I happen to meet my old friend yesterday. He works for EvalServ. He told me about the work culture of the company.
Its like open benches not even cubical. I dislike this kind of work settings. Of all the three options room, cubicle and open benches, I consider Cubicles are best.
It is sort of middle path. Firstly You do not have to face some one else face all the time. Secondly, It gives much needed minimum privacy at work settings. Thirdly, Presence of others in the same cubicle has motivating influence as well as professional work pressure.
He told me about the culture of insensitivity and poor professionalism at EvalServ. I could see all the principles of psychology in operation in his case. I would make him my case study on the project of Organizational Psychology.
Brief description of his case: He is little emotional guy but very nice human being and very caring, loving and spiritual person. Due to his introvert nature and work pressure, he could not mingle well with the people at EvalServ. There was a generational gap and cultural change for him. EvalServ is typical northies culture where people discuss sutta, daru and ladki for fun. This boy comes from a well cultured, well etiquette Maharashtrian family.
Due to tight work setting, employees are not able to draw much fun and thus as a new comer, he became the victim of all the gossips and fun talks in the company. His unprofessional and low EQ manager shared all his personal informations, poems, chats on WhatsApp group. He became the talking point of discussion in the company. Whatever he used to do or say was shared in the whole network on whatsapp. Look at the negative side of social media platforms. People who did not even know him first hand started chatting about him. The young generation girls who have learned about women empowerment but probably forgot to read about social etiquettes also started commenting on him in cafeteria or job settings.
The boy was literally isolated and ostracized. Some took him as gay, others took him as emotional fool.
There is a saying, when bad times come, It doesn't just rain, It pours. His poems were passed onto WhatsApp. His every move was tracked by some one or other in the company and discussed on the whatsApp group.
Anyway, I saw specific application of psychology here. First is Group thinking. I am sure not every one in the EvalServ would be so unprofessional or emotionally insensitive. At the least some one or two people must be there who could take other perspective. But the pressure of conformity is very hard to resist. Asch conformity experiment proves this. I showed him the video to explain the other side behaviour.
Second was social loafing. I see this as influence of open desk culture where employees just sit in a row facing each other. In such situations, employees are constantly under social vigil so social loafing is not possible. But Taylor et al showed in their experiment that Social Loafing is not necessarily bad. It increases work productivity. In this case, because scope for loafing was less, people were looking for some target or topic of discussion and this boy became scapegoat.
Thirdly, failure of Human resource team to spot such trend in the organization. Lack of psychological counselling in the teams. Many time the young kids are promoted to higher position based on their IQ. Our educational success is also largely determined by IQ and not EQ. However, success on the job is 80% EQ and only 20% IQ. Team work is not every ones cup of tea and professional maturity doesn't come automatically. Some people (in this case his Manager and other colleagues and he himself) are crippled in keeping personal and professional as two separate things.
The boy behavior also exhibited certain traits. He was more indirect in talks. I have seen that over emotional people are some times more indirect in their conversation. They dig hole for themselves. Because of indirectness and ambiguity in their talks, they leave scope for misinterpretation thus further emotionally brutalized. The vicious cycle continues.
He was suspicious of all the people around him in his work settings. Primarily, because every single person shared his conversation on whats App group and secondly many of them turned their back on him. When so many people track a person's social physical movements and draw fun out of it then introvert person tend to loose confidence in their behaviour like what to say or what to not, how to portray his social side or how to break ice in the relations.
Anyway, I am no professional psychologist. I suggested him to be assertive and direct in his talks. Meditate. I was surprised that one time staunch follower of Vipasana forgot all the basics. Over the years, I have learned that happiness is an art. I keep telling this to my other family members. Today I am job less. Future is uncertain. Despite having all the qualifications, I am directionless but at least, I am happy. I am carefree and i am proud of my past and present.
Some one has rightly said: If you can not be happy in the present moment, You can never be happy in the future as well.
To the employees of EvalServ, only one word comes to my mind: pity. I hope better sense and sanity prevails. There is not much difference between good and bad boy. Line is subtle and we need to constantly guard those possibilities.
I appreciate his CEO Ashish Gupta and AVP for lending him support. Things seem to have more forward in better direction but the damage done is irreparable.
Anyway, enough for this topic. Today was highly in-disciplined. I woke up late so missed my train as well as the morning exercise schedule. Afternoon I read book Zero to One. The book is going good. The evening discussion on net neutrality and other topics was as usual enthralling.
One serious trend is: I am not able to read newspaper thoroughly now days. There are some incomplete tasks as well. I need to guard against these trends and become a good finisher like Dhoni.
On Swachcha Bharat: My suggestion to Modi uncle would be to make it mandatory for all business shops, vendors, thele wale or households to install a dustbin in front of their shop/house/thela. The person or entity concerned could be held responsible for maintenance and vigilance of the dustbin. This way we can tackle the fear of bombs in dustbins.
It would make Swachcha Bharat a collective responsibility. This would clean the whole country at very fast rate. I remember, I searched for the dustbin in the market for 15 minutes and finally had to dump the wrapper on the roadside.
Throwing waste on the road is not a habit of Indian population. Rather, it is our compulsion in the absence of dustbin. If government install dustbin then it would be financially nonviable and problematic. Moreover, fear of bomb or stealing would remain.
Given the size of India, any top down approach has as much chances of failure as the chances of success of bottom up approach. Moreover such things can make our society more sensitive, participative.
Will write a formal letter to state and central government on this.
Another thing, I need to reduce the length on my blog as well. It is only a fun activity. It should not consume more than 20-25 mins of the day.
Good night..
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