Whom should we hate

There is a guy who joined our department not too long ago. Having been in the department for a few months now, he hasn’t really made a good impression of himself, at least not amongst the colleagues.

Words are going around that this new guy, let’s call him Matt; is only willing to do ‘high level work’. I don’t work with him but judging from the words of Matt’s team-mate, seems like Matt is only willing to do high level analysis and prepare high level report; those that go to the top management.

Of course, you might see nothing wrong in that, Matt is merely being ambitious. But then again, you and I know that working in the corporate slavery world means there are a lot of low-level donkey jobs that need to be done. I am not referring to photocopying or filing, I am referring to stuff like monthly reconciliation statements, monthly closing reports, monthly control checks… stuff like that.

Apparently, when Matt is given such work, he will actually say ‘NO’ to them. He will reiterate that he is there to do high level analysis report because that’s what he was employed to do; he is a former analyst. Therefore, if you ask him to do monthly calculation based reports and control checks, he will rejects them.

That’s where the problem began. Work rejected by him is then conveniently handed to other people in his team. Now, they have to do these donkey jobs. They initially thought that having an initial head count will lighten their work load but seems like they are wrong. Naturally, comments such as “he thinks he’s damn great”, “he thinks so highly of himself” and “that smart ass” began to spread.

Like I said, I don’t work with him. On top of that, I am quite close to people in Matt’s team. Naturally, biasness creeps in and I began to have a very negative impression on Matt. And because he rejects work, he gets to leave office earlier compared to the rest. That is like the nail in the coffin! How many of you would despise such individual?

After doing some reflection, my impression on Matt changed…

In Matt’s first week, he was telling people about his experience and that he was employed to do analysis. Now, I don’t know what transpired during the interview but I will not be surprise if the management promised him the sun, moon and stars during the interview. Therefore, when Matt rejects work that he thinks is not in his job-scope, is he doing something wrong?

So Matt says no to donkey jobs, and he only gets to do high level review and analysis report. As there are not many such reports, he gets to leave early which made us all upset because we need to stay late. Wait a minute; is Matt taking advantage on us? Or is he just doing what his employment letter allows him to do?

Because Matt says no to all these donkey jobs, they landed on the desk of my colleagues and they have to do it, adding load to an already over-loaded schedule. I know a lot of these donkey jobs are outside my colleagues’ job scope. They have to do it because we are all infected with the I-cannot-say-no-to-my-boss virus. But hey… in all fairness, should they be mad at Matt simply because they have no guts to say ‘no’ to the management?

I know some of you will say that Matt should have a sense of team-work and share workload with his team. Make no mistake, this ‘sense of teamwork’ or ‘do not let your colleague suffers alone’ is a silent curse. That is the thing that enslaved us… and that is what employers feed on, manipulate… and make us do their biddings. My friends… refusing to employ more people and then make us exercise excessive ‘team-work’ is how we are all enslaved…

And you know what is the irony of it all? From what I observed, Matt’s chances of promotion, increment and bonus is just the same as my other colleagues.

So, should we hate Matt? Should we hate our bosses? Or should we hate ourselves?