Of those whom we so despise in corporate life

It is quite remarkable how some people work with a “cowboy” approach. “Shoot from the hip; don’t think, just shoot.” They just bull-doze through with what they think should be done, with zero consideration of organisational structures and processes. There is much to be said for the need for constant change and challenging the ways we currently do things - but there is a difference between challenging status quo for improvement, and being totally out-of-sync with reality on the ground.

They have neither awareness nor appreciation of other colleagues’ job scopes, expecting them to do everything under the sun at their beck and call, as if people have no other more pressing duties to attend to than to drop everything and entertain them - they only know how to demand for results, without realising what it takes to get things done. They think their team-mates are their cage-bound, Ferris-wheel-running hamsters.

They do not make proper use of proper online processes - sending out last-minute meeting invitations to non-existent e-mail addresses and booking non-existent meeting rooms, and expecting that the invitees will turn up. They think they are the Emperor of China.

They talk loudly on the telephone, forgetting that office space is shared space, and human beings were born with ears and could do with a certain degree of quiet while at work. They conveniently forget that if a conference call is required, there is such a thing as a teleconference room, where the entire office does not have to be subjected to listening to their meeting. They think they are as charismatic and attention-worthy as The Late Night Show with David Letterman.

They send out group e-mails without identifying the recipient(s) in the headers, the contents of which are cryptic one-liners that are vague to the point of being totally useless, and then expect that people will take sensible action on them. They think everyone can read their minds and speak Martian.

They spread themselves a hundred miles wide, but only an inch deep - they have no sense for details, and are incapable of seeing both the forest and the trees (let alone the branches and the leaves). They love big words, but have no idea when those words really, really mean in real-life. These people need to get out of their swanky suits and Prada high-heels, and spend a month on the shop-floor with the real boys doing real work.

Overly-eager to please, they mindlessly agree to the customer’s every whim and fancy - but they forget that ultimately, their allegiance is with the company, and the ones who will end up picking up the shit from their over-commitments and lofty promises to the customers are their own colleagues. They derive their existence from making enemies out of their allies, forgetting whose side they are actually on. And then they wonder why the office is full of indifferent and uncooperative workers who display neither interest nor enthusiasm toward their cause.

Their high-handed approach inevitably results in high attrition rates within the organisation. And true to the injustices of corporate reality, when the last of the silent heroes whom they abused and manipulated have been martyred, they are hailed by the powers that be as the true survivors and heroes, ready to rise up the food chain and groom the next generation of cess-pots like them.

C’est la vie dans le monde de l’entreprise.