Life of an individual...

"What are you doing"...says TL.
"Checking my mail"
"Well..good...are they the mails the onsite team sent you"
"Actually..no...they were sent by my friends"
"Friends?" says TL completely incredulous..."Don't you know that it is against company policy to use mail for personal reasons"
"Well..yea i do...i guess"
"Then please refrain from doing it then..I don't like it.." So saying TL goes away.

Poor K is shocked. He looks around and sees a lot of people looking at him. Are they laughing at his plight?Are they sympathizing with him?

"K..Join us in a meeting", TL says(orders?)
"I want you to work on this project, and deliver it in a month"..TL is saying
"K..you have to document everything that we are doing...every step...i don't like things being missed"...said in a way that brooks no argument
"Document? Everything?"
"Yes...everything....even the client infrastructure and our correspondence"
"But why those? Is it not unnecessary?"
TL stares at K, astonished, no one has ever questioned her before...

"Since you are in MY team you will do it" she says in finality and ends the meeting.

Poor K...The second shock within a month of taking this new job.

K is devastated...goes into a shell....Does not seem to be able to work...leaves work early.

Comes to work the next day and is checking mails...(Not Forwards)
In every correspondence with the onsite team, TL has an I...
(I asked my team to document the process...I have reviewed the document...MY developers are involved in coding....MY team plans for the rest of the week...)
Every where he sees an I...no our...He goes into a depression....his work is affected...

The reason K is hurt is not about the TL's persistant questioning of his work. It is about her ordering people around..About her trying to stand apart from the team...Her use of the word I everywhere...

Has the TL hurt the career of an engineer? Is this situation unique to K?
The answers are Maybe to the first and No to the second.

Every one of us face the same situations. I think the reason is the indian mentality.
Since childhood we are always expected to be apart from the group.
"You must top the class"
"You must captain your school in cricket"
"My son has scored 99.9999999% in 3 standard......The next highest is a mere 98.9998989%"
"My son started saying his alphabet at the age of 1 year 12 days....He is one of the smartest kids in our whole area"

All these conversations are common...How do we change this? Can we ever accept a person part of a group as smart...Can we ever think collectively.....


P.S: I have to say that my parents never forced me to stand apart..Was it because i was not smart enough to stand apart? (I sound like a typical Indian don't i )