Perceptions

I won’t even dare say I am one of the greatest managers in the software industry, but I am certain that I am not one of the worst ones out there. I am saying that with great confidence because I have survived some of the worst ones myself and that’s when I swore that I am not going to be like one of those. I have learned more from their mistakes than my own. That is why it bothers me even more that I am having this kind of meeting with Mark. I have been asking Sam for Mark’s time for over a week now and today when she informed me that he has an open slot on his calendar, I was not thrilled about it at all. He is already a minute late and I am secretly hoping his previous meeting will go over the allocated time and he would not show up for this meeting. My principles tell me this is the right direction to go, but something is making me restless. I should say “more” restless as the morning did not start all that smooth to begin with.

I thought I was going to miss my usual 7:07 a.m. train as I went running towards the steep staircase. As I reached the platform, a long line of people stood there anxiously staring at their phones, and then I took a deep breath. It was five degrees outside, but I could feel the sweat on my forehead! This happened for the third time in a row this week. The day before yesterday, standing on the same platform, I had reminded myself to check the train alerts before leaving the house and then today I had forgotten to do so. It must be the age. A dull pain shot up my left knee the moment I thought about my age. I massaged my left knee gently just enough so that no one can notice me doing so and then promptly took my place on the platform like an obedient student. My hand automatically went towards the right pocket of my jacket to grab the phone.

On the screen flashed a text message from Surabhi saying “Did you make it?” I felt myself getting emotional. As a thick cloud of guilt engulfed me, I tried to shake it off by coughing a bit only to make it worse. I felt guilty about the passive argument I had with Surabhi just before I had left the house. The kids were not up yet, so we could afford to do so. I know it sounds really bad, but that is the truth.

When I was at the door ready to leave, I had heard her footsteps. She ran towards the half-closed door, opened it hastily, and said “Wait, wait”. Her ponytail had almost come undone and half of her hair rested on her neck lazily. She held a piece of bread in her left hand that she must have picked up from the toaster before running to the door.

“Sign it, it’s due today,” she continued as she shoved the form in my hand and ended her sentence with a big assertive “Hmmm...”

I knew she has been asking me to sign for a week. I knew this was not the right time to sign on any school forms and I knew that she knew it was not the right time, but I just wanted to deny the fact that I had left her with no choice. My brain reminded me to keep it together, but my face must have conveyed something else as I almost snatched the form from her hands. An unpleasant “Ch…Chhh...” spilled out of my mouth as I grabbed a pen from her hands to sign.

Ten years back, she would have shouted at me for this kind of behavior and would have argued with me, and I would have done the same and then everything would have been out of our systems. But today she just stood there silently as I signed the form and gave me a resentful look. It’s the resentment that made me more uneasy as I pulled the door and almost ran towards the car.

After that episode, if I would have missed my usual train, it would have at least given me some sense of having the right to get upset. I know I should not be thinking like this, but the corporate job has done that to me I guess. I have progressively gotten better at blaming her. And above all, she sent a text message to ask me if I had missed the train! Why does she have to be so sensible at times?

My fingers lingered back and forth on the phone as I finally managed to type a message to her - “Trains are late. I didn’t miss it. Still waiting…” Half an hour later I was staring at the phone screen with no response from her. I consoled myself thinking she must be busy getting kids ready for school and I should be checking the financial news rather than worrying about all this. Financial news had always been a good distraction for me. Half an hour later, I was back again, texting her “Sorry”.

By the time the train docked to the platform in the city, I was blaming myself for texting her instead of calling and having a casual conversation with her about kids. That has always worked like a silent sorry so far. I hate texting and I hate waiting for replies more than anything - especially after saying sorry to her.

While walking towards the office, I had successfully succumbed to the tried and true formula that works for every man’s ego - convincing myself that this was as far as I could go apologizing to her and now it was her turn to mend the bridges. The entrance of my office building seemed like a perfect place to set all those thoughts aside and transform myself into an emotionless IT worker. I was late for my first meeting and I desperately needed a huge cup of coffee, but there was no time to do so. I ran hastily towards the elevators. The elevator system was changed a couple of weeks back in an attempt to make it more efficient. People thought the system was annoyingly sluggish as it calculated which elevator one should take depending on all of the incoming requests and some algorithms. It felt even more sluggish to me today as I watched the phone display show 9:05 a.m.

I reached the eleventh-floor lobby and quickly swiped my card at the door to rush in. Sam, Mark’s assistant, was sitting at the front desk. Her cell phone was tucked tightly under her right ear and shoulder. Her eyes were fixated on the monitor in front of her. It looked like she was engrossed in the conversation, but then she suddenly raised her hand just enough to stop me.

“Hold on Kelly, give me a minute,” she said to the person on the phone and turned to me to say “Good Morning, Arun.”

“Morning Sam,” I promptly replied.

“Kelly, let me call you back dear, I am sorry, something came up,” she told the person on the phone and hung up. As she started typing, I could not help but wonder how she always looked so cheery and happy. Her face looked too pleasant for a busy morning in the IT world. Sam is never late, and she is always elegantly dressed. Maybe she is a morning person, an “always-dress-elegant” person, and an “always-keep-smiling” person. It just comes so naturally to some people, unlike some of us.

