The Chamcha

Communicate
The Chamcha

All of you who love your bosses, don't read any further and save 4 minutes of your day!

Now that you’ve decided to waste your time, let me ask you. Have you ever wondered why you hate your boss sometimes (or always, if that's the case)? Sorry, wrong question. I am sure that’s something that’s easy to answer, and you would already have a lot of answers!

Let me list a few and you can tell me if your current/past reasons match.

1. Always unreasonable. Never listens! Their rambling goes on and on…

2. Doesn't appreciate and always picks holes, and the rare appreciation also feels like an insult. Doesn't respect me at all; I am a father/mother of 2!

3. Gives me last-minute shitty work, and my day goes for a toss because they intrude into my organized world.

4. Cannot make decisions; I can't make out if they are agreeing or disagreeing!

5. Always late for meetings and doesn't even inform me if they are coming or not!

6. Their meetings never end. Half the day goes into meetings!

7. Gets angry for no reason. Interestingly, they won't tell me anything in our one to one. Always likes to show their power in team meetings.

8. They have no time for us, answers our emails, messages and calls at their convenience. We have to be at their beck and call.

9. Frequently change their decisions. No consistency!

10. If anybody complains to them about others, they tend to believe without fact-checking.

11. Awful dressing sense. I dread going out to meetings with them

12. Clueless, never knows what’s going on! I don't know what they saw in her/him.

13. Self-appreciation freak. Takes credit for my work. No matter how things turn out, he always says, “I told you so!”, not interested in my growth whatsoever!

14. Too much politics, as soon as someone turns their back, they start bitching about them, can't trust at all! Two-faced!

15. Very insecure and jealous, doesn't trust anybody, stay safe!

16. Slave driver, keeps calling me in the evenings and on weekends!

17. Foul-mouthed, swears a lot, never sure what he will say when!

18. When I talk about salary/hikes, they always talk me away from those conversations, saying, make your career, money will follow! Seriously?

19. Very biased, always likes to favour the favourites. This one is a killer, and most of us have felt it or keep feeling it.

So, what does it take to be your boss's favourite? You may have to:

a) Be a top performer sounds obvious, or is that enough?

b) Have worked with them before or rather from their previous company?

c) Come from the same college or joined through their reference

d) Speak the same mother tongue; helps sometimes?

e) Say yes to everything they tell you! Become their Chamcha

f) Become their slave/spy; you can also say its a subset of (d),

g) You have excellent relationship skills (slightly different than f)

I'd appreciate it if you could carefully look around you and list the people you think are your boss's favourite, and reflect on why they are one. If at all, when you were a favourite, why was that? If now you aren't a favourite, what changed? I am sure something happened for you to not be a favourite if you were one! Or you simply don't care if you are a favourite or not! Do you think people can grow in their careers if they aren't the favourites of their bosses?

I reflected on the 10-plus bosses of mine during my employee days and wondered when and why I was their favourite.

Sometimes because it was inevitable (I used to be among the top 20 sales guys amongst 250 in one of the roles), so no choice, I guess. In one of the companies, they put up with me because I was his boss's favourite. I used to take advantage of that . But I would be demeaning my career if I attribute my growth to being a favourite. But, honestly, it helped in some crucial moments for sure!

However, none of my bosses wish me birthdays or a happy new year nowadays, meaning they are happy to forget me! It could also be a boss hierarchy thing (always the reportees should be wishing up?)

Truth be told, I think I was a difficult employee, and many of them put up with me for one of the reasons listed above!

Explains why I eventually turned an entrepreneur

But the real answer according to me is that some of these Chamchas are rather dependables too?

Agree?

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