Your grace
By: Appachoo N K
Tags: Work, Jobs, Culture, Management, Game of Thrones

Courtesy — Game of Thrones prequel scene

Migrating from college to a workplace is like a transformation. You find yourself isolated in a place without any friends and definitely, no teachers. The HR department will navigate you to your work desk and no further. Companies will have an orientation program for new recruits to help them get trained for the work ahead but not for the work life ahead. Some IT companies have a mentorship program that assigns a relatively senior employee as your mentor to help settle you down in the organization. After all this rigmarole, once you have spent an adequate time in your corporate career, you come to a sort of self-realization that the only person who will be your guide/buddy/mentor/godfather in your work life will be the one and only — your BOSS.

I try to relate to some experiences of mine and a few others using some Game of Thrones references (mostly because I have been binge watching the series — the reason for the delay in publishing this blog).

May it please your lord

People in professions such as legal, consulting, journalism will quickly realize that their boss is their godfather. Legal and consulting work with the concept of partnership where a company’s partner is responsible for a particular division of the business and almost runs it like his or her fiefdom. Every team member pledges his loyalty to the partner and his division. The success or failure of the person is dependent on how valuable they are to the partner and to the division’s year-end share of profits. Loyal workers in the partner’s teams are rewarded with off-the-turn promotions, huge bonuses, and other sops. When you hear of success stories like “He is the youngest partner of the firm” or “She got moved from Associate to VP in the shortest time”, you should realize that it was not possible without the lord’s blessings.

The things I do for love

“The success of the team is your success”. Few bosses interpret this as “I have to make or I made this team successful”. To achieve this, they will force themselves on their team as their guide and mentor not only at work but also in their personal lives. They feel that they are responsible for you like how your loved ones do. While it is a great thing for some to care for you, some individuals do not like work interference in their personal lives. Some bosses also make it a point to reinforce the message that you are a nobody without them or how they were solely responsible for your career and growth.

The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword

There are 2 schools of bosses when it comes to assigning work. On one end there are bosses who will delegate all their work to their team and on the other end there are bosses who will assign very little tasks to you and micromanage them. In both cases, there are again bosses who will shoulder the blame for their team’s fault and there are bosses who will squarely blame their team for failure. However, there are no instances where bosses will solely credit you for success.

I cannot serve two queens

What is better than having a boss? Having two. Did I say better? Yes. Rarely in your career, you might be blessed to report into two bosses. Smart workers will find a way to play both bosses and get away with working for neither. Hard workers will succumb to the pressure of working for two at a time.

Hand of the King

Fresh recruits from grad school do not really report to a boss. You report to a team lead who in turn reports to the boss. You assume that the team lead is like your senior from college who joined before you and you can still hangout with him after the initial ragging. In reality, the team lead is someone who was rewarded for his loyalty to the boss. He is that smart worker who knows how to take you into confidence and get the work done for the boss.

I swear by the old gods and the new

What would happen when you find yourself in a situation where your old boss has quit before you and a new one has taken his place. You end up as a deserter in the eyes of your old boss and a guy who trades insider info in the eyes of your new boss. Years of trust you built with the old boss goes down the drain and you need to start all over again.

A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinion of sheep

Often data does not drive decisions. It’s the HIPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) which drives decisions. The sooner you realize this, you can be at peace in meetings and put your mind to rest. Being a “yes man” can have its own benefits. Actively contributing to ideation and aggressively pushing your opinions are best left to lobbyists and politicians.

Sitting on a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one

After all the struggle over the years, you finally made it. You become the boss yourself only to find out that the grass was greener on the other side. Being a boss is a constant state of being worried about work and success. Hiding your company’s troubles and showing a rosy picture to investors and employees will eat you up every day. As an employee, you had the option of being friends with the masses, actively participating in office rumour mills and grapevines, organizing rebellions against the management for lesser working hours and higher pay. All these benefits are taken away when you yourself become the management. Enjoy your employee life, while it lasts.

You know nothing, Jon Snow

Be like Jon Snow in your career. Not once in the series did he have any ambition or plans to be the King. He just followed the tide and went wherever the situation took him. He was friends with everyone and just wanted to be recognized as an honorable man. Being devoid of ambition and desire could be a virtue in work life too. So, what if you don’t get promoted as fast as your peers, you won’t suffer as much as they will. It is left to you to choose a better work-life balance over others.

Winter is coming

A new breed of bosses is taking over the world. They are trying to create workplaces in which they try to put themselves at par with their employees. A story which was doing the rounds of the internet was a CEO who gave up a large portion of his salary to increase the minimum wage of his company and the employees, in gratitude, gifted him a Tesla. Maybe it is time for some of the old gods to wake up and smell the coffee.