see your reflection

Michelle was not going to let go today. Fire raging inside her had assumed alarming proportions and was on the verge of a tumultuous explosion. She decided that she would take no more of reprehensible comments, derogatory remarks, and taunting sarcasm that had been coming her way for quite sometime.

Michelle Hoffman, the dispensible(oh, does that matter?) software engineer, toiling for a multinational for almost a year now thanks to which her head almost looks half tonsured and the skin beneath the sullen eyes that conspicuously delineate the shades of a “bleak” present than a “prosperous” future, deserved a little more of self esteem,she reminded herself. Michelle had stepped foot into the corporation with the wildest of dreams and aspirations like any other qualified engineer belonging to the roads of a “literate” crowd rather than an “educated” clan.
How does it matter anyway? Being literate and hoping for a secure future is far better than being "educated" and penniless, she thought. Infact, that crowd that was crushing Michelle at work contrived an act of innate brilliance, merely to flaunt powers of superiority. She was determined
to tackle them today.

As she entered her twin cubicle, the one thing that immediately caught her attention was that of her supervisor’s monitor that was missing. Well, so today was the day. The hearsays concerning his transfer to another team that supposedly challenged his already psychotic brain, to portray his gamut of “colorful” technical skills, by virtue of which he was popular and “reprehensible” managerial skills, on account of which Michelle was fuming, everyone presumed his “transfer” to be the reward for his diligence, dedication, proactive nature and not to forget the Tech-savvy attitude.

In essence, the entire package of his collective traits encompassed a magnetic circle of influence that attracted managers and Directors and repelled co workers.
Michelle was tenacious enough for a forceful entry into this circle today. Time swept by. She waited until that afternoon, to approach him with a genuine question. Storming straight into his cube on the other side of the door, she made a tapping noise on his desk with her pen. As was customary for some tacky tech savvies in the software industry, there came a “What’s up” , a question that otherwise seemed perfectly normal, but with a body gesture that emanates absolute nonchalance seemed not worth the answer. Michelle anyways proceeded to answer the question, for her intentions were entirely different this time. “Well first of all Mr.Siqpal, I would like you to look at me when I ask you a question, for I am not a computer screen to stare at you, awaiting instructions to execute a task, while you are busy merrying with coffee and snacks” was all that
She wanted to spit out. As she scooped up courage, with her fears of repercussions thawing under the power of animosity, she opened her sore mouth to utter those exact words when she was interrupted. “Can I have a minute with you?” came a shrill voice behind her back and as she turned to look over her shoulder, she noticed her supervisor ushered away from his desk by another moron. Timing, she chided herself biting her teeth. Her co-worker Ruth, continued, “I wanted to discuss the queries that You had written for graphical analysis. Apparently i have a different approach….”, Michelle could not lend her ears for the rest of the sentence. Her mind was devising a new plan to deal with her supervisor. She barely acknowledged with a nod, to what Ruth had had to say and proceeded to her seat.

A shocking truth was awaiting her discovery in her Inbox. There flashed an email from Ruth with an attachment of queries labeled “Easier queries for analysis”. More than the title, the email in itself was disconcerting for it was copied to her Manager as well. Ruth purposefully projected his querying skills to seem as though they were on the highest rung of the ladder while hers was
Shockingly on the lower ends. “Well, query writing is not a complex task, for anybody could frame one, given the right set of input data, and is anyway not my job” was the conclusion that she was tempted to be driven into. Michelle could not believe the fact she had set aside her time to actually teach someone like Ruth, her valuable findings on using the graphical analysis tool. She could sense that Ruth was going overboard with his queries to take advantage of the tool to score up his records on the performance chart rather than honor her findings, while she ruthlessly spent her energy on understanding the tool which none of her other co-workers were inclined to. And there was this email mocking at her now, on how exactly the phrase “save your skin” mapped to individuals hovering on a raise, a bonus or even some form of credit and recognition from companies that are overly frugal.

But something else about the mail struck a chord on her wavering thoughts. For some vague and inexplicable reason, she pondered on how the same email would have been phrased had it found its way from her Outbox to her supervisor’s Inbox under similar circumstances? . Then came the answer LOUD and CLEAR, one that hit Michelle like a bolt on her delicate, intricate and conceited self, thrashing her dignity and disputing her basic character. Her mail might not have purported conceit, but needless to say, she was seeing her own reflection in Ruth. She instantly could reason why Mr.Siqbal wouldn’t impart time for her questions and clarifications. It was completely normal of him as a person of high technical caliber to eschew people who were not prepared to expand their sphere of knowledge beyond what they perceived to be “limits”. Like Ruth who had utter disregard for the making of the graphical tool, but missed no less opportunity in exploiting it to his advantage, many a times Michelle refused to acknowledge the hard work that had gone behind the scenes for the use of a range of applications that Siqbal had designed. Had she taken even an iota of interest in absorbing deeper concepts, she wouldn’t have wound herself in a coil of immense hatred for her senior workers. Placing oneself in another’s shoes is a lesson that can be learnt by none other than the only teacher—experience, finally dawned on her. She faithfully started to rake up all pieces of work whether in the form of bits of paper, or unconnected notes scribbled on her notepad and even unrelated mails, anything related to Siqbal’s ingenuity, for a research on his work and not on his character.