Afraid!

We were all eagerly waiting for Prabhu then. He had joined us newly and was an extrovert by nature. He would make anyone happy within minutes. Or at the least, make them respond to him without much of an irritation. Also, he never took anything close to his heart, I felt, as he even took rebukes sportively. Needless to say, we were all attracted to him as he made our otherwise drab environment, much lighter.

We all worked in an IT company which has earned a reputation for delivering projects on time [ahead of time at times too]. "Wow! Thats great!", you may say, unless you are one of us. And our manager is an otherwise nice person except when he met us then. He was always of the opinion that we all were relaxing and enjoying life, I guess. We called him names and played a lot to destress at times.

Prabhu was called for the first time then, by him. And that was due to the feedback he gave to the client in the form of email [copied to the manager] where he explained at length, why a particular part was not developed as per the client's 'current' expectation. It was not harsh if you ask me, but our client and hence my manager did not think so. As a result, he was called for a discussion. When he came out, it hurt us to see that even he had lost his smile. But he recollected himself in the next hour. "What happened?", I asked him. He said that he was rather treated badly and almost got threatened on jobfront. "Come on! You can always get another!", I said. "Thats what I felt too!", he said.

The next week, we were really surprised to see him chatting with the same manager jovially in the wedding reception of our excolleague. Seeing us, he excused himself from our manager and came smiling. "He's come early and people of his group are not in yet. He doesn't know anyone else and is literally counting upon me!", Prabhu said.

p.s. This is a true story.

 

Thanks a lot Dhivya, for your quick feedback and appreciation. Always happy to get such quick responses. -rgs

 

Thanks Pallavi, for your appreciation. -rgs

 

Thats a good analysis Syamala. I agree with your conclusion on Prabhu. However that manager felt out of his zone then and found it difficult to move with others. He was only comfortable in the office where he had control and authority.
He stays that way now too [please read the p.s. which I added later]. Thanks for your feedback. -rgs

 

Thanks Charmbabez, for your like and feedback. -rgs