Humor, Recreation and Despair

“Santosh, you need to make your Induction Program more effective”. An early morning suggestion from our Facilities Manager aroused a little annoyance. “Why do you think so buddy?” Me, suppressing my irritation. “Employees are using the European style commodes like Indian ones”. Came the reply. I gave him a stinking look. It was just another morning in the day of an HR Professional. 14 years in this trapeze and still I can’t predict how my day would start and where it would end. The cacophony of roles you need to don in a particular day may even surprise Kamal Haasan. The day may start as a glorified business partner and then slide into a marriage counselor because some software engineer’s marriage life is full of bugs. As the day goes the situation may plummet into dealing with cybercrime cases and in extreme unfortunate situations end up as a caretaker of the dead body of an employee in some mortuary. The gut wrenching feeling of helplessness while informing the father or mother about the death of their young son/daughter, lingers in the mind even long after the incident.

This profession is one of the most talked about, sometime glorified and most of the time rebuked one in the corporate world. Once, a concubine of top management, the HR function now said to have elevated to an official (sleeping) partner of top management! While wading through a maze of comedies and tragedies, the brighter part is that it’s never boring; not even a single day. You have enough variety every day. Once, a gentleman came to meet me for negotiating the annual pay raise on behalf of his wife who is working with us. Some other occasions, the father in law of one of the employees called and gave me the choicest abusive words because his son n law who is working with our company had an affair with somebody in the company. “How can the HR department permit this?” No, don’t laugh buddy. Help me with an answer. Still worse the wife appeared when the husband was sitting with the ‘other’ woman in the pantry (later I came to know somebody tipped off). That is the first time I donned the role of a referee in the boxing ring. My left jaw still pains as one of the punches from the wife missed its target and landed on my face.

Terminating employees is another ‘strategic’ thing we do. HR professionals call it as counseling out the non-value adding members. Once during such a counseling session one employee suddenly got up and ran outside yelling that he would jump from the top of the building. My pleading skills were tested to the maximum on that day. One of the organizations I worked had an established yet innovative way of termination. If they wanted an employee to go, they send unmistakable signals. His phone will go dead first. One needs extreme sensitivity to catch this signal. Second one is a little more explicit. The chair will disappear. Generally any sensible fellow will resign. If not, one day the table will disappear.

But off all, here goes the killer one for the climax. Once hearing a huge shout and scream from the administration manager’s cabin I walked in. A software engineer, who just got married, was shouting incessantly at the Administration Manager. “Calm down pal, what’s the issue?” I asked as if I had a solution for everything. The guy was trembling with rage and could not speak properly. “Santhosh, I have ordered some medicine from the US and the box is delivered here and these scoundrels who handle mails have misplaced it”. He growled. “What medicine is it?” I asked. “It’s a life saving medicine for a relative”. He muttered without looking into my eyes. I looked at the admin head and he in turn looked at his assistant. “Buddy, let me assure you that we will order the medicine again and the company will pay for it since we goofed it up.” I assured him. He insisted that he would only order it and the company could reimburse the amount. The issue was resolved at that. After a month later he presented the bill to me. It was about $250. Surprisingly at many places it was stricken off with ink but I did not give any serious notice. Hurriedly I signed it as a ‘special’ approval and put forward for the COO’s approval. In the afternoon the COO came to my cabin. “So…Santosh your department is getting sexy”. A mischievous tingle in his eyes gave me the hint that there was something lurking. “What happened?” I asked nonchalantly. Come; let us go to the balcony. Confused yet I followed. He grabbed a cup of coffee. Sipping coffee he kept the bill against the sunlight and asked me to look through wherever it is stricken off. I struggled but at last I could read. “Penis Enlargement Pills”. I wanted to jump out off the balcony.