Handbook for a HR Manager...101 Questions & 202 Answers for them

The modern fast paced world with its array of tech gadgets which make work faster have helped all of us at work.
The only thing that seems to have grown faster is the work which they were initially made to do fast.
This work overload for sure has put a lot of stress on the HR Manager.This handbook is for all HR managers who are stressed because they have to deal with stressed employees..The handbook contains readymade answers for readymade employee problems

Q1.I have a lot of stress at work, i am overburdened...
A1.Stop cribbing...the problem is not the work...the problem is your perception.Stress is a mirage which you create urself with the help of ur perception,stop day dreaming start working.

Q2.My boss is a devil,he gives me work just before i prepare to leave for the day.
A2.If your boss is a devil , who is asking you to be a saint?Stimulate that you are leaving for the day at least 3 hrs before your usual time...by doing this he will not only get a heart attack but it will also help you reach home on time.

Q3.That new guy who joined yesterday has a higher desingnation and lesser years of experience.I have been here in this company for such a long time.
A3.The answer lies in your own statement - be the new guy in a new company you will get a higher designation with lesser years of experience tahn the old guy there.

Q4.I work very hard but i dont get rewarded for it.
A4 You are a fool... work for only how much money your get paid for...anything extra that you put in is totaly uncalled for ... your loss not company's gain.

Q5.There is too much politics in office.
A5.Voting ke din agar aap vote nahi kar rahe hoo to aap soo rahe ho..jago jago jago re....join the biggest,most powerful group and make yourself comfortable.India is a democracy so is our office.

Q6.I dont like Shyam.
A6 Its ok dont like him just work with him.

Q7.I am getting bored, work is not challenging enough.
A7.You think my work is challenging? I have been doing this same shit for years...just take your money and be happy..kahe ku dimag ka dahi karta hai?

Q.8.When will i get my promotion which you promised last year?
A.8 Next year.... the same thing which i told you last year.

Q.9. I want to Quit.
A.9. You are the most valuable employee for us on the face of this earth...i will give you promotion right now... i will transfer that stupid shyam whom you dont like right away (line applicable only at times of severe talent crunch)or else say " na dil mein hai khwaaf na man mai hai khwaaf so kindly f**k off"

Life is a Pitch & also a *itch

G.I.G.O - Garbage In and Garbage Out is a simple term which every school going kid ( at least when i was one) was taught in their computer class.Gigo simply put means your output is as good as ur input, even when it comes to a supernatural man made wonder called computer.
But sadly enough a lot of people in the marcom business do not understand this either because they dont want to or because they just did'nt pay attention in class just the way they dont when their partners (read creative/media/research agencies)make presentations.

My concern which stems out of this unhealthy trend of changing partners (again read creative/media/research agencies)is that it merely shows that a lot of guys in the marcom industry are insecure, out of touch of reality and commitment phobic.

I just feel that for any venture to succeed you need partners (like the ones you have in a marriage) not short term partners like the ones you have in one night stands...
So for all those commitment phobic,insecure,attention deficient guys who call themselves clients i would like to say that.. if i had a choice i would never like to become your partner if it would not lead to a marriage...coz i do not believe in one night stands...so bye bye(waving not with five finger of my hand but with just one ...the most important middle one)

In Pursuit of Masakali...

Aye Masakali MasaKali
UD MataaKali MataaKali

Aye Masakali MasaKali
Ud Mataak Kali Mataak Kali.......

The song is a hit and is good to hear too...but after hearing it a couple of times i just had to find what it meant...all good things have a meaning rt..? Do they..? If Papu cant dance...then Masakali can UD..All these songs reach dizzing heights of popularity in a very short span of time and then fizzle into oblivion even faster only to be deleted from ipods/mp3 players and any other e- music storage device...will anyone 5-10-15 yrs from now hunt them down and play them...like we do the old classic songs..? i am sceptical abt it ...the reason being anything which has no meaning does not last long..a thumb rule which applies to a lot of things in life...Masakali apart from being the dove in the movie also means liberation/freedom...the song does have meaning..but what is my 1GB non expandable brain fails to understand."Life is a waste of time and time is a waste of life..so y not waste life all the time..." listen to Masakali...

