“You have very good communication skills but very poor inter-personal communication skills” my manager said once and dispatched me to a an IPC course where I got the highest grades and was voted an “eagle” – the noblest and most talented kind of person by all my classmates… But that teacher did not like me at all and went on trying to put me down.
I do believe I am arrogant. Teachers who know the subject love me. Managers who want results like me. But while I give everyone courtesy, I give no one servitude. This is a problem for ‘incompetent authority figures’ not for the competent ones. The competent ones find me delightful.
Was that manager trying to tell me that I use my clear communication skills to tell managers what they clearly cannot afford to be seen to understand? Basically, was I putting them on the spot with my clarity when what such higher-ups needed was obfuscation? To day this is what it seems to me.
BTW this was the same set of managers who labelled me ‘gregarious’ and sent me on-site for client interaction.. which is possibly the most sensitive of interpersonal communication? My problem is I cannot understand deliberate obfuscation.
One manager later on in life said it simple and direct “Yamaraj ki pooja karni hai” basically he said “bow to me”. I could guiltlessly find another job after that. It is true that people do not switch jobs – they switch managers!
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I have started chanting the Vishnu Sahasranamam. 2314 times total target, once a day takes 45 minutes.
It reminded me of the ladies group in Vizag flats who used to meet every friday to chant lalita sahasranamam together. While I attended a few sessions in other homes.. when it was my turn, only my cousin and my mother came. I was not only deeply disappointed.. I stopped attending other sessions. Why did no one come to my house? Was it me? or my single situation? I don’t know. When they had a high count of people to give “tambolam – betel leaves and areca nuts”, I was always on everyone’s list. They would touch my feet as a brahmin muttaidu (married lady whose husband is living) and give me a tambolam that I never consumed. Yet when I was invited for weddings in Vizag I was never asked to bless the bride or the mangalasutram. It was only my sister and her in-laws as well who treated me like I was an auspicious person. Is it a surprise then that I never go to weddings and “auspicious” occasions? And now I am labelled as anti-social..
I still do go usually if someone shows that they really do want me to come.. and this list so far includes a few neighbours of mine.. in Bangalore.
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Is it me or my situation?
When recently people have been telling me that they they would be blessed if their children were as exceptional and talented as me, I was surprised till I remembered that these were people who knew me as a child and saw me more as me, my accomplishments and not my situation. They are not affected by whether I am in a marriage or in a job., when they first met me, I was neither married nor in a job right?
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I have had people visiting me and asking me for jobs when I was in position, even while feeling and stating openly that I was an overall failure because my marriage did not last. Is it a surprise that I do not help those people?
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aaaah!!!!
why all this today? because I am un-reclusing my self. walking back into a world that I found last time was judgmental, foolish, selfish and self-centred as well as cold and rejecting.
As my decision is strengthened, “my hard shell self” is coming back to life and taking over all the external interfaces. The one who can talk tough, think tough and act tough. So this time not a soft interior covered by an egg shell, but a hard boiled egg, with a nice gold shell.
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I went to my Veda Guru for Vedartha and Vedangas which she has not taught me. Instead she has taught me some Veda chanting, some Yoga, some Vedanta and not only put me in situations where I am not comfortable, but also, shared with me stories of how many tough situations she has personally faced in order to attain her goal. She wants to transform me internally and physically…
