Cogito, ergo sum

"Pimp reviews today" said Mr. Big sometime late in the morning. Well, the i in the Pimp is silent. It's actually PMP. Performance management process, I think. But we refer to it as pimp. It makes more sense this way. The PMP is what decides which project we are assigned to, how satisfactory our performance was in the previous project and so on; so pimp it is! Anyway, least expected reviews are easier to deal with. U r least prepared for it and it's done with even before you realise.

I was the last one to be reviewed. Being sort of on the bench for a major part of the year, I had no expectations and apparently neither did my manager. Mr. Big being a straight forward guy would say things as it is. No diplomacy, no bureaucracy. That's one of the things that I appreciate about him. I was prepared to face the music like the others had. So I barged in with a 'let's get it over with' mind set. However his opening speech shocked me. Having worked side by side over the last few weeks at Manali, Delhi and Bikaner he found me to be a "bundle of surprises". I was at a loss to judge whether that was a compliment or derogatory. He went on and on and on about my attitude, foresight, planning, initiative blah blah blah, quoting examples. I hardly reacted to his praise. I was actually wondering if there was an ulterior motive behind this. I have to admit that there were a few things that I did out of the ordinary. But that was to make my life easier and now I was getting praised for it. Jackpot! At the end if it, two things were very clear to me. Firstly I had succeeded in gaining his confidence and proved to be worthy of taking major responsibilities. He was especially impressed with my driving. I gave him a sarcastic smile on that remark, for I still remember his question in Chandigarh: I don't think you have what it takes to drive on these roads. Are you sure u want to drive? Second, I can expect to be loaded fully if not overloaded with responsibilities shortly. Whenever it happens, I'm looking forward to it.

Moral of the story: Even at work, be honest to yourself, life will be much much easier.

Cheers!