Office Politics - 1

While work has been interesting and exhilarating, it hasn’t been without its own minor friction with the Big Boss (BB).

I have been home based for the past two years and now I am an office based employee. With this shift, I have undergone some subtle yet minor changes. I talk to my other office based staff more often, we have lunches together and generally discuss a lot more things than before. During one such chat I said that I was going to do an 8 to 4 shift as for me it would mean beating both the morning and evening traffic.

Apparently someone found it in their interest to impart this piece of information to my Big Boss who is still office based. And then I was pulled up for having “discussed” this with others. Apparently being a manager I am not supposed to have this sort of conversation with people “at that level”. If I give the impression that I am sticking to strict hours, then they too would stick to their hours and it would cause a big problem for BB. The admin staffs in our department come in at around 10 and leave at 7. On a different not, BB wanted me to tell them that they should reach the office by 9. (Now why should I say that to them, you are the boss – go tell them yourself!!)

It is precisely at that very second that I lost all my respect for BB. In my eyes there are no differences between managers and admin staff. In the UK we need not work more than the stipulated working hours and if we do want to put in some extra hours, it is entirely based on a mutual agreement between the employee and employer and does not in any way matter what level you are at.

Following this incident, I went through all our office manuals just to make sure that my company does practice what it preaches – that we must have a healthy work-life balance!!

I hate it when people at such high levels discriminate others. What guarantee is there that behind my back BB is not discussing me with some others?