“I know you are in a rush right now. I just wanted to let you know that Mark is in today and his calendar just got freed up between 1 and 1:30,” she said quickly as she took a quick final look at her monitor again.

“Oh, yeah. Sure, that will be great,” I replied to her and ran towards the meeting room. I would have loved to chat with her, but there was no time at all.

As I barged into the meeting room West-101, I was out of breath and missing my big cup full of coffee badly. The team must have been waiting for me in the room for over five minutes. The sweet aroma of coffee had filled the room only to make me feel more agitated. As I glanced over the room, I knew some people were missing and without the slightest doubt in his mind, I concluded Sneha must be missing for sure. She had been late to the morning meeting almost every single day. In a way, it was good that I am not the last one to join this meeting. Something was now telling me that corporate culture is not the culprit behind my bad pattern of thinking for sure.

I coughed a bit to distract myself. I have clearly not learned anything after being in this software industry for two decades if I am expecting a different result after doing the same thing over and over again. Albert Einstein, I am just a mere mortal, please forgive me…

John turned to the big screen in the room. The big screen displaying the project status looked rather crowded with tasks tagged as unfinished. It would have looked so much better if things were the other way round. But every day has to be full of challenges in the software world!

“Well, we can start I guess,” I said as I took my seat next to John.

“Sure, Arun. Hope everyone is doing great today!” John said in his perky voice and continued, “I worked on a backend procedure yesterday after our meeting, but could not go further. I will need to talk to you Arun as I need some clarifications.” John informed.

“Sure, John, I think we can chat after this meeting,” I promptly replied.

John is the senior-most person in my team and when he says he needs to have a discussion, I know I need to give immediate attention. I just hoped John’s concern does not delay everything else that is dependent on his work.

“Um...I had to fix a minor bug in the code that I found myself while unit testing, so I took care of it yesterday and today I will ...” Jamie started updating us about her status when suddenly, the door swung open and Sneha entered the room hurriedly. Sneha looked around, spotted me, and sighed. She put her backpack on the table, took off her thick jacket, and plopped herself in an empty chair next to the door right next to Jamie.

“So, um...Today I will continue finishing up my task but I think it is going to take more time than expected, “ Jamie finished her status update and turned towards Sneha looking at her expectantly.

“Arun, I was going to talk to you about this yesterday, but could not.” Sneha started with her status. “I found out that the requirements provided are not enough for the task I am working on. I have a lot of questions and I can’t continue without getting answers to those.“ Sneha spoke fast and looked to her right so the other team member could continue.

I was in the office till late yesterday. She had plenty of occasions to grab my attention. Now that I think about it, I had walked by her cubicle a couple of times yesterday evening only to find her missing. So much for hiring smart people and not telling them what to do! Mr. Steve Jobs, am I going wrong somewhere? There are all sorts of ways to raise a concern to your manager and she has not used a single one.

As a manager, I am concerned about Sneha being late. This has happened far too many times. One of the few times she has made it in time to this meeting, she seemed lost. We started having these early meetings just a couple of weeks back and I knew the whole team was not happy about it, but at least they made an attempt to make it in time. Sneha, on the other hand, seems to be making no effort at all to be here and to be invested. After Tom’s team got dissolved into mine as a result of company-wide re-organization, I was excited to see such a talented team member like her join my team. She had all sorts of certifications under her belt and was highly recommended by her manager. I have been disappointed by her so far though. A few weeks into her arrival, I thought it was just normal “forming-storming” business going on with her, but now I am starting to grow more concerned as the weeks have passed by and I am not witnessing any enthusiasm and participation from her in the true sense. Could she be thinking about quitting? Maybe she has found another job already. Being in the software industry, I have been in far too many situations when one has lost interest in the current job when they have found another exciting opportunity. Change is the only constant here for sure. I do not know her personally, but as a manager, I prefer not to know anyone’s personal life all that much. In my opinion, it just complicates things.

I have to admit: It’s not easy to deal with this kind of situation. I have tried having conversations with Sneha a couple of times about her work and they have not gone in the right direction. She seems to give me vague answers. I always end up being a conversion that is not going anywhere. And that’s the reason I have been trying to get Mark’s time so I can make him aware of this problem that has been brewing.

And now that Mark is going to meet me in a few minutes, I feel nervous. Mark is five minutes late now. This is a good time to just walk out of the room, and come to the office with a fresh mind tomorrow to tackle this.

I see a message from Surabhi as the phone beeps - “Need to talk to you in the evening.” Need to talk? In the evening? What does she mean, exactly? I said sorry to her over text, in the middle of the crowd, on the train and she can’t even acknowledge that I said sorry to her? A simple “Why are you saying sorry? I am sorry.” might have been helpful here, maybe? It’s hard to understand women and harder to understand their texts. Nothing can help men, no emoji, no expression, no text.

As I get up swiftly from my chair, I hear a gentle tap on the door and I know Mark is coming in. I wish I could just disappear or act like I am sick and postpone having this conversation with him about moving Sneha to another team or I can just be a stern manager and keep all my emotions aside and execute this like a smooth murderer.