The Battle between US and THEM

I have realized that I had a very biased viewpoint when it came to marriage, the balancing and conformance it entailed. Being a female myself, I always took into account my own perspective and experiences along with those shared by my female friends. I never considered or tried to know the other side of the story; but when I did, the circumference of my viewpoint did not change. It just increased to include the other side as I came to realize that it was difficult for everyone.

The more I have got to know married couples better, the more I get skeptical. It has been a journey of unraveling some rather unpleasant truths - about people, human behaviors and the way our society functions. Marriage and family is supposed to instill a sense of togetherness, love, affection, compassion, respect, sharing and most importantly an irrevocable sense of security. But is that what we have today? I don't believe so. Somehow proving ourselves right instead of the other person is more important than letting some trivial things go; proving we are more abundantly wealthy than the other person is more important than being gracious and thankful ; proving we are better in every which ever way than the other person is more important than embracing the fact the it is all right to have some shortcomings and flaws. We are so focused on doing everything right and being perfect than the other people that we forget that these flaws and imperfections make us who we are today.

Marriage today is not about embracing each other with all of who we are. It is more about being

immaculate in the eyes of our family, the society and most importantly, be active on our social networking sites - all in all keeping upto social expectations. If you don't post a picture hugging, kissing or laughing or any sort of fun activity where you appear happy with each other, every other week, or call your relatives frequently or visit them or have them to visit you, it is just unacceptable. Why have we allowed ourselves to be influenced by these social dos and don'ts? We need to be able to determine that it adds to the stress and not relieve it. Is it not enough that we have to deal with and adjust according to expectations & boundaries of our spouse and maybe families as well, that we need to exhaust ourselves by being worried about those 376 people on our Facebook friend list as well and an equal no. of followers on Twitter and Instagram?

The more I interact with married people, the more I have come to realize that it has come down to managing dynamics. At the end of the day, a successful and not to mention a peaceful marriage solely depends on your ability to juggle priorities, people and manage their expectations. Nah ! This is according to me an incomplete truth. I believe that a successful marriage depends to quite an extent on establishing one important basic fact- this marriage involves TWO people. Only and only what these two people think, expect and want from each other is the thing that matters the most. Rest everything, everyone is a by product of this. All other people, their opinions, expectations are secondary to the opinion and expectations of the two primary people involved in this relationship. They are the ones who set the ground rules, who have a say in what is acceptable and what is not, which painting to hang where and what color to paint that wall. If you can embrace this, my experience says, It will be a Hell Lot Easier !!!!

THE JUICY FACTOR !!!

Summers ! I have never been a fan of this season as it makes you shed more water than you can drink. More than my dislike for this season itself is my dislike for stepping out in this season. I really wish I could hibernate like polar bears, except only I would do it in Summers instead of Winters. How wonderful it would be to sleep when it is the end of spring and wake up with the monsoon !!! 

Anyhow, no matter how much I hate it, I still went out on a Sunday evening for grocery shopping. By the time I was done with it, I felt that I have showered with my clothes on except for the fact that I was drenched in sweat and feeling hot n sticky. To cool ourselves, me and the husband decided to have sugarcane juice. It looked cool and refreshing so we asked the guy to make 2 glasses. While he was taking out the juice from the sugarcane, I had an epiphany that Me and this sugarcane share a similar life story. Confused? Let me explain... 

Being an Ex- Banker, I could relate to the sugarcane. The juice wallah took out some nice juicy sugarcane from the lot and put it in the machine. Some juice was extracted so he repeated it for 5 more times till the time there wasn't even a drop of juice left in it. I felt that we employees were also put through the same process every day. 

The first round happens in the morning meeting itself where you are given the day's targets in the morning meeting itself and it is not even 9.30 yet. The day hasn't technically even begun yet... You come back to your work station trying to remember all the bad karmas from your past life which have landed you here.

You start your day and by 3.30 pm you have taken two more rounds of the machine. The juice which was extracted was distributed amongst your customers who have shouted on you ( for no fault of yours), have showered you in spit, have made you inhale second hand smoke, argued unnecessarily with you and basically drained you of every ounce of energy that you had gathered from your breakfast and the 10 min lunch you took. Phew !!!

The fourth round starts when you start winding up and realize that some operational mistake has been done while you were cross selling to that customer. You get down to resolving the error as your supervisor has clearly told you " cross selling was required but not the cost of operational mistakes"

When you resolve that error and start winding up for the day, it is already 7 and you are praying that at least today I can leave early by 7.30. But the fifth round starts, and just when you think there is no more juice, I mean energy left in you. but Our bosses appear - just like that juice wallah who puts the sugarcane back in the machine for the last drop of juice that can be extracted. Yes! you got it right ... Calling !!! Database calling to your customers for cross selling and generating leads.  You perform this loathsome task and wonder why and how a qualified post graduate person as yourself landed in such situation. 

One by one, all your dreams of a successful corporate job break in front of you eyes- the corporate presentations, the success, the promotions, the private office, the chauffeur driven car...This is the last and the final push after which you begin to wonder whether you are private bank employees or just some sugarcane!!!

