The other guy was a classic case of “sexism”. He seemed to be the politest of all males I have ever worked with, always with a warm, pleasant and friendly smile, which almost made him look like a gay. If looks could heal he would be a doctor! So I decided to offer complete dedication and loyalty towards him. Results were amazing, he didn’t want my dedication, as per him… “oh, you don’t need to work on that documentation, that’s the job of an expert, X will take care of it”… “hey, are you sure you have designed the database correctly? Don’t you think we need an expert to review your design? I think you need to take Y’s opinion on this.”… “Please review your code, I don’t think we need increase server capacity to support more traffic, it’s your code that needs little bit of correction, why don’t you show it to Z”… “Hey, be there on that meeting because our CEO wants you to be there, but don’t share your presentation, I’ll do it for you”… and many more such views or opinions. Where X was a guy who could not complete his graduation and did not have any technical documentation training and even after being a catholic used to consult me for English grammar. Y was a plain B.Sc. with 3 years of coding experience. Z was a B.A with a graphics diploma who later on took interest in coding. I was an MCA with 10+ years of technical experience! But they were all guys, I was not, and according to my manager guys know better. Also a girl needs to be a geek or a nerd to be on technical field and of course I was neither a geek nor a nerd. Later on I came to know that he stopped his wife from going to work post their marriage and she was a qualified engineer working for an MNC. This one battle I fought quite simply by my performance and toughness that later on fetched me comments like… “you are very stubborn, X should have done this documentation, and since you have already completed it and there is no time left, I’ll have to submit this, please make sure X does this next time”. Next he directly asked X to prepare the document and X in turn came to me for help! Apparently I didn’t win the battle but I didn’t even lost it.
I relate an incidence where i was the victim of pretty politics in office during my stay in Mumbai. Notwithstanding i lost the battle,i never fought with them as i resisted my temptation to wash dirty linen in public. As a consequence i left that organization.There are myriad reasons that incubate dirty politics in organization. The maggot of dirty politics in organization can be effectively controlled by adopting policy which discourages the proliferation of nasty politics.It is difficult to completely get rid of but to control it to such a level where it encourages conducive situation thereby enhancing productivity of an organization.
I faced ‘sexism’, “inferiority or superiority complex”,“favoritism”, “greed”, “jealousy” and I survive every battle. But, its true sometimes I have to struggle. Politics is everywhere – home to office. If you can enjoy the game, its sure you will survive.