Tolerance!! Bane or Boon??

I was having a chat with my friend today and he was talking about the perception that people in his office carried about him. "Arrogant", "Aggressive", "Not a Manager material", "Stupid" etc... and the list kept growing....like the traffic in this City. I was not very surprised to hear what people thought about him though!!

In this fast paced "mad" world the perception others carry about us matters more than the skills we have to succeed in life. Let's analyse some scenarios we face on a daily basis.

• When you are in office it is okay to use Office phones for personal talk for long hours as long as the individual delivers his job. This especially holds true for all the young trainees and some (not so) clever seniors in your environment
• Your colleague abuses the system by "Working from Home" and "Falling sick" and doesn't have to bother about an important deliverable or attendance in Office as long as the chemistry with the concerned Manager is orgasmic
• Your peer screws up an important deliverable and asks help to complete it but you end up owning the deliverable. Manager keeps quiet until you deliver and when you ask him "Why?" he says to ensure "Team spirit is High"
• In a team meeting you defend your views and question the decision taken by your manager or rationale behind the deliverable and he says you are "Arrogant"
• You do all the work given to you by your manager effectively like a paid slave and in the appraisal he says "I expect more from you" when other team members get a "Star" rating just because they are a "Manager material" as they can keep their managers eternally happy by aping their idiosyncracies
• "Non collaborative" is what people say when you don't listen to your peers views when you know that you can think better than them
• You are an effective manager only if you take opinion from all team members who might influence the perception of the top management about you

Now let's move out of office and look at what happens on the road.....

• Well educated people jump a traffic signal, overspeed and honk their way into the traffic when we like idiots try to be patient and follow the road rules like a ousted clan
• "Let's settle this Sir!" has become so much a cliche sentence when we get caught by a traffic policeman when there is no fault of ours except that us being a well earning member of this society

And the list goes on.......

The question everytime that runs in my logical brain is "Do I tolerate all the flaws & become numb" or "Do I rebel"?? The irony being that when I tolerate all the flaws I am accepted in the system and when I rebel I am not a good team player!!

I am a wise guy when I act to please everyone who can create a perception or influence the system eventhough it is ethically catastrophic. In IT industry especially in India I saw a stats which indicates 7/10 projects fail to complete or over-run. Wondering why?? Well, I have to say that as long as 1) We tolerate the bad work done by your manager 2) We accept the deliverables given by your peers and dont question them back 3) We allow our juniors & peers to abuse the system and dont want to question to invite the wrath of your manager and 4) We keep dumb and do not express what is logically and ethically right..... we will always end up failing in any project we undertake.

People talk about corruption in the police force. However, we ourselves tolerate to get an advantage. We talk about how Western countries stick to law & rules where as we tolerate all the complacent behaviour shown by our fellow men.

Mahatma Gandhi taught "Tolerance" towards other people and not the system but I think we have learnt the other way around!! Wat ya say??

The "Name" Game

It's been a long time since I wrote a new post and I thought it will be ideal to do so now or my name could become extinct in this fast moving world. Well many of you might know that my name is "Jayendra M.G" (M-Mandalam & G-Gurumurthy). The reason why my dad kept this name?? and he says "Jay+Indira(Gandhi)= Jayendra". How Dumb?? I made sure that I never voted for Congress ever since I got my voting rights.

As you see a very controversial name for some people for reasons you know :-) (Jayendra Saraswathi- another name my friends gave me) but then I had everybody pronouncing my name with different syllables and words ever since my school days. Look at the following examples:
1. "Jugendra"
2. "Jayandra"
3. "Jagendra"
4."Gajendra"
5. "Jeyenth" etc..... and the list would go on..

Once it so happened that I got selected for the City U-13 cricket team and my name was displayed in the notice board as "Jeyentra". I was so overwhelmed that I came home and informed my parents who were delighted to hear the news. There was a match that was scheduled a week later for those who got selected in the team. So, I made all my preparations and left with my mom to the cricket ground for participating in the match. It turned out to be a nightmare though. The guys who had posted the list of players had removed my name as my certificates had it as Jayendra MG and the guy who got selected was "Jeyentra" :-( So, no amount of explanation helped the cause and I had to return home dejected and cursing myself & Indira Gandhi and her faithful follower Mr. Gurumurthy.

I had to change my name inorder to be assured that someone is indeed calling me. I made sure my friends & colleagues know me as "Jay" and my parents and relatives know me as "Jayu". And few of my relatives call me as "Jagadish". Now, when I went Onsite I called myself "Jay Gurumurthy" for obvious reasons of saving my name from cultural disgrace and mind you that no one dared to mess up my last name :-)

One more funny thing happened. I had gone to a famous numerologist in 2006 and he re -christened me as "M.G.N.Jeyenthira" much tougher and longer than my original name and he was very confident it would bring wonders to me. I almost fainted on my chair!! How can this name become so complicated in somebody's life? So, for obvious reasons I had to drop it and I am sure that name would have made no difference to my life :-)

So my friends, I went in search of why this confusion in my life?? and being an ardent follower and learner of astrology I found that having "Ketu" in my 4th house is the cause of all problems. This michievous planet will never allow my name to be pronounced or spelt only one way and the right way. Oh my God!! Where are you?? Wondering how many more changes required? Even a terrorist has less number of alias I guess!!Phew!!

Hmmm, so next time when we name our sons or daughters just ensure our Indian politicians do not steal their sweet name of it's charm!!What say??

Poetry on Holi

It's been a long time since I wanted to publish a poem in my blog. Well, opportunity has come now to show my poetic skills I guess :-) here you go...

It doesn't matter if you are black or white!
Let the colors splash to make our lives bright!!

Colors are many, natural and artificial!
Spread the colors that show our divine!!

Join hands to bond a nation!
Let Holi make life, a Celebration!!

Hope you enjoyed the poem. Let's see if this poem gets an award for Holi poetry competition in my office! :-)
Will keep you posted!!

Jayu logging off.....