Every dog has its day

And it was a big day. Praveen looked slightly disturbed which was very unusual. Not only he but his entire team was in a state of panic. It was all because of the statement made by Ram alias Ramachandran a week before. He was none other than Praveen’s “Manager” – the word he hates the most as it constantly haunted him wherever he went. He always felt that the Managers were the worst beasts of the world who think of themselves as the best brains of the world and Ram was a typical example of that.

Everyone’s eyes were on Ram’s seat for every minute to check if he has arrived. He generally sits in a closed cabin exclusively given for the managers and other employees had to sit in the open space outside the cabin. He was working in the main branch office but his team was working in a different location which was his biggest worry, but not for his team members as they considered it as a blessing in disguise. He visits his team only if there is any issue. But in most of the cases the problem would arise only after his visit.

Praveen was thinking about the words that Ram spoke in the meeting on his last visit. “I would let you know on Friday” was the last word that he uttered and those words were endlessly ringing in his ears. Praveen felt that this kind of situation had never happened before since the day he joined the company and he also thought that no one in the team would have imagined that they would face such an awful situation. Will it happen? and if it happens, then who would be? were the two most important questions running through his mind. May be the answers were in a single word but it was very difficult to crack. Because no one knows what would be in a manager’s mind. Even one day Google may find an answer for predicting the girl’s mind but it would never happen with the managers as they never mind their own minds.

Praveen and his entire team were very angry at Sundar, who was his team lead. He does not lead the team as the name suggests. He just acts as a messenger. People in the team call him “Gmail” because the only duty of team lead was to deliver the manager’s message to the team and carry the team’s concern to the manager and he was no exception. As a typical lead, he also doesn’t have any work except disturbing the team members by asking the most irritating question, “What is the status update?” The team believed that he was the sole responsibility for the whole mishap. If he had not spoken that word then they would have not come to this level.

This tragedy arises on the day when Praveen & his team members went to Sundar and raised the concern that they were being overloaded. They complained that they were working for more than 12 hours per day and sometimes they had to work even on weekends. They felt that their work was almost doubled than what they did a month before. But the number of employees doing the work remained the same. So they had asked for more number of employees and also Comp Off for the weekends that they had worked.

The team’s concern had been successfully sent to the manager via their messenger, except their requests. After listening to Sundar, Ram called up the entire team for the discussion. Once again the concerns were retelecasted. He let everyone speak and carefully listened to their comments. He patiently waited until everyone finished speaking. After pouring their grievances, they believed that their pains would come to an end. Initially he appreciated the team for completing the tasks well within the deadline in spite of being overloaded. But later he launched a nuclear missile on them that they were not working at their full potential as they had taken same time for doing both their regular work and additional work. He also added that the underutilisation of employees indicates that there were surplus resources available in the team.

His comment shocked the whole team and they decided to stop with the discussion as further dig up on this issue may back fire on them more. But Ram pressed them hard to pull out words from their mouth to know what they have in their mind. Due to his repeated torture, Sundar said in a low voice that they don’t need additional resources but they need a comp off at least.
“Pardon” said Ram to repeat as if he was not able to hear those words clearly.
Sundar was frightened and his voice became shaky. He again said the word “Comp Off” but this time he repeated the first part in a lower voice and second part bit louder. Unfortunately for the team, Ram managed to get only the second part of the word “Off”.
“Yes” said Ram.

All became happy that at least one of the suggestions had got accepted. But their happiness existed only for a short while when Ram continued by saying that “Even I don’t know how to start it but since Sundar had reminded about it, I have to say this”. Sundar was confused of what Ram was talking about.

Ram addressed the team that “You all might be aware that our company is running in loss and only after consulting with all the experts, our top management finally decided to go for it”.
“Sir, what are you saying” confused Sundar asked him.
“Yes Sundar. As you said we have decided to go for Lay Off” said Ram.

Now slowly all the heads turned towards Sundar and everyone looked at him angrily as if they were going to hit him. At the same time everyone was appalled to hear that they are going to lose their job and there was absolute silence. He said that their team was very lucky as he would lay off only one resource. Now the Pressure started mounting on everyone to know who would be that person and they began to feel the heat. He relaxed them by saying that he had not yet decided about whom to layoff and it would be decided based on how they were going to perform for the next one week.

“I will let you know on Friday” Ram spoke his last words and left off.

Loud voice with his usual hi-fi English accent and business jargons marked the arrival of Ram and brought Praveen back to the real world. Ram came like a school kid carrying a bag which must be definitely having a costliest lap top and a Tupperware on one hand except a water bottle.
Everyone reluctantly stood up from their seat to show the basic courtesy for their manager. Sundar received him with his usual trademark big smile. Even a model who acted in the Close up ad could not act like him. But Ram pretended as if he was not interested in it to show that he was very busy and has no time to respond. He gave a nasty look at everyone which made others feel that all he has come here to do was some crap work. Suddenly his head turned when he crossed Praveen and he smiled at him for no reason. He walked a few metres and stood up there for a while. He turned back and said “Hey Praveen come to my cabin”. Then he immediately went inside his cabin.

