As I write this, my mind is deep into the thoughts of comparing the corporate life with something that is being screened on air these days, i.e. MTV Roadies.
Roadies’ journey starts with 10-20 people who get selected from amongst thousands after some rigorous rounds of Group Discussions and Personal Interviews. After passing out of the college, journey to the corporate life starts off in a similar fashion where only a few get selected from amongst the thousands, the only difference being that corporates look for some aptitude in the candidates.
After getting selected, the so called Roadies join each other from different parts of India and life seems a big party to them. At this point they do not have any idea what life/journey awaits them and how one master-mind is going to test their humanity to its core. Akin to this, the college pass outs join a company/organization when they are full of life, immensely satisfied of the fact that all their education finally bore a fruit and very soon they would be earning on their own.
The basic premise of Roadies is that they have to travel on their bikes and perform some tasks. Likewise after joining an organization, individuals are expected to do some basic work related to their industry. Now one common thing between the two is that these tasks have to be performed in a team.
What I have discovered in 3 years of my corporate life is that this word – “team” is misleading to say the least. Roadies differs from corporate life here, as in Roadies – “kehne ko yahan tum sab ek ho par yahan har Roadie akela hai” is iterated time and again. In corporate life nobody says this directly but you realize this over a period of time.
In Roadies, people vote against one another – the person against whom maximum votes are there gets eliminated on a given day and the last man standing is declared the winner of the show. What this does is create “insecurity” in the very same “team” whose team-members work together to complete any task assigned to them, whatsoever. Now you would ask what creates “insecurity” in a team in corporate world and my answer is – hierarchy.
Unlike a Roadies team, a team in corporate life comprises of persons at different levels of hierarchy. Generally there would be a team leader handling 5-10 people and a boss. Because of vote-outs, people try to save their ass by plotting, bitching and back-stabbing each other. The best of friends become worst of enemies on the show. Does this happen in corporate world? Yes, my dear friend. Yes, indeed.
There is always a constant pressure of meeting deadlines in a project. This pressure is percolated down by the boss onto the team-lead who percolates it downwards onto the team members and if by chance, your boss is anywhere close to a “HARI SADU” kind of boss, then your life can become hell (down under).
In my view, an employee can become insecure because of three reasons – one, if anything goes wrong in a project. This is so because someone has to take the blame for the mistake and your guess is as good as mine (why would someone higher up the order take the blame?). Two, promotions, rewards and recognitions. What vote-outs do in Roadies; lack of promotions, rewards and recognitions do in the corporate life. In one, you are asked to move out directly, in other you can be made to feel so miserable that you do not have any other option but to move out. Third, recession (something which I have also realized of late).
Because of these reasons combined with some other (like transfers, onsite, marriages, new project etc.), you keep losing your friends, until one day you realize that your turn has come to be eliminated today !!!
