Re-inventing self after an Appraisal? – Learn from the stricken snake

The Appraisal Pandora envelope brings with it many plagues – "Meets expectations", "Extend probation / Defer promotion". Those are the early pests that fly in your face, the moment you step into the claustrophobic and asphyxiating cabin of your boss.

The unkindest bite of all, though, is delivered by "Needs to improve on people skills". Words fail one. Your entire water-cooler and office party life flashes in front of your eyes for a mind-numbing moment. What does it mean?

Whatever it is, you fall into concurrence because EMIs on house, car, children's education; the liability list jolts you out of your reflections. You nod meekly and surrender abjectly. Better the white flag than the pink-slip, you realize. You take the feedback to heart. You strive hard to change. You invest in "How to..", "Joy @ "2 minute..", "Soup and Cheese.." and other delirium inducing series. You buy roses to strew around, pick up the bill where earlier it was the toothpick, at best, you picked up. You suppress your nausea and raise your eyebrows in appreciation, at the ghastly family pictures on the softboard of your colleague. You greet everyone, right from the security guard to the CEO's driver. You gag your conscience and compliment the secretary even on her worst hair-day. The works.

6 months later (or an year later, depending on how often your organization wants to inflict this on you), you will be sitting in the same cabin, across the same table and same face, with the same words slashing your heart "Needs to improve on people skills".

I learnt the futility of such revolving-door-reinvention, the day my grandmother told me this story! Am I any wiser? Now that's a territory, I ask you strictly not to trespass into! Read the story and may be YOU will benefit.

Master Wai and monk Waimudu, after cursing the do-good villagers (ref my earlier entry "Bless the bounders…" ), took leave from them to proceed towards their next destination. The good villagers that they were, warned the master-monk duo of the perilous jungle that lay ahead and suggested an alternate path, which was a tad bit longer. Wai smiling, proceeded at a faster pace towards the straight and narrow, dangerous as it may be.

The path was covered with grass, indicating it wasn't used in a long time. The jungle itself appeared serene and bountiful, with fruit laden trees; brooks with cool, clear and sweet water and what not. Waimudu keeping pace with his master was taking the beauty of the jungle in, along with a juicy bunch of wild strawberries, wondering what it was that kept the villagers off this nature's boon. And the answer to that appeared the next moment and lay right in the middle of their path.

A huge, hissing, snarling, slithery being with glowering eyes. Waimudu, was just about weighing his chances of being welcomed into the celestial damsels' abode, when Master Wai proceeded to address the snake thus.

Master Wai (MW): How are you today, my friend?

Hissing, Snarling, Slithery Snake (HSSS):
Hungry and ready to sink my fangs in trespassers like you (Proceeding ominously with hood raised)

MW: You won't dare do that with me. Here, sample this – "De-motion" (Author: An effective mantra, if ever when used on lowly minions of all hues, that hampers further progress)

HSSS stopped in its tracks petrified, its limbless supine body feeling that more than ever. Finding tongue (the other one, that comes in handy precisely in such situations when you misuse one) it said

HSSS: Please forgive my ignorance. I spoke loosely knowing not how powerful you are

MW: It's ok. Why do you want to unnecessarily scare poor folks away from enjoying this largesse of nature; which belongs to all. Don't scare them henceforth unnecessarily and I will ensure status-quo-ante

HSSS: Please, I won't. I promise to mend my ways. Thanks (feeling the cold blood circulate once again).

Mouthing platitudes profusely, HSSS crawled away to its little hole in the ground, shedding its hitherto scales of meanness and aggression.

After a few months of spreading wisdom in their journey, Master Wai and Monk Waimudu on their way back happened to pass through the same but different jungle – Path wide and well-worn, de-fruited trees, huge stumps whose trunks ended up warming many a cold wintery nights or cook a delicious meal, brooks muddied. Mourning over the ravages the once beautiful jungle had suffered, Master Wai turned his head towards a thick bush alongside the path, from whence were proceeding heart-wrenching gasps and hisses, that of a dying being.

Going around, he found the once proud HSSS in a pitiable and pathetic condition. Huge wounds, oozing blood and feasted upon by flies, were all over its once shining mane. The eyes lost their luster, the once long stretched body coiled listlessly with nary a sign of life, save a slow and erratic heaving. MW ran a soothing hand over the body of the stricken snake and asked it what has brought it to this state.