Once Ram called his name, Praveen felt like a big iron hammer struck on his head. He thought it was almost decided and it was he who has to go out of this company. He became nervous and his entire body started to quiver like a vibrating mobile.
“Praveen” this time with a louder voice called Ram. Then he slowly entered his cabin.
“Probably you would have known why I have called you here” said Ram. Praveen also guessed what he was talking about. So he quickly defends himself by saying that “Sir, I have not done anything”.
“Yes, you haven’t done anything that’s why we have chosen you” said Ram.
“Sir I mean that I haven’t done anything wrong”. Praveen stressed this sentence more this time to safeguard his place.
“We know that you are one of the finest employees of our team but uh… Since you have scored slightly less rating than others, we have taken this decision” said Ram.

Praveen thought that he had worked for this company like anything, day and night, but the manager had not even thought about anything and is chucking me out based on a mere number.

Praveen listed all his strengths as Good Technical Knowledge, Good Team Player & Good Time Management skills and argued that he had a lot of positives in him. But he just looked only at the negatives than at the positives and was laying him off. After thinking deeply for few minutes, Ram said that he has been sacked not only based on the ratings but also based on two recent incidents.

Ram quoted one of the incidents, that Swarna could not deliver her code to clients on time which led to huge loss for the company.
“Ok. But how does that affect me?” asked Praveen.
“It had happened only because of you, as you had not helped her during that time” said Ram.
Praveen become furious and said that “I am working in Dot Net and she works in Java. So how can you expect me to help her? and moreover she is not in my project”.
“So what? Anyhow both the projects are under me” said Ram and He continued that “See still you are finding only reasons for not helping but not willing to help her”.
Praveen began to say something but Ram didn’t allow him to speak and said that “This one incident is enough to show what kind of a team player you are”.
“Sir I do help her but I don’t know the technology” Praveen answered Ram.
But Ram smiled and said “Now you have to accept that your technical knowledge is not up to its mark”. This time he did not say anything and straightaway asked him about the next incident.
“Nowadays you are leaving office early which shows that you have no work“ said Ram.
Praveen denied him that, “No sir, I do have work and I am leaving only at 8”.
“At 8? Still it is early. I guess you have only little work and that’s why you are leaving at 8” said Ram.
To save at least some pride, Praveen said that “Only during last week I had left at 8 but before that I was leaving at 10”.
Ram on hearing it asked “Why were u leaving very late? and See now you have to agree that you don’t know how to manage your time”.

Praveen was exhausted and he had no courage to speak anything against Ram as all his arguments ended in vain and met a dead end. He cornered all his strengths which he considered as his valuable asset into unworthy weaknesses in just ten minutes. So he didn’t like to continue further and wanted to stop with the least damage. All that was left in him was only his Self confidence and he didn’t want to lose it too by continuing this discussion with that “Great Wall” as anything he delivered came back as fast as it went.

Ram gave the relieving letter with a smile resembling a world cup winner and said “Thanks for your valuable contribution” Which was the only accolade that came from his mouth during their entire conversation. After seeing his smiling face, Praveen regretted himself for not learning “Boxing” during his school days. But he could not do anything to him except a simple hand shake.

He came out of the room as if he had lost everything. He doesn’t know what he would be doing to take care of his wife Preethi. Everything seemed blurred and going out of his vision. He could see nothing except his wife who seemed to be standing before him with a cute smile on her face. He felt like saying that he has been sacked. So he said sorry to her. But she started giggling loudly while Praveen couldn’t understand the reason and he said that ideally he should have gone mad but why was she instead smiling?
“Yes I have gone mad because of marrying you” said his wife. angrily. “Idiot Get up. It’s already half past 8”.
“Uffffff Thank god it was just a dream” said Praveen by slowly getting up from the bed.
“Was it a bad dream?” asked Preethi with a look of concern in her face.
“Yes. Probably the worst I have ever had” said Praveen.
“So today is the day isn’t it?” Preethi asked curiously.
“Yeah it's today” said Praveen.
“What’s going to happen?” asked Preethi. But Praveen just smiled and left the room.

Praveen entered the office and he could see the tension on everyone’s face as they knew that someone was going to get sacked today. He tried to locate a person whom he wanted to see desperately and went near him. He simply smiled at him and started walking back towards his place. He opened the door and stood up there for a while. Then he suddenly turned back before entering into his cabin and called out the guy in a bossy voice “Hey Ramachandran, come to my Cabin.”

And the dream run continues!!!