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While
one could debate over the ethics of colleagues snitching, playing
pranks or backstabbing, the fact remains that the workplace is becoming
more aggressive and competitive, and one must learn to watch one’s
back. MOHAN BABU warns that it is better to be safe than
sorry
There
are subtle changes taking place in our work lives, and among the
changes is extra scrutiny by the “big brother”—the
employer who is expecting higher productivity, and employing all
means to ensure that. Of course, bosses have been known to use all
means at their disposal to ensure that tasks are done to their expectations
and employees do not slack. Time cards, attendance recording systems,
regulating work timings are all means to ensure recording time and
work done by employees. Security (physical and system security)
too is receiving renewed attention from business leaders. As systems
become more advanced, employers are also using more sophisticated
tracking and surveillance systems. Along with that, the change in
the job market is also prompting some employees to snitch on co-workers.
Let me illustrate with two anecdotes.
This
is a story sent by a reader who is in a software company where support
professionals work on 24X7 shifts. One evening after a hectic shift,
an engineer on shift at the company, let’s call him Rao, happened
to nod off at his desk. It was just after midnight and the systems
were humming away with hardly anything that required attention,
so what’s the harm, thought Rao. After a few minutes of this
catnap, Rao got a cup of coffee, continued his work, and went home
at 6 am thinking nothing of it. The next afternoon he got a call
from his boss asking him to rush in for an emergency briefing. On
reaching office, the boss and his (boss’s) boss took him to
a conference room and gave Rao a dressing down he is unlikely to
forget for a long time to come. What happened was an over-zealous
colleague on the shift that night happened to get a brainwave on
seeing Rao doze: he grabbed his new cellphone-cum-camera and took
a picture of Rao snoozing and e-mailed it to the boss! A picture,
as they say, told a story worth a thousand words.
In
another incident, a few colleagues on bench working for a large
consulting company decided to play a prank on Joe, a programmer.
In this tight market, Joe had been stressed out with his work, and
it was common knowledge that he was on the lookout for greener pastures.
The colleagues created a dummy hotmail id and posted a “job”
description that fitted Joe’s profile and mailed it to him.
Joe initiated contact with the “consultant” who set up
a screening interview and after the preliminaries, scheduled a technical
interview. For about an hour, Joe was grilled on all the different
aspects of his work, reasons for leaving, technologies, etc. A week
later Joe was stunned to receive a mail from an unknown id, copies
also cc’d to a dozen colleagues and his boss, with an audio
file attached. The audio was a recording of his hour-long interview
with the “consultant”.
If
one were to look at these stories from a purely ethical/work standpoint,
Rao shouldn’t have been napping at work, even though it was
midnight and there was hardly anything to do. There again what piqued
Rao and his colleagues who heard about this incident was that the
person who had taken the snap and mailed it to the boss had no business
doing so. The fact that he had made it his business to snitch in
order to earn some brownie points from the boss was the crux of
their contention. As for Joe, well, he should probably have used
more discretion in his dealings, especially in the current tight
job market.
While
one could spend hours arguing over the ethics of colleagues snitching,
playing pranks or backstabbing, the fact remains that the workplace
is becoming more aggressive and competitive, and one must learn
to watch one’s back. Needless to say, these cases may just
be an aberration from the norm and that most colleagues try to be
team players, and help each other and picking up the slack when
someone drops the ball so that the entire team comes out looking
good. There again, habitual slackers who try to milk the system
because of the benevolence of good-natured colleagues shouldn’t
take things for granted.
As
offices get more high-tech and people have access to “dual
use” tools and technologies, it would help to watch one’s
back and be on guard. At the end of the day, work at the workplace
will be the driver. Times are tough and it’s better to be safe
than sorry.
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