(Author: The following narrative is pieced together using some creative license, as it would be impossible for a snake on its last limbs to be able to reconstruct so lucidly such a long narrative)

HSSS (gasping and in a sepulchral tone): I followed your advice master…and stopped hissing n biting n scaring the one or two brave souls who in the initial days have wandered this way. Slowly the word spread, and the trickle of passersby turned into a torrent of travelers; caravans, families on bullock carts, wood-cutters, farmers..everyone who had or did have a stake in this forest. At first they were still trepidations about what I would do. Then it started with a pesky kid throwing a lump of mud at me.

Encouraged by the lack of response, they then started throwing stones of all makes, from a distance and then over a period ventured to poke every square inch of my body with sharp wooden pikes. And then took immense pleasure in beating me with them. Just yesterday, two kids and their uncle stomped on me taking turns for over an hour as a part of some elaborate ritual. Now here I am waiting for deliverance. Where did I go wrong?

MW: My dear friend. I asked you not to bite them and scare them without reason. That doesn't mean you lose your natural instincts and stop hissing and keeping them at bay all together! Here drink this potion and you will regain your strength and form. Live a long life with this lesson learnt.

The story ends there, and I don't know what happened next. Whether the snake heeded the advice second time and made hiss-story or whether the emboldened junta using longer sticks and bigger stones snuffed the life out of it, once they saw it rearing its hood again. But not being any wiser than the snake after its first appraisal session; and not having a wise Master Wai around to help me read between the lines and nurse me back to strength after initial set-backs; I still play the fool and keep reinventing myself never endingly.

Here is to hoping at least some of you profit from my granny's story!

Pray for just rewards – But choose your god well!

It's an annual ritual. Bleeding hearts, burnt dreams. Cursing tongues, thunderous snorts. All troop out beating retreat. A handful of smiling visages, whistling lips; follow suit a little later.

A passerby (who's making two trips one coinciding with the march past of the majority and the other with the motley minority) can be excused for wondering if they sign in the same roster. They do.

For the day when one sees this vertical split in the emotions of ranks is the "Annual Bonus Cheque Day" (ABCD in short).

It's but natural to feel let down, after having slogged for 364 days (plus one in a leap year), seeing your age on the cheques. As against hearing from helpful minnows in HR about others who had their telephone numbers slapped down on those very cheques. The blood boils!

But who do you curse? At whom should you direct your well justified (so you think) anger at? Who should you haul over the proverbial coals? No one but yourself! Surprised? Over to Mullah Nasruddin (MN).

One day, MN was on his evening walks mulling, as usual, over the world and its ways. He came across four boys, who were carrying a sack of walnuts. Seeing MN, the wise man that he is reputed to be, the four boys asked him to distribute the walnuts among them. They all had toiled together to amass that bounty. One brought the sack from home, one made a hole in the walnut garden fence, one stood vigil and the other climbed trees to fill the sack. Indeed, great teamwork. Now is the time for sharing the spoils, for they know not the economics of the same. Except a vague notion that it should be equitable. But alas, none of them is equipped to carry out the task. MN was a god-sent dispenser of justice, for anyone else will have surely demanded a share of the pie.

MN, smiling and stroking his silver-grey beard; asked the boys how they want it to be shared. "God's way or the human way".

"God's way", pat came the reply in unison. For it is god's will alone that has brought riches on them!

"So be it" said the benevolent Mullah and got down to business.

He took two huge fists-full of walnuts and thrust them into the stretched hands of a one who took them gleefully. The next expectant slob was in for a rude shock – one walnut!! Joy knew no bounds when the third kid had the entire sack emptied into the headscarf that MN asked to be opened and laid down! And a tight slap across the face of the aghast 4^th poor sucker!!! 2&4 let out a shriek that would have reached heavens; while 1 was left in two minds – whether to be happy with what he got or feel miserable looking at what 3 has received. Leaving behind sobbing, shrieking, slapping, scratching kids, MN went on his way muttering "they should have asked for the human way"!

For all you folks who feel odd like 2&4, let this be a lesson. When you have prayed to god to grant a fair share for your toils, your fate was sealed. That's how gods function. Nothing mysterious in that!

Be advised to direct your prayers and pandering elsewhere. To the gods in human form – boss/top management. For the happy folks whom you have seen walking by planning the next big investment or an expensive 7-star holiday, know where to turn. And whom to propitiate and prostrate!

May somebody bless you. I am off to do some Find & Replace on certain nouns in my hymn book.

Mantra to fare well in your career – Bless those bounders that hound you out

Most of you would have done that. Curse to high hell the company and / or the team that you were leaving behind. Wishing it folds up, being sucked into the vacuum created by your leaving. "They should know better than kicking me out". You mutter, while stuffing the "Dadda, mamma, me and our home" impressionist scribbling done by your 2 year old into the staples box.

