Sunday, February 3, 2002		Life Ties

Retaining a sense of perspective
Taru Bahl

PALAK needed to be accepted and loved by all those she came into contact with. She invested intense thought and energy in her relationships. She was naturally empathetic, sensing others’ unhappiness and despair long before they articulated it. She reached out, offering them a shoulder to lean on. Yet, in most of her relationships, after the initial euphoric phase, the alliance became riddled with hurt and resentment. People who knew her well, felt that her fault lay in being "too good". According to them, most of the time, her goodness was wasted on those who didn’t deserve it. She had to learn to be selective as also to trust her intuitive judgement of people, gauging their responses and intentions before going all out to help them.

She remembered the first day she walked in as an executive trainee in a leading finance company. The firm had come to her campus for placements and was impressed by her interpersonal skills. From day one she bonded effortlessly with people. Her easy manner of speaking, camaraderie, lack of ego problems or attitudinal superiority and the ability to naturally relate to each person at his/her level helped her gain their confidence in a trice. She did not do it deliberately though she had subconsciously trained herself to be nice and friendly to everyone. It was imperative for her to be popular and well liked. Others’ appreciation of her and an overt display of their fondness was critical to her sense of self-esteem and worth. She would spend a few minutes talking to the security guard, chaiwallah and despatch assistants. Her genuine concern for their families in the village or the manner in which they managed on a shoestring budget made them respond to her as if she was one of their own. Her friendly greetings earned her an extra round of tea or an out-of-turn errand. Although her ‘niceness’ was not with the objective of earning these favours they boosted her morale.

Her teammates and colleagues were not threatened by her since they were sure she was not competing with them. So while her fellow workers complained of politics, rivalry and backbiting, she herself never experienced any of this. Since she had no ego problems and was willing to run errands for everyone right from the entry-level executive to the general manager, she was sought after. She seemed to be both popular and successful. She was on first-name terms with everyone. For a casual visitor who walked into their office, it seemed as if Palak was an important person who was here, there and everywhere.

A few months down the line, the love story seemed to be wearing thin. Her personal life had practically ceased to exist. She was forgetting social engagements and had earned the notorious tag of being a latecomer. Stressed out and exhausted she would say, "I want to look for another job. I am fed up with this place". It seemed strange that a job which had been picture perfect a few weeks ago had, without any major incident, become claustrophobic and limiting. The people were the same, her work profile was the same, her salary and perks were the same, then why was she feeling disgruntled?

A closer look revealed that familiarity had bred contempt. Stepping beyond boundaries and getting unnecessarily intimate with people she should have kept a healthy distance from had been her undoing. The support staff whom she had initially befriended were now taking up a lot of her time, telling her long-winded stories about their wives’ ill-health and long-running property disputes. Some pushed her to take up their case and get the accounts department to pass their loans. One of them went to the extent of pointblank requesting her for Rs 5,000 and when she tried to bid for time, he took to calling her up on her residence phone number every day. She was wary of giving it to him since he was a slippery fellow but could not say no to him. Finally, more to get him off her back she gave him the cash. Her instincts were right. He vanished a fortnight later. More than the financial loss she was upset with the way he had betrayed her trust. What she did not confront was her decision to trust a wrong person in the first place. She had confused humane concern with a flawed sense of judgement.

Her over-enthusiasm to take on more work resulted in her boss giving her time-consuming errands which he could jolly well have given to another executive. People she had earlier befriended would keep popping in to say hello or join her for a cup of tea when she would be busy working. Since she had earlier not resented their visits she couldn’t really tell them not to bother her now. She had to be polite, hoping they would take the hint and let her be. Colleagues she had bailed out in times of personal crisis, staying back to complete their odd jobs so they could attend a family wedding or take an ailing parent to the doctor looked the other way when she asked them for help. As a result she was staying beyond office hours to finish her own work.

Her being extremely friendly with everybody had another fallout. Her informal sunny temperament was misconstrued by some of the senior staff as being promiscuous and bold. They spoke behind her back and the office grapevine fabricated her affairs with different people on different days. When she got wind of it she was naturally upset. She tried becoming aloof but that too did not go down well with the office crowd. They felt she had turned snooty. Reasons were ascribed for the change in her behaviour. Some felt that she had run out of favour with the boss. Others felt she was incompetent and not serious enough. Office for her was like an entertainment zone where she could come all dressed up and ready to socialise.

All this while she was actually a bright person. She was intelligent, hard working, responsible and quick on the uptake. She had multi-dimensional skills and could adapt to new situations effortlessly.

It was a pity that instead of being accorded the status of being a good and dependable worker she had created a negative image of herself. Where she had gone wrong was in not being able to set boundaries in her official relationships. Had she maintained a distance right from the beginning she would not have been so helpless and incapable of retracing her steps without being downright rude. Had she focused solely on her job at hand she would have been able to harness all her intellectual energies in upgrading herself professionally. The final straw came when she did not get a promotion, in spite of having worked hard and done her best.

When everything seemed to be falling apart she thought of leaving and looking for another job, little realising that she would repeat the same set of mistakes. She had to prioritise her responsibilities and focus on them. She had to not just be promising in her work but also create the impression that she was promising. It was only by developing a sense of proportion and perspective in her relationships that could she have a harmonious personal and professional life.