Meet the manager!

It had to be one of the biggest career-achievement for David. He had some how managed to convince Chandru, his manager, to have a chat with his team.

The meeting was underway after a lot of persuasion on David’s part to get Chandru across the table. One thing David had noticed here was that, if you want somebody to do a job here, catch him when he is least prepared. Following suit, he had managed to catch hold of Chandru on his way back from the rest room.

“Are all the resources available?” Chandru never considered employees as people or human beings. They were resources for him.

Within a few minutes, all the nine team members along with Chandru had managed to squeeze themselves into one of the tiniest conference rooms on the floor after a couple of unsuccessful attempt with some of the more spacious rooms which were already occupied.

“Spread around a little bit.” He urged the team, occupying half of the tiny room himself; he had hardly left any space for the rest of the ‘resources’ to move around.

"I kind of find myself alone if you stand like this.” He looked very pleased at his own joke. He had read somewhere long back; a meeting should be started with an unconventional light statement. That creates a good effect.

He straight away started with an apology.

“Team! My sincere apology to all of you for not being able to talk to you earlier. Not that I didn’t want to, but you know how difficult my job is. I have to manage so many processes at a time.” Chandru never failed to mention at the slightest opportunity, how great a job he was doing, managing such a large number of (highly unmanageable) resources.

“I will kick start this meeting today and going forward, we will hold this on a regular basis.” None of the team members were amused, they had heard this before. This statement simply meant, with this gathering, I am done with my job of meeting you, thank me. We should not see each other again unless I run out of any idea to avoid you guys.

He spent the next thirty minutes delivering a well rehearsed lecture about the company hierarchy, the rewards and recognition policy and the variable pay criteria, struggling through the occasional questions by mouthing irrelevant answers. At times, he even pretended to encourage the team to ask questions, knowing pretty well, none of them would be too keen on doing so. This, he had cleverly made sure in a previous discussion with David.

Once his speech was over he thanked the team and asked the resources to leave along with whom he was about to escape.

“Chandru! One moment please.” Stunned by David’s voice, he turned back to see him along with three of his senior team mates waiting for him. “Shit”. This was the last thing he wanted.