The "Un-Professionals"

The “Un-Professionals” are like a piece of food stuck in your molars: they irritate the hell out of you, and finally coerce you into profoundly ungainly behaviour in public, when you open your mouth wide and excavate it like Tutenkhamen’s tomb.

Why am I ranting about this particular breed? It may amuse you to know that I had this particularly vivid dream that I woke up from this morning, with a pounding headache, and stress levels the height of Mount Everest. I dreamt that when I suggested to a former colleague of mine to investigate the features of a new version of some software, she turned ballistic, and I had to strenuously reinforce to everyone present that I was only trying to help, following which I got so upset that I marched up to the CEO – an unknown-to-me bloke named Roger – and quit the job most unprofessionally. I woke up to Roger attempting his best HR phrases on me, which I angrily spurned.

I have absolutely no idea what triggered this dream, but it brought back memories that I would have cheerfully give an arm and a leg to forget about. I remembered them all: the one who didn’t complete his work on time because “he did not feel like it”; the one who promoted his new math of 3 months=1 year of experience with almost evangelistic zeal; the one whose idea of work consisted of waltzing in an hour before lunch, taking an hour-long lunch break, and “working” for another hour after that; the one who assumed marketing calls included hour-long pit stops at his house; the one who came in at opening time sharp and left at closing time sharp, and played games throughout her day; the one who didn’t meet his deadlines because others in his group simply did not have his “enthusiasm and devotion” to work; the one who wanted to quit without any notice period because he could presumably finish in half-a day one month’s pending work; the one who argued vociferously about his raise not because of his performance, but because they was expecting a child (wonder which performance he had in mind)… ok, I’ll stop now!

Worst of all is the politicking. I’ve been in groups as small as three and four, and it amazes me to see how everything other than work takes precedence. Maybe it is just a case of sour grapes, for I’ve never been able to play the game of “one-up” well!

Which reminds me of an article in today’s paper. I digress, but this was pretty interesting to me. The Deendayal Research Institute in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh estimates that the direct monthly public expenditure on each Member of Parliament is Rs. 3 lakhs (supposedly a conservative estimate, and not including indirect costs), which is 150 times the per capita income of an Indian!! There are 543 sitting MPs currently, not considering the 5,269 MLAs and MLCs! The mind truly boggles!

On a lighter note, at a birthday party recently, my ex-colleague asked me if I had taken on more people in my practice. I was most emphatic in my reply. Never again! I had had enough people management to last me a lifetime! To my chagrin, I noticed the look on his face as he moved away – he had worked on my team! It was too late to undo the damage, for he was one of the most professional people I had worked with!

So, what's your best worst experience?