Urbanization of the Seven Ages of Man (& also woman)

If William Shakespeare were to write his famous monologue - All the world's a stage, again in 2008 am sure it wouldnt have seven ages.
Just to refresh my memory the seven ages as described by him were (hail Google!) -
Infant, school boy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon (semi old age) & second childhood

Thanks to the rapid pace of development (not sure if it really is) around the world, the seven ages shrinks to four ages.

The four ages being -
1) infant
2) training to be a rat
3) rat race
4) late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat.

Infant
The infant still mewls & pukes in the nurse's arms as in the Shakespearean time.
From the nurse's arm the infant goes straight to the maid's arm because the mom has to join the dad in the race...rat race.
(not restricted to the Mumbai full Marathon, Delhi Half Marathon, Bangalore Quarter Marathon..... )

Training to be a rat
This age starts at around 6-7 yrs (may be earlier in case of overzealous parents) and can run upto late 20's.
The human rat as opposed to his namesake aspires to be highly skilled, multi tasker, all rounder & dreaming of getting into colleges starting with I's & earning salary which has zeros greater than the inflation rate at that point of time.
The training involves classes in maths - music - muscles (health) to name a few.

Rat race
This race only has a start line; the finish line is only a mirage.
When we start running the race we realize that what we trained for is not exactly what we need to win the race.
The best part of this race is that even if a rat is ahead of a dozen of his other fellow rats he
feels he’s losing out the race. The race is a good leveler though… coz the rat at the front and the last rat feel almost the same… a sense of inadequacy.

Late realization - race was not worth it &i am not a rat
After years of running the human rat realizes that the race has no finish line…and he has spent all his life doing just one thing i.e.) running & nothing else…. he also realizes that
he is still at the bottom of Maslow’s need hierarchy pyramid fulfilling the basic needs of roti (at a five star restaurant), Kapda (of a designer label) & makan ( at a luxury by invitation only property zone). It also dawns on him that he is not a rat but a human being….

My only question…why are human beings always after being what they are not – rats, dogs, asses….we have better options don’t we?

Do you see what i see..? i see SXC

We had a professor at St Xaviers Calcutta (SXC) called Prof Saha who taught business mathematics.
Saha didnt teach our section but the other commerce sections.
This was the time when the US had its "smoke him out" policy fully out against Osama bin laden.

Xaviers as with most of the old Jesuit institutions had beautiful gothic architecture.
This beauty translated into amphitheatre style seating, long corridors & huge classrooms.
This architectural beauty also made sure that if you didnt whisper your voice would reach atleast three - four adjacent classrooms
when there is pin drop silence.
Pindrop silence at Xaviers was a reality not only when Fr Felix Raj the Vice Principal was on his rounds but also otherwise.

Now coming back to Prof Saha....he was small, diminutive & generally a harmless creature from the Indian hinterland.
Harmless even when tortured by stupid, irrelevant doubts by sleepy but bright commerce guys.
He was more African in looks than even a true blue African native.
The US agenda against Osama caught up with Saha sadly enuf.....
Whenever Prof Saha came up the staircase passing through the classes filled with those sleepy bright commerce students
there would be this bee like humming which filled the corridor " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen"

Prof Saha showed infinite amount of patience which just strengthened the bee like humming to the almost lion like roar.
This soon became the talk of the town almost ( atleast near Park Street i guess).

Then one day almost a month after this had started a class tried the same stunt ...this time when he was in the middle of
the explanation of a complex maths problem with his back to the class & face towards the black board.
As soon as the " Oooo Sahaaa Bin Ladeeen" anthem gained momentum..Prof Saha jumped & turned (simultaneously)
suddenly now facing the class in pin drop silence..threw the chalk in his hand at the boy who was in the middle of the class...
simultaneously yelling "thor baap osama binladen"

I am sure had this incident taken place now ... the humming would have been " Oooo baamaa " & Prof Saha wouldnt have reacted the way he did.

