This is sooooo unfair!

It was a cold Wednesday evening and I was fast asleep in the bus when my cell phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered groggily, which I am sure sounded scary because I already have a bad throat.

“Are you dying?” came an irritated reply! “It’s cool if you are… just listen to me first and then you can carry on!” Nothing else could have woken me this fast… not even a bucket of water!
“D! What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to clear a hurting throat.

“My boss… that’s what is wrong!!” he thundered. “I was assigned to this project exactly a week ago… but the project was dormant as the client was sleeping. I got an update mail from the client today afternoon and within fifteen minutes my boss asks me what’s the status. So I told him that since the update came in 15 minutes ago… there is nothing that is new. He got mad at me for wasting a week! Wasting! Wasting! There was nothing to do!! This is really unfair!” he finished.

That was too much of information to take, and my sleepy mind was revolting at the verbal onslaught. But D was clearly upset… so I managed to mumble a… “That’s sick!” Of course that came out like a squeak and I could only hope that he got the message. Well none of it mattered because he went on with his angry outburst.

“I mean, what was I supposed to do? Re-read the proposal like a million times? Which, by the way, I did. I used to read the two documents I had every day!” What for? I wondered in amazement, but my amazement was cut short again as he continued. “But each time all I could conclude was wait for the client to respond. My boss is barking mad at me, because he feels the wasted week is going to screw up the schedule! You should have heard him talk. He was almost yelling at me in front of the team. I mean I always thought the guy hated my guts… but he took it too far this time. Okay, so I may gulp down my pride and keep the humiliation part aside. He’s being plain unreasonable and this is so what I don’t need right now. I am up for appraisals in a fortnight… this is so unfair. I think I am getting victimized.” he trailed off.

“Damn…” I muttered. “Well, there is very little you could have done on a dormant project right? Tell your boss when he is slightly calmer. I am sure he will listen to you. Explain that there was nothing you could do, except waste time…” I giggled, “Not in so many words of course!”

“Hmmmm…” long sign. Yay! D had calmed down, I celebrated. “You are right…” he began, “I can talk to him. I can tell him that there was nothing I could start on without a feedback. Well…” he paused. “Well… not nothing really. I mean I could have created a query document, and maybe hunted for information available online, or started out on a raw content document of my own, maybe ideation even…” He suddenly stopped.

“Man I have messed up, haven’t I!” he asked, more a question for himself than me. “Shit… there was so much I could have done… out of my own initiative of course. The boss is partially right! Man…”

I was thunderstruck. “Are you saying that you may also be at fault? And the boss is not being totally unfair?”

He sighed. “Yes… I think it’s partially my fault and the boss is not being completely unfair. I mean, at the project level I still think, there was nothing that could be expected out of me, when the client was yet to respond, but I think what he was yelling about was that I could have at least started. I still think it's not entirely fair to assume that I could start on my own initiative without any input, but I get his point...” he concluded, and sounded slightly dejected I thought... but calmer of course. “Thanks for listening…” and he cut off before I could say anything else.

The rest of the journey I kept thinking, how many times have I reacted in a similar manner? Just picking at the unfairness of the situation? How many times have I concentrated on how unreasonable someone else was being disregarding the fact that, may be, just may be, there was an outside chance that I may be at fault somewhere too? That there might have been something I had done that triggered what I thought was an unfair reaction and responding in an extreme manner? And how many times have I readily agreed to the fact that after giving such an extreme reaction myself, that I may after all have been wrong too!

So many times we get caught up in situations, which are unfair at the face value. And so we refuse to scratch the surface, which may reveal that we may not be completely innocent victims in the overall scheme of things.

Don’t know if the incident has left behind enough food for thought… but I guess I will definitely try to avoid reacting to so called “unfair” situations unless I have accessed my overall contribution to the problem, before terming myself a victim in the situation!

Thanks D!!! I owe it to you! And kudos to you for accepting your contribution to the fault in a situation which so looked a case of “unfairness” and “victimization”.