“Why on earth, Manager’s should be so cold hearted!” Suraj was furious.
“Hey calm down man; it happens to everyone when working under Mahesh. Even Guna had trouble with him remember; he’s a tough boss man! And recall the way in which Guna used to work! Man, he was a workaholic and systematic too. And if he can make mistakes, believe me, you deserve to make yours too!” Ramamoorthy (a) Ram winked at Suraj.
‘Is he trying to convince me or bring me down further?’ Suraj stared at his project mate.
“Let’s go to the canteen man. Just chill ok!” Ram was already walking toward the door.
“Yeah sure mate! Guess I need a break too. This code is never gonna be finished by EOD either. Might as well satisfy my tummy.” Suraj wanted to find some reason to desperately get away from his work (and his Manager too).
“But I’ll tell this again, Managers need to be more empathetic. They should have some human levels of satisfaction at what we do. At the least they could be less vehement” Suraj’s voice trailed away…
“Hi Suraj. How are you doing?”
“Good morning Mahesh.” Suraj was a bit taken aback by the ‘How are you doing?’ style wish.
‘Hope this has nothing to do with that User testing!’
“You saw the match yesterday right. Oh man another awful performace from us. What say?”
‘Okay it’s not user testing!’ Suraj relaxed a bit.
“Yeah righto Mahesh. I think the whole team selection needs a revamp. At this rate we are never even going to reach the top six in the world cup.”
A bit of silence.
“Hmmm, Mahesh you were there for that cultural event day before yesterday?”
“No Suraj, I had some personal work. Had to leave soon. You know…”
‘Oh swell! There ends this topic!’ Suraj flexed his mind trying to think of something to speak.
‘Man, what does he want? Finish this off!!’
Silence again.
“Err… Suraj, I saw you had applied for salary advance. And ahem… was just wondering if everything was fine. You know… This is the second time in four months you have requested for it. I know this is a bit personal; probably I shouldn’t be asking you why and all this. You know… But I was just wondering if you are doing fine! You know…” Mahesh dragged on the last ‘you know’ to let know he was done with the talking.
“Ahhhhh that! Well, it’s all ok. Nothing at all! I am doing fine. Just fine… Thanks for the concern Mahesh” Suraj smiled back.
“You sure?”
“Yeah Mahesh. It’s all perfect. Too good infact. Twice in four months is it! I hadn’t noticed. Thanks again Mahesh”
“Yeah, no problem Suraj. Well then, I’ll approve it by today. But do let me know if you have any issues ok. Okay then. Guess you might be having your call to Aruna by 9 O’ clock. Carry on…”
‘Damn why do managers have to get so concerned! Can’t a guy live in peace? Always concerned about this or that. Sheesh! If you’re the Manager, you’ve got to be curt – just come to the point. Man, the day when I am a lead, I’ll show exactly how it is to be done!’ Suraj thought to himself.
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