Of Abject reporting lines.

Life is definitely a series of experiences. While most of them are good, there are a few distasteful ones that can’t be avoided. Repugnant catastrophes like the person who I am about to write about here exist only to give us a taste of such experiences.

Let’s refer her here with her initials PC. (I am yet to decide if I need to write out her entire name on this and ensure this write-up is thrown on all the searches that anyone makes on this person!).

A 47 year old hag; All of 3 feet tall...er...short; Has a first name that sounds like the bark of a dog and the surname is a human body part; Must have attained menopause but behaves like she’s constantly on PMS!; Her laugh is so shrill and loud that it can curdle milk!. This is a little description of the Malaysian @#&$% I report to at work here. Did you just say I sound malicious...wait till you read further.

She is single which comes as no surprise since we really understand the guy who must have committed the gravest mistake of getting involved with this thing, but unlike us, managed to escape (hopefully alive!) and is living happily some place else. The constant smirk pasted on her face that looks like a weird extension of some body-part, anti-friendly behavior, rude remarks, breathing-down-your-neck fetish, inept at handling business pressure and petty conduct make her the “manic depressive” person that one can come across. She is the most expensive employee in the centre and gets billed onto an engagement with the lowest business margins. Five people across various levels have already become “casualties” of her wretched behavior and I, or for that matter, a lot of others would have been fine if there was even an iota of benefit that arose from retaining her in that role.

I knew I was always jinxed when it came to working with female bosses. But this time around I had vouched to not lay low. I escalated the last show-down we had, this time over my food preferences!. Someone who ate only Chicken from among the meat delicacies that this country dishes out did not “whet her appetite”. She expected me to eat Goose and Duck meat too! The Centre Director and the Head of HR were notified on this and they had to set right this behavior now.

Set right they did. I was moved out from her reporting line to now report directly to the Centre Director. Is this how a behavior issue at work is addressed did you wonder? I am wondering too.