Dear Company,
I am finding it hard to love you and my job. And I don't understand why
I know it is because of you that I am able to pay my rent at the end of the month. I know it is because of you that I can eat out once in a while, buy clothes for my family and pay for my child's education and if it weren't for you, I'd be struggling to make ends meet and will have to find another just like you before I can breathe easy. I know it is because of you that I am in the elite 3% of our population who are well enough to pay an income tax.
And yet I don't love you.
I drag myself to your door every morning only because I need to and not because I want to. I take more coffee breaks than needed because every time I see work on my desk, I try to push it off as much as I can. I take my breaks so that I can talk to my friends and tell them about what an ass**** my superior is. He publicly rebukes me, doesn't listen to any opinion of mine (or overrules it with his own every time). He pushes all his dirty work to me and never gives me any credit. If something goes wrong, I get a mail marking his bosses telling me to make amends. Despite being far more knowledgeable than him (of course he had more years in experience), I seldom have my say. My work hours are officially 9 and half hours (somebody told me that's more than what the country's labour law recommends) and yet I am forced to answer calls and meetings much beyond this time. When I reach home at 8pm, I have to ask my son to shut up because I have to attend conference calls for meetings that practically have no outcome and keep repeating every other day – one useless process).
The bid document that I had prepared a week ago and was sent to my manager for review has come back with practically no change, one week late, and yet I have been given a deadline of less than 12 hours to work on something – he takes a week to do nothing and I am given 12 hours to change with practically no inputs! But hey, Monday is the deadline so we need to give this for review by Saturday afternoon at the latest.
I loathe the lot for making my life miserable but I'll do it anyway because I have to and not because I want to. But now it's not easy to leave them either – when I was just a junior team member it was different. But then that was a different company and a different manager – nay not a manager, a leader.
4 years ago, I loved my job. I enjoyed every moment in office. It was a different office and different people, a different boss and a different management team.
I worked for 9 hours, sometimes 10. But then I wanted to. My boss never asked me to work; he wanted me to leave early and come back and do the rest the next day; "It's not an open heart surgery, nobody is going to die man, you go get some rest and come back tomorrow".
But he stayed to work. How could you leave a boss like that? We all loved him. Because he was patient, he listened and he stood up for us.
He once took me into a room when I did a major goof-up and said with a worried smile "Buddy, we made a big mistake (I did it but he took the blame too, voluntarily) but I know it was just inexperience that caused us. Let's fix it and make sure this doesn't come next time. You have my support always. And you know it".
I made a presentation for the team once from what I learned from one of our crucial customer projects. He sent his appreciation marking even the director in his mails and mentioned why that presentation of mine made a huge difference. That was the first time the director congratulated me too! It felt so good.
We did work on Saturdays sometimes, but only in the rarest of situations – "Sorry for calling you on a Saturday dude, but we have a major escalation for that release that's crashing. I really need your help so that we can fix it. Could you please check it out?" Well he could have just told me "The release you made on Friday is crashing; fix this before Saturday afternoon" and I'd have been forced to do it but how he said it made a difference. He made me feel that I was doing a service to him and that he truly appreciated me for working outside office hours.
He was the face of the company for everyone on our team and that was why we loved the company too. He respected and valued us and we knew the company respected and valued us too. We knew our opinions were heard and that no matter what I told my boss, he never took it personally. I was once so angry because of the escalations we were getting from our peer team for delaying deliveries when we were a man short. He just listened for 20 minutes till I calmed down. He said he understood and went on knocking doors till he could borrow an extra hand for helping us out.
He kept saying that great organisational culture seeps top down. If the people on top set a certain way of doing things, it gets replicated subsequently at the lower levels. If the guys on top are passionate, ethical, care for their subordinates and are never judgemental, in all likelihood, the ones below them will be the same and that's how great companies are made!
And then I realised, it was the same across the company. It wasn't just him; there were so many like him. They had learned from those above and taught the ones below. And that's why I loved working in that old place.
But as time passed he moved on and I moved on too. He gave his golden rules he said would be useful wherever we went and led a team.
- Imbibe a value based system - Value those in your team and those working around you Appreciate good work vocally, value everybody's time and respect those under you – do not shout at them, ridicule them or dictate terms to them.
- Take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers – Understand their needs and address them. If you treat your employees badly, expect them to do no better. Unhappy employees will result in unhappy customers.
- Always keep learning - Read as much as you can. Read about your technology, read about management, and read about anything that will make you better from what you are. A mind that doesn't learn is a very poor mind. The knowledge of the ages far exceeds what you would gain from your years of experience alone.
- Listen to your employees without judging them and encourage them to talk (and not just during appraisal time when you are forced to). Candid conversations can result in great ideas.
- Always say 'Thank you' when someone does something for you and sound like you mean it– be it attending a call after office hours, or spending 15 minutes for replying to your email query on a weekend (it's his valuable time he is giving you).
- Never be shy to say 'Sorry, It was my mistake' to your seniors and especially your subordinates when you make a mistake. Your ego isn't worth a damn, but a heartfelt apology is worth more than you think. You can turn around people with that simple sorry.
So my dear company, when thinking about why I don't love you, I just realised maybe this is all that is missing. Maybe if you told all your leaders to follow the six golden rules, things might just change.
Maybe, when I start feeling valued, and when I am listened to, I would feel the energy flow back in my veins and if I too, along with everybody practiced these six golden rules, I will start loving you and my work. And seeing you everyday wouldn't be drudgery any more.
After all, just like a healthy body depends on the health of its internal organs, your success too depends on the well-being of your employees.
Yours Sincerely,
Just another undervalued employee