The boss assigns some project to you and other three office colleagues. It is supposed to be teamwork. You and two of your colleagues work your *#$ off to beat the deadline and make your boss happy. But then the fourth guy in the team is a completely different story.
There is always ‘this other guy’ in teams messing up things! This guy hasn’t moved half as far as the three of you have. And then delivery day arrives.
The project crashes face down! Your boss is eleven and a half minutes from growing actual horns and fangs. The guy was all over himself! “What in the world is this? What do you think you guys have done!”
Well, had it not been for this ‘other guy,’ this world would have been a far better place. You probably aren’t going to tell your boss, “We did our job as best as we can. It is him who messed up things.” No. You probably wouldn’t go that far, unless you don’t mind multiplying your enemy count by leaps and bounds. But even if you have amassed the courage to say so, your boss wouldn’t be impressed; “Don’t you him me! You’ve been told this is a group work. And you’re telling me now it is ‘him’!”
Group work is supposed to be nice. I mean, after all two is better than one and three is a blessing. It is a pity that group work seldom ends with the smiles and the hugs. There is always that weak link, that ‘other guy,’ who frustrates the efforts of all. Believe me, in almost every field this ‘other guy,’ is there to deny you the good night’s sleep you rightly deserve.
In many offices work is supposed to be collective effort. But often frustration becomes the order of the day for the diligent and responsible lot. The supporting staff elevates your nagging headaches close to blistering migraine. The secretary seems to always lose the most important documents.
That lady, she is a real creation. I mean looking at how she grooms herself you’d think she should have been owner of a high-end beauty parlor in town; but when it comes to the actual work she could give you all the aches medicine knows and some more.
Then there is the young messenger boy; well for some reason his young limbs which are supposed to be well-oiled are anything but that! They seem to have e aged four decades early. He stumbles three times for every ten steps, as if all the important screws in his joints are missing. All he’s capable of is talking about weekend football matches where he always claims scoring goals Ronaldo would have given half the planet for.
Then there is this guy in administrative affairs who every morning brings with him an entire bottle of gin…in his belly! How he manages to do that every day and still says financially afloat is a mystery. You get the same pay, and the last time you drank for pleasure was the two bottles of beer three months back; and you didn’t even have to foot the bill. And this guy does it six days a week!
And then there is the accountant who having worked the numbers to oblivion seems to quantify you smiles and frowns. For some reason the lady doesn’t seem to like you. For ages you have tried to work out the riddle about u you being her Frankenstein but ended up hitting the wall over and again. You two don’t even exchange the usual greetings.
Of course being an accountant she should have some idea of overspending. She seems to fill glasses with perfume and actually splashing it all over herself. The lady is a walking perfume factory! Maybe her hubby makes a fortune every month, or there is an actual money tree in her backyard. Unfair, a very unfair world! And then there is this marathon talker.
The guy simply hates keeping his lips pressed. It is as if there was an omen… “The moment you start being quite is the moment everything will go wrong with your life.” The guy must have some hundred gigabytes of power on that tongue of him. How the hell does he manage to talk so much and never seems to run out of breath? The rest of us stop for a hefty amount of oxygen every few sentences!
All said, group work is not anywhere near to top in our list of strong points. That is why many things are set rolling and most break down still far from halfway mark.
The Ethiopian Herald July 17, 2020
By Ephrem Endale
