waste entire semesters teaching us Corporate Ethics at B-school.
Meanwhile, I had a chat with Chitra who is in the same team (full disclosure: she is on great terms with Gerard). Cunningly, she forced me to join her for a coffee at the exact moment I exited Gerard’s chamber of horror. I am not the first person in this organisation who has had trouble with Gerard. Foolishly, I brought this up with Chitra. She shot back saying I should not indulge in office gossip. She then went back and told Gerard everything.
At 5 p m, Gerard told me my contract was being terminated. He painted me as a useless loafer, ill-suited to the pace of a thriving MNC. It was important for him that this look like my inefficiency. To become senior manager from his current designation, he has to show that he has successfully managed a team of at least seven. His notes were aimed at convincing the higher-ups I was a bad apple.
So now, I am jobless. My friends are telling me to tap my B-school network for leads but I am not sure. The Gerard episode has lacerated my self-confidence. I am starting to think I am not built for the corporate set up. Maybe I should teach. Or write. I don’t know.
It’s been ghastly, positively deplorable. But as Alan Hollinghurst says for writing, “Like any pain, when it’s over, you can’t remember it.” I hope that holds true for office traumas.
All names have been changed to protect privacy