Who is a Media Planner

Sandhi Vicched , the little hindi grammatical tool from class V/VI comes handy i guess..
Media +Planner = Media Planner i.e) one who plans media.

One who plans media...? nahh...

Let me try again ...a Media Planner is one who....

1) ..... can plan everything but his /her own life
2)... whos folks,siblings seldom understand what their beloved actually does in advertising .....
when he is neither responsible for the content,copy nor the idea of an ad.
3) ... spends nights in office creating sumthing called logs; yes they actually are tougher then the wooden ones.
4) ....shows off his motiyo jaise daant when he sees his ads in newspapers,billboards,websites and commercial breaks.
5) .... is comfortable writing letters in excel sheets.
6) .....juggles with crs & crs of currency fully knowing that a cr is 1 and 7 zeros which appear in ppts and excel sheets and
not in their ICICI/Citibank/HSBC savings account.
7) ....one who has to pick his clients calls even if he were just being wheeled out of an OT after a open heart surgery.
8)..... one who thinks of "innovative ways" to irritate TV viewers, newspaper readers, radio listeners , web surfers and
even the poor guy driving to/from his office....and gets awarded if he/she has been truly successful.
9)......one who has a love hate relationship with client servicing teams in creative agencies.
10).....one who waits for his/her- Team/Agency/Company's name to be flashed in afaqs/e4m articles even if it
just gets the penultimate line mention.,,,feels sad at times...but happy coz he /she knows deep down in some corner of the heart that
"i am luving it."

Foot & Mouth Disease

Foot-and-mouth disease(FMD) is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic animals such as cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats and pigs.

In humans though FMD takes the form of a verbal disease.(Foot-in-mouth disease)
The FMD in humans may not be fatal but can leave you red/pink/blue or black faced for a really long time.
It is not a seasonal disease but can occur anywhere.. anytime.
People prone to frequent bouts of verbal dysentery are prone more to this than others.

Though i belong to the later category i was taken into the grip of this dreaded disease many times over.

The most severe attack happened to me in office.

It was a pleasant Dec Monday morning in Mumbai and all of us had just settled into our work stations.I got a call from my colleague Sharad who had joined us 6 months ago.Sharad told me that he was quitting and didnt know how & when to inform Rajneesh our GM.I didnt know what to say hence told him that i would speak to him later.

The fact that Sharad was quitting wasnt that much of a surprise as the fact that he had lasted for 6 long months.
I say 6 long months not because the workplace was bad but because Sharad followed the semester system at workplace:moving to a new place after each semester was over.

"Putting in your papers" can be a very traumatic experience,i have done it myself once in my close to 3.5 yrs of work exp.Full of empathy i decided to call back Sharad...lo & behold i forgot his extension number.I was never good at numbers of any kind.I decided to look up the extn no. list pinned near my desk and call him up. Full of wisdom and empathy i dialled 645 and blurted out "Sharad our MD is coming from Delhi Tomorrow i think you should put in your papers today evening instead of tomorrow." I expected a decent Thank you from the other end but to my surprise the voice on the other end said "sale kya bakwaas kar raha hai?" I knew sumthing had gone terribly wrong but it took me a good 3 secs to realise that i had dialled 645instead of 654 which ideally i shud have.
Well 645 happened to be the extn of my GM, whom i had just jolted by informing( inadvertently)that one of his team members was quitting.

I swirled my chair backwards, now facing towards my GM and gestured that i would come and explain.Explain i did and my GM listened to it patiently.
No one thankfully had noticed as to what had happened.
In the meantime Sharad mustered up the courage to inform Rajneesh abt his noble intentions.
Rajneesh accepted it without much fuss...a deviation from what usually happens.

Sharad came out smiling and happy..during lunch when i narrated this to all my colleagues including Sharad, they just cudnt stop laughing.I had become the butt of the joke - that if anyone intends to put in his papers pl inform Shibu first to have a smooth exit.
By the way the Thank You from Sharad did come albeit a lil late for facilitating his smooth exit.

Last but not the least:The antidote to this disease - None: practically.