Talking of promotions, I have always thought of them as something you would expect at work and not a surprise element. Its not like you walk into your office and get to your desk and your boss comes up and says, “Hey nice shoes. By the way you are promoted”. OK, that could happen but not to me. In fact if it did happened to me, I would quit as soon as I recovered from the shock. Any way, like I was saying, a promotion is something you work for and you know its coming a couple weeks prior. You go through the grind and suffer day in and day out for it. You make sacrifices and suffer all kinds of pains in all sorts of places but in the end the promotion makes it all worth it. Sorta like having a baby. Except that there is no sex involved…..at least in most cases.

So the way things had been going for past few months I was expecting a promotion too. I thought that I had busted my ass enough and had earned it. No, I wasn’t being delusional stupid, even people who worked with me were expecting it to happen. It was like expecting something inevitable. Like India beating Bangladesh in cricket or Mid-term polls in UP….oh wait these are no more inevitable…..hmmm its more like you getting screwed over, yes that’s inevitable.

Moving on, so when the opportunity forgot to knock on my door and gate crashed through someone else’s, now that was a surprise. No wait, it was more than a surprise, in fact it was somewhere along the muddled line that separates surprise and sheer disbelief.

As soon as my brain cells were functional again, the shock had rendered them paralyzed for a day or two, I pulled out my own cherished personal copy of the rare bestseller, Promotions for Dummies and ran through the checklist.

Try to appear busy at work…………………………………….Done

Make sure managers see you “working” over time……………Done

Be the last one to speak at all meetings coming up with a great suggestion incorporating whatever everyone else suggested……………………………………Done

Make sure your team performs better than rest………………..Done to death

Ensure your Boss is promoted…………………………………Done

Make sure you “perform” out of office too……………………. DOH!!!!!

So that’s where I went wrong. Dammit!!!! Why did I have to be such a low life loser and waste time running after girls in Bandra when I could have spent some quality time with the Managers instead, sowing the seeds of my brilliant future in their gullible minds. So I have been made to pay for my philandering nature and I am still at the place from where I started. Hope this is a lesson that you all learn from because this is one important lesson they forget to teach you at even the best of schools. After all had they known it they wouldn’t still be professors right? Think about it.