Jealousy

 Writing on this topic is like stirring hornet's nest. There is so much of negative emotion attached with this word; that looking for any positive connotation is  like looking for needle in a haystack. Probably jealousy is not the right term for the behavioral feeling I want to describe but its related with comparison with others, lack of self esteem, this nagging feeling that life is not fair to you and you are getting short end of the stick.

Human memory is a strange thing, you remember some unremarkable experiences unintentionally. I remember one mundane memory from one of my previous company. I remember there was a notepad with plain sheet on one side to write on and some random quotes on other side. One of the quote which was quite interesting and which I still remembers is as below. "Jealousy is powerful motivator. Use it to get better that the person you resent". It was not exactly the same words but close enough if my memory serves me right. At that time I have not paid much attention to it except noticing it for its oddity.

Another remarkable experience from that company is not so innocuous. It happened right after our company was acquired by another bigger company and the the resultant downsizing of the manpower. It goes without saying the environment was full of insecurity and stress. As if it was not worse enough. We had another crisis as somehow the salary details for every employee in the office was made public. If rumors are to be believed, it was the handiwork of accounts person who was asked to leave and who thought that it will be good fun to share these confidential details. The negative effect of these details on psyche of most of the employees cannot be overstated. Probably it just acted as a catalyst for an already explosive environment prevailing in our office. But there was a blast resulting in most of the people loosing their peace of mind.

As in every office, there are always groups and groups within groups. People forming friendships depending on their work profile, internal customers and their individual natures. But this incidents formed a new group of so called Haves and Have nots. People redefined their association and friendship based on how much salary you are drawing. I found myself into the Have not category based on my Salary drawn. Total experience wise, I was pretty senior but in this company I was part of new recruitment. And evidently the company has started cost cutting in Salaries off late. Or they have realized that they are actually paying above market average and now they were in course correction. Whatever the reason may be, it was clear that there was a marked change in the salary structure of the company. The employees who have managed to join the company in the earlier phase have managed much better remuneration that the latest joiners. So we were the martyrs who want to highlight the elephant in the room and have discussion on rationality of salary structure. However other people who have managed to get more salary package had this version that every-one got what they asked for at the time of employment and hence it makes no sense to raise this point now. Personally for me there was another complication as even though I was very experienced, My previous experience was in another field altogether plus education wise I was a diploma holder whereas there were many junior employees in my company who were more qualified academically than me (including some MBAs too)

In the hindsight and specifically after the gap of around 6-7 years now. Its difficult for me to understand why I behave in the way that I did. Perhaps I was disillusioned after a few years in the company with regards to my career trajectory. All that this group did was to add fuel in the fire. Whatever may the reason was, the end result was that I was frustrated and not able to think rationally after comparing my salary with few of my colleagues. This realization that I was the least paid out of my department and in-spite of my continuous good performance (at least in my perception). There was no way I could bridge this gap ever. I cant say if my actions were driven by my latent frustration or anger regarding  my career trajectory or it was an impulsive response on the salary structure. But I did took some actions like talking to my immediate superior on this topic. It was a difficult topic to broach specially as I did not enjoyed a very good rapport with my boss but I did it nonetheless. My boss's response was as expected. He just put his hands up and shrugged it off.  But he did agreed to my other demand regarding change in my current responsibilities. I managed to get more responsibilities than my current role which means better visibility in the eyes of management. I'm not going into more details else it will take more than one post to describe my colorful experiences in that company but my boss resigned after some time. Interestingly, he was very junior to most of the team but was degree holder from a prestigious college of our country and very high of self confidence. However his tenure was almost a failure and he was clearly disinterested in last few months in the company. After he left, the company wants to fill in the position internally. There were three person in contention including me for that internal promotion. It was like management has let a cat out in the wolves, We were already not great friends of each other but this environment of mutual competition destroyed any possibility of cordial relationship between us.

Around 7 years later and with tones of water under Yamuna and other rivers, Most of us are in different companies now but that incident triggered something which still leaves a bitter taste in everyone's mind. There is a tendency to constantly compare yourself with others and draw satisfaction in other's failures than your own success. Seems like even though everyone is charting a different course, their stories are inter-linked with each other. We are still interested in malicious gossip about each other. 

Personally I have moved on to another companies after that. Looking back, it was not an unique situation in that company only. In every companies we'll find management's favorites. I myself have been branded as boss's favorite on more than one occasion. But on my credit, I always tries to downplay it, plus the fact the my nature is more on agreeable side make it less hard on other people. On the other hand, I have seen people who loves to brag and exaggerate about themselves. Which tends to further aggrieve other people including myself. 

The only conclusion, I could draw is that its very difficult to to remove this tendency of comparison and jealousy from your mind. The only preventive measure you can take is that it should not consume you totally, and instead of dragging the other person down, It should motivate you to rise further.