The Daughter OR The Daughter-in-Law ? I Say... None

" I wish I was my sister-in-law" came the voice from the other side of phone. "Okay. What happened?" I asked my friend while wondering what happened to good old manners of greeting each other when we called someone. Nevertheless, the friend went on about how her sister-in-law was unwell that day and had come to their house to spend time with her mother. "How I wish I could also go to my mom's as I pleased. " She went on about her dilemma when she suddenly asked me "What would you be if given the choice in this scenario -  daughter or the daughter-in-law? Her question had me thinking and after a minute or so of thinking and analyzing, I replied, " None." What do you mean"none" she said. I told her I would neither be the daughter, nor the daughter-in-law, I would like to be the Son !!!

This conversation stayed with me even after I kept down the phone and I realized that what I had said was actually a very valid point. Men have it so much easier than us women. The more I thought about it, the more evidence I could find that Men especially in a marriage, have it a lot easier than women do. To elaborate my point further, I have made a list:

1. You can get up in the morning exactly an hour or whatever time you take to get ready without having to worry about mundane things like making breakfast, lunch or household chores
2. The only part about  food that concerns you is eating it.
3. There is some one else available to do your laundry
4. Same someone else to pick up after you whether it is your clothes, a wet towel or your shoes
5. You can come home as late as you want from work without feeling guilty about not being able to cook dinner
6. Your last name never changes
7. You don't have to leave your parents, siblings, your room or the house where you have a million memories.
8. Nobody cares what you wear to an occasion and can repeat outfits without guilt.
9. You never have bad hair days.
10. Your parents have to spend less at your wedding as compared to your sister's.
11. You never have PMS
12. You are not expected to bear children and especially of a particular sex.
13. You never have to bother about body hair !
14. You are paid equally to your peers, are rewarded better and have no guilt of choosing work over family or for working late...
15. Chances of you being sexually harassed are minimal.
16. You can find younger life partners even when you are 30.

The list can go on and on... but I guess I have made my point. We live in a patriarchal society where men have it quite easier than women. While men are always given options in almost all key decisions of their life, women are still struggling with the most basic one - their right to live...

The Cruel-la Angle 

The extension buzzed  just as I was about to take a sip of the blessed Coffee. I answered and I heard a distinct screeching from end of the line " Get in here. NOW " Sighing deeply I kept down the phone and went to 'Her" Cabin knowing my morning was ruined and that I would soon require a pain killer for the headache which was en route. "Her" or Cruella, as I had come to call her, is as you might have guessed is my boss. I nicknamed her so as every time I looked at her I was so reminded about the lady 'Cruella De Ville' in 101 Dalmatians movie who wanted to get a fur coat by killing dalmatian pups. 

I reached the cabin, knocked and entered and realized that my heart had started palpitating. I worked on my breathing, slowly breathing in and out and asked her" You called ?" All this while, mind you she was typing away on her laptop and was well aware that I was standing there waiting for her highness to speak up. She continued typing and I started getting pissed off. She spoke up just as I was about to ask her if she wanted me to come back later. "why is not complete ?" I looked at what she was pointing. Oh... It was a register where we kept account closure records. She had never checked it before and I knew why she was checking it now. I had taken a casual leave the day before and she was pissed off about that. I knew she was clutching at straws as I was good at my work and she couldn't have found anything else. Hence, I zoned out, a practice I had come to adopt lately whenever she was in one of her 'moods'. I noticed how her face kept getting redder with each and every sentence she spoke and I bit my lower lip to keep from laughing. She was still ranting so I kept my eyes down and started looking at the attendance register, noticing who had taken how many leaves and who was present today, "Well ?" she said and I jolted out of my reverie. She was looking at me expectantly and that could mean only one thing - she has asked me something, something I had not heard. I didn't know whether to laugh at my situation or feel scared. I opted for a safe way out. Sorry. Yup. that seemed liked a good idea. I quickly apologized and said that I would work more diligently in the future. She appeared a little mollified. I quickly exited before she could start again. I went to my work station and resumed work and left the incomplete records for later. Later. I realized how I had changed as there was time when I would have left everything and just focused on those and shown them to boss lady as soon as I was done.

One way home I kept on pondering about the day's incident, how I had lost my motivation to work and excel further in my career all because of a bad boss. I thought about doing some research on this and powered up my PC. I had realized one thing very early in my life that if life gives you questions, Google gives you answers. I started on my research and the facts were shocking. 

A Bad manager causes the best of the employees to flee the organisation while the remainder lose motivation and confidence My research further highlighted a very strange fact that I would never had believed if I hadn't experienced it my self. It said that 65 % people would pick a better boss over higher salary. Jim Goodnight had said once, "95 % of my assets drive out of this gate every evening. It's my job to maintain a work environment that keeps  those people  coming back every morning." 

According to a survey done in the U.S. employees spend about 20 hours in a week discussing and lamenting about their bad bosses. It went on to state further that bad bosses not only hamper your growth and well being at work but are also responsible for indirectly hampering family life, mental and physical well being as well. Sheesh !

I realized that both my mental and physical well being was in jeopardy. I had developed a tendency for easy headaches as my boss was a screamer. Her screaming even if not directed at me started a migraine for me. I realized that this was a case with a lot of my colleagues and pondered over the possibility if Cruella was paid weekly incentives by the local  pharmacy dealers for increasing sales of pain killers.

I came across this image of difference between a good and a bad boss and wondered idly if I should share this with Cruella but shook off the idea when I imagined her shrill voice telling me that I could forget my promotion:

Hence I decided to keep my thoughts to myself and started reading further about how to manage such people. I went to bed with head buzzing from all the reading, my mind already forming new plans  for the day that was yet to come...