Such is human tendency. Especially the tender, raw nerve that's touched upon by not having a farewell or worse being send off by one-line email, "wishing him/her all the very best in his/her future end…". Understandable.

Pink is not exactly the color-célèbre, when it comes to slips.

But my dear fellow travelers hear me out. There is never more a foolish wish to be praying for than asking for the plague of the company you are leaving behind to disintegrate and those pests of peers and superiors to disperse all over. Instead you must pray for them all to do extra-ordinarily well, the company listed in the best of the bourses, their ESOPs multiplied a 100 times, with salaries tripled and promotions hastened and that they outprice themselves from the job market. Think I am extremely stupid? Read on.

A long time ago, in the era when masters were mentally, morally and spiritually superior to their follower monks; there lived master Wai and his naïve yet faithful follower WaiMudu. Master Wai was a wandering soul, seeking nirvana that is anywhere but the place he is present in. (The modern career-minded may recognize this hopping nature of the monk and nod approvingly at the breaks in his spiritual CV; for then as now parking in one place never got you anywhere). Breaking down complex philosophical commentaries into simple quotes, showing the path to worldly riches in seven simple steps, managing life in one-minute or saving cheese…you get the drift, were few of the philanthropic deeds the monk indulged in for the benefit of the humanity.

During one such wanderings, he passed through a village. Knocking at the first house that lay in his path, Wai asked for a glass of water and some meal to go with it. "What the… Look at you, you %&#$. You look hail and healthy. Why can't you *&^%$#!@ earn your daily bread instead of doling out worthless and unsolicited advices to us. &^%$ off". First the barrage. Then the bang of the door in his face. Wiping the spittoon off his weathered yet smiling visage, Wai proceeded to the next house. And the next one. One street after another, not profiting either in the way of quenching thirst or quelling hunger Wai and Waimudu, a disparaging and derisive crowd behind them, stepped out of the village.

Waimudu was muttering under his breath what he would like to be done to the villagers (his recently enhanced vocabulary coming in handy), when to his utter disbelief, there proceeded from the mouth of his master, the following:

"May this village prosper for a 1000 years and all its inhabitants and their future generations make merry like no other. May they have timely rains and bumper crops; turn stinking rich and build palaces in this very place"

Waimudu did not know what to make of this insanity. Nor he had the inclination to clear his doubts then and there for a
grumbling stomach is not an ideal audience for the voice of reasoning.

Slowly but steadily their weary legs bore them towards another village.

Lo. What a world of change! On sighting them, the humble and caring villagers fell over each other to offer them worldly comforts. One elderly person washed their mud-caked feet, another wiped them dry. One housewife held an umbrella from the scorching sun while another started fanning them. Cushions were brought to make their seating comfortable; plates were laid and simple yet delicious food was offered. Sweetmeats and fruits appeared and vanished at the same pace. Packing some for the journey ahead, for one known not when the next such benevolent village will come their way, the contended master, follower duo left the village, leaving behind a joyous bunch of simple minded folks.

Waimudu, squeezing a juicy mango was contemplating the order and magnitude of blessings he wanted to bestow on the large hearted villagers, when once again his disbelieving ears perked up at the following contrarian words, which proceeded from his master Wai:

"May this village be hit with a disastrous famine and the villagers disperse in all directions"

Incredulous as they were, Waimudu couldn't hold on any longer and confronted his master, all his righteous indignation boiling and bubbling over.

"What sort of insanity is this master? Where you were kicked and spat at and driven out like a dirty distempered dog; you wanted heavens to shower prosperity on them. And where our parched tongues and simmering stomachs were truly and selflessly served, you cursed them to rot in hell!"

Smiling and looking indulgently at his bristling ward, Wai said:

"Son, without reflecting upon the consequences and acting in the heat of the moment, imagine what would happen if I had reversed my words on the respective village.

The kindly villagers would prosper yet stay put. The kickers would disperse all over the world, to surface and cross our paths in some other village where the same fate would then await us. It is better they prosper where they are, see no reason to leave the place and in the process contain the damage they can wrought on fellow human beings and limiting the poison they are capable of spreading.

The givers on the other hand, should move about the world and seed such DNA of sharing and caring; helping wanderers like us to make our living"

I firmly believe Waimudu was my ancestor and his blood runs in me. I may not have learnt much to become a master. But I learnt enough to pray for the buggers I leave behind earn their stripes where they are, not crossing my path or ending up as my peers or bosses in the next company I land a job in.