The Master

My second boss was from some military background. His last designation was a lieutenant. Not sure why he ventured into software industry but it happened. He was deemed the project manager for the 10 of us.

He was supposed to be good but unfortunately he does not know where 'any key' is in the computer. That's the level of his literacy. Since, he is from an army background his leadership skills were as that of a lieutenant and not of a software project manager.

There are some peculiar characteristics of this boss:He never likes people arguing. If you end up arguing he will make sure there is a problem and you are into it. He even goes to the level of calling the COE of the organization and give you the phone without any warning in your hand. You might also end start talking without knowing who is on the other side of the wire.

He never likes going home early:
He will come to work at 8am in the morning and never leaves before 11pm. He had a schedule of what he should do on a daily basis. He will start the day with holy bookThen a walk round the tables just to make sure every body is in office and are only at their seatsIf he finds you sitting with someone else, or having a giggle during a casual chat, that's it, you will end up in his room with a lecture where you will always be proved wrong.

You cannot leave the office before 10pm:
There was an instance when one of my colleague was waiting because we had an implementation but this poor guy was no where related to that work but still he was asked to stay back. The clocked ticked from 10pm to 12pm and my friend out of desperation steeled into the dark and went out of the office. Out came the master at 3am and did a routine check and found this guy missing. That's it. Next day he was summoned and was put into a miserable state.

Ofcouse some good things from him:
You can order anything at the company cost to eat when you stay late so it was a boon for the bachelors staying away from home to eat good food free of cost.
If required he will prepare tea and coffee and if is busy he will ensure one of us with less work load make tea / coffee for others.

Because he had all these qualities and only likes to order and not ready to work, we named him as Master !

My First Boss

My very first company is a very small one just with 10 resources. It was a product based company at the beginning and we were working hard, I mean really hard.... as the company is new and resources are also new. There was no experienced person except my first technical manager. He looked more like a senior but he is from US and so he works in the night with his laptop in our office and sleeps in the day (reception sofa!)

This guys is too technical you don’t know when he will make you work, We generally leave the office by 7:30pm but just then he will pop in and say guys lets go to dinner - you know we were all young bachelors and anyway most of us were from out side the state and if somebody is ready to feed you free of cost just stick to him. So, we said O that's a good idea. He would then take us to any hotel that was not less than a *** and feed us with what ever we want.

Since we had a good dinner, he will say come lets work for some time, we have already lost 3hrs in this hotel ordering, waiting and eating the food. Since we ate free of cost, we accepted to work long hours... That started a trend in the company where by default it was expected that we should not leave anywhere before 12pm but you should be in office by 8:00 AM.

The time passed and the hotel range came down from anything not less than 3 stars to anything that is on the road side. In the local language its called 'tattu kada' in my place we use to call them as 'kai yenthi bhavan.

It so happened we grew better to reject his invitation but he never accepted as it was too late for us to change the behaviour. And when ever he invited us we had to work whole of the night!

Lesson: Accept invitations but not repeated invitations that too from your boss!