The unit I belong to in my company, has its annual celebrations around Dec-Jan. There are a lot of activities that happen around these celebrations and all of us in the unit get a common gift too. Last year it was a super cool backpack and this time around it is a watch.
Other than this, every city where we have a presence, we arrange for lot of fun activities, competitions etc. Last year, I was very much involved with many events that took place at both our centers at Chennai. I was organising all these events, participating in few, co-ordinating between the various groups involved in overall running of the show etc.
What really bothered me was that on the days when the big bosses were present, some of the people in my immediate next level, started making their presence felt a lot. The picture that got created was as if they were the brains behind the show, whereas neither were they the brains nor were they the brawns.
What also peeved me was that people who were getting clearly demarcated areas to arrange, still used to come to me for queries/suggestions etc. And many a time, I did some co-ordination for them as well.
But at the end of the events, I somehow felt that I didn't really get the kind of appreciation I deserved. I know for sure that there were no major hiccups. And the overall feedback was that it went well.
So bearing all this in mind, I made a very conscious decision not to involve myself at any organisational capacity in this year's events. I didn't volunteer to be part of the organising group and quite interestingly other than a a couple of my good friends, no one else even asked why I was not joining the group.
Probably because I think I did a good job and because I wasn't involved this year, I felt that the events this year weren't that good. There were interesting activities, but nothing really in terms of team building.
And there was heavy political undercurrents between the managers and the HR in terms of taking ownership of the activities. There was a plan to arrange for a dance competition between the various units in the offices at Chennai. But due to some late cancellations, this didn't happen. The organising group went into 'salvaging pride' mode and decided to repeat few events held earlier and also arrange for a game of housie.
Since I conducted that game last year, the group decided that I would be the one doing it this time too. While I didn't want to host any event, I thought I will support the organisers in their bid to salvage some pride and keep the unit folks happy.
The minute I accepted, I started getting instructions and suggestions from so many quarters that I started wondering why I had to do it. Some of the organisers even wanted me to send out mailers.
I stoutly refused and limited my role/responsibility to arrange for the event (we had very few printed tickets and had to generate lots more) and host it. And when the time for running the show came up, I didn't do it with the same enthusiasm I had last year.
I was privy to a conversation the next day with some organisers and the topic under discussion was that since there was excess money, the organisers would gift themselves something. Volunteers would also be included. And when I checked, my name didn't come up at first and I had to justify my inclusion! In any case, we had some excess funds last year too, but the consensus was that the organisers wouldn't reward themselves. I strongly feel that its a wrong precedent.
The events on the last day were very flat too. At the end of the events, the vote of thanks was being delivered as a mere formality and the list of organisers were announced. Yet again, my name was omitted.
While I don't look forward to receiving a special plaque for my contribution, I definitely don't think I deserved to be neglected either. And the event I held was only because the committee was looking to salvage some reputation and I was given the responsibility of running the show with a lead time of like 3 hours. It does leave me wondering whether the organisers used me and another guy (who looked after the repeat events I mentioned earlier) just to prove a point in their political battles.
But the lingering thought in my head this whole week has been this: Were the events really that bad or was it simply a case of me thinking that I would have done a better job? If it was indeed the latter, then it bothers me more because I have this perception of taking a higher moral ground on such things. Perhaps I am not that saintly after all!
