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Writing > Users > Demira Krishnan > 2013

Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction


The following is a piece of writing submitted by Demira Krishnan on August 18, 2013
"Taken from my own experience of my workplace."

That's how some people are!

Her insults were hitting Jinny continuously like water off a duck's back, that too with no fault of Jinny's. And the whole team was standing in the room watching in awe. The Bitch had to shut up!, i decided.

Even before a word could pop up from my mouth, she hurled another word!
"This is ridiculous, you are misusing the freedom that I have given to my employees", she said.
"Wow! Freedom! Are you being funny even in such a situation!", I blurted out. For a moment my whole body heated up! And how would it not, I was talking this to my manager, my boss.
"What the hell are you saying?", she was red with anger, and I was terrified to think what was coming next.
"I mean she was really not well, its being bit too much on her to handle all this now. I can see she keeps worrying about this office work all the day and even after she has left for home!", I was starting at her in her face, and people at me.

Shweta Jain, my first manager and probably a big fan and sincere follower of Hitler! Half of what she said never made sense. Her biggest talent was asking what people feel about a situation or a problem, and answering the question even before they could attempt to open their mouth. She excelled in making all sorts of expressions, which we are supposed to read and accordingly answer to her. Like if she is not smiling, it means she wants you to say yes to whatever she is telling you to do, which is the case most of the times. And if you manage to say something against her, she would definitely show another talent of hers, that is expressing her anger in different ways, one of which is giving more work for that day!
This time it was my friend Jinny who faced her wrath. Jinny was unwell from a month and had been taking leaves now and then.
The main reason of her being unwell was the extreme pressure that our Hitler Madam lashes out at her. Too afraid to speak up, she always had told me how badly she wants to be away from Shweta and her horrible managing tactics.
And now our team was in the meeting room discussing the tasks for the day. That's when Jinny confessed that she couldn't complete the task which was assigned to her two weeks back. Not that she never tried to or didn't ask anyone for help, the work itself was tricky. But how would a person like Shweta understand the issue, she was only interested in humiliating a person, nothing was more important to her than that.
"I am sorry, I don't like when people of my project fail to deliver well", she said and looking back to Jinny continued, "And now I would not be the one to answer the client. It will be you!"
I was watching Jinny, and was expecting her to atleast open up and say a word, but that didn't happen.
"Its not possible. That's actually your job. Stuart would expect a reply from you. If the issue with the code needs to be explained, I am sure Jinny would do it well.", I said in a serious tone. I didn't know what would come next, but i was surely in a mood to have even a big battle with her.
"Well in that case I would like to talk to you", she said. And I Okay-ed it. That day we discussed for an hour, how I was wrong in talking back and how she was just doing her job.

The issue with the code, and the client Stuart were well taken care of in a weeks time, as we got an expert colleague helping us out. But soon after end of this chapter, one morning, at about 10.00 in the morning I heard someone talking loudly and in anger. And it wasn't surprising when I came to know it was Miss Hitler. I saw her talking to two of our team members whose cubicle was close to hers.
"I want to know who did this!" she was demanding and was pointing to the white board behind her. It was written in black pen and in bold letters, "Dear Miss As**ole, please know well that you are not the queen of this territory and stop ruling over everybody's life."
Now I wasn't sure who did it, probably by some one who hated her, isn't that too obvious? In fact its difficult to find out who, as people who hated her were more, and people who loved her could be counted on fingers!
While I was wondering who it might be, I saw her staring at me, with her hands folded. I guess she thought it was me, but she never said a word. Days passed and the white board became more and more abusive. And she had completely stopped talking to me in a friendly tone. I was glad, as this was her true self, the demon her, and she would never put up the fake I-am-so-sweet face ever.
Soon it was Christmas time and we all had to send messages/cards or wishes to each others. It was the sweetest thing that our organization ever did in every year. Friends would send messages to others. And some friends-turned-enemies would send apology messages for each other, and in the end everyone would truly celebrate together. This time I was very late in picking up my cards, when I went to check the box kept on our floor for my cards, and I saw that there weren't many cards in there. Probably people had taken theirs already. After I picked up mine I saw there were seven more cards, mostly with Shweta Jain written on them.
I had seen her busy throughout the day, so I thought probably that's the reason why she didn't pick up them. I took her cards and walked up to her cubicle. She was busy typing some document. I handed over the cards and said, "Only yours were remaining in the box". She looked up and said,"I knew. People aren't still tired of writing to me it seems"
I was looking at her with confusion, she opened up one and read out, "When are you starting HOW-TO-BE-A-BITCH class? Anyways wish you the worst Christmas ever! :)"
and then another, "I wish you the most dreadful Christmas and a Horrible year ahead, you Witch"
"Is there any need to read more?" she asked. For the first time I saw sadness in her eyes instead of anger. And I really felt bad for her, but didn't say a word and left after wishing her a happy Christmas and Happiest New year.
I couldn't help thinking how lonely and bad she might have felt every Christmas, after receiving all those hateful cards. So I decided to do something good for her this time. We planned and brought a bigger card, and wrote Christmas and New Year wishes and kept it at her desk on the next morning when she was away for a meeting. She was happy and thanked for it.
However, soon after about an hour my team mate who sits close to her cubicle heard her say to someone over the phone, "My team has found another way to flatter me. They bought me a big card for this Christmas."

Moral of this whole story would be best explained by an Indian proverb, "Kutte ki poonch hamesha tedi hi rehegi, chahe kitni bhi koshish karlo", which means "You can't ever straighten a dog's tail, no matter how hard you try to".
Shweta is still the same, and still receives wonderful compliments on her White board. The only thing that has changed is that she no more thinks that I am responsible for all the white board advises and adjectives, fortunately!

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