Quiet Phoenix: An Introvert's Guide to Rising in Career & Life: Quiet Phoenix, #1

Let Me Tell You A Story.........

THIS STORY IS OF A bird.

She was no ordinary bird.

As the legend goes, this bird was a fire spirit with a colourful plumage and a tail of gold.

She lived a life of five or six centuries.

This was not the only unusual thing about this bird.

After the near end of her life-cycle, she would build a nest of twigs and immolate herself thereon, turning to ashes.

This was not, however, the end of the bird.

From the ashes, her offspring could arise to begin a new cycle of life.

This bird became an emblem of immortality or of reborn idealism or hope.

She came to be associated with a person or thing that has been restored after suffering calamity or apparent annihilation.

The bird was called Phoenix.

Now Let Me Tell You Another Story.........

THE STORY IS ABOUT a young, idealistic, wide eyed trainee corporate lawyer.

Let’s call him PK.

One day, PK was assigned by the HR of the firm to assist a Senior Associate, who went by the name Mr. Late Nightaholic.

A slightly balding guy of medium height with rimmed glasses and a small paunch, Mr. Late Nightaholic in his previous stints with other law firms had picked up a neat little trick. This was that if you pretended to your bosses that you were putting in more hours than your peers, you were likely to be well received.

This meant that Mr. Late Nightaholic would stay in office for long hours even when there was NO work.

Not only that, to show that he was important, he would also make his juniors sit late at night regardless of their workload. When in a generous mood, he would allow his subordinates to leave office early, which meant after 7 p.m.

Mr. Late Nightaholic used to assert that this was the unstated principle on which most corporates operated.

Haven’t you heard about the phrase going the extra mile, he would ask.

For a busy senior, it simply means the number of hours you put in, BEYOND the normal office hours, he would explain when in an expansive mood.

Nobody says it but this is how you get noticed in the long run, he claimed.

Plus all your bonuses and promotions depend upon the hours you have spent in office.

Mr. Late Nightaholic was the centre of the office gossip, which he knew and enjoyed.

Surprisingly, even though he was staying up late, he was constantly goofing up.

Deadlines were missed which made the clients furious. Wrong documents were sent once which caused a major embarrassment. But Mr. Late Nightaholic was incorrigible. He continued to impose false deadlines.

He would ‘cry wolf’ and make something look like it is absolutely urgent whereas the matter would very much be dead or no longer important.

With PK, it was the same routine.

He would keep PK without work till 6:30 in the evening and when it would be time to wrap up and call it a day, he would suddenly come up with some assignment making it look absolutely urgent.

PK tried to bargain with him regarding working from home, but to no avail. In fact, this so annoyed Mr. Late Nightaholic that he threatened to spoil PK’s appraisal.

Some of PK’s colleagues advised him to take this all in stride, as an inevitable part of the rites of passage that all junior associates have to go through.

Others advised him to meet the Managing Partner in person and explain.

But the Managing Partner appeared to be very busy and didn’t have the time to meet anyone.

PK was himself a little uncomfortable speaking to the Managing Partner face-to-face especially when he knew that even if he gets an opportunity to talk, it would be for less than 20 seconds to explain his problems. PK apprehended that in such a short time he may come across as someone who needlessly whines, and that too against his seniors.

So Mr. Late Nightaholic continued to bully and PK being not exactly the most vocal person around, just lumped it.

Till the day came when PK couldn’t take it anymore.

PK came back home late in the night, troubled and depressed and decided to speak to his father about all this.

PK’s father heard him out patiently and then asked him to write down all this in some kind of a diary of events; with date, timing, event and why he considered it all so unreasonable.

So PK started maintaining a record of all the events that happened between him and Mr. Late Nightaholic.

He just typed these events down in a word document and did nothing further. A sample page of the diary went like this:

"21 June 2010: I was done with my job regarding the IPO matter and left office at 6.30 p.m. [Mr. Late Nightaholic] called me up at 6.45 p.m. and asked me to come back urgently as he wanted me to review an Amendment Agreement.

I asked him if he could e-mail the document to me so that I could review the document at my home, make track changes and e-mail back to [Mr. Late Nightaholic]. [He] told me that he did not have a soft copy of the Amendment Agreement but only a hard copy which was 500 pages long. I acted as if I was not able to hear him clearly because of disturbances on the line and decided not to go back.

22 June 2010: I asked [Mr. Late Nightaholic] about the document that I was supposed to review the previous day. To my surprise, [Mr. Late Nightaholic] first couldn’t recall what exactly was the urgency and then remembered and readily e-mailed me the same document which he claimed he did not have a soft copy of, the previous evening. Also the document was not 500 but only ten pages long.

This is sheer harassment!"

PK was becoming tired of Mr. Late Nightaholic’s antics. The latter would always cry wolf and would not let PK work from home or even leave for home at any decent hour.

One day, PK and Mr. Late Nightaholic went for a client meeting in the afternoon and came back to office at around 7:30 p.m.

PK was having a splitting headache. So, he left office without seeking Mr. Late Nightaholic’s permission, which PK knew wouldn’t be forthcoming in any case.

PK also kept his mobile phone in silent mode; and when Mr. Late Nightaholic did call, he didn’t answer.

PK reached home feeling a little guilty. He had this stinky foreboding that something bad was going to happen.

Beyond caring, PK washed his face, went for a stroll in the park to catch some fresh air, had his dinner and started working on his notes again.

PK’s mailbox was open.

Suddenly an email arrived from the Managing Partner asking PK to pop up into his office the next morning and explain his bizarre behaviour of refusing to assist his seniors.

The email went on to threaten that if PK didn’t show up the next morning, the Managing Partner will be forced to take stronger action.

PK’s heart leapt to his mouth.

He felt like the mythical Phoenix burning down and reducing to ashes.

PK was scared, very scared.

With no one else to turn to, PK gathered some courage to show the email to his father.

PK’s father recalled the context that PK had briefed him about and asked him about the diary that PK was supposedly maintaining.

It’s time you stood up and shared your side of the story with the Managing Partner, PK’s father advised, quite matter of fact.

What if doing that makes matters worse? This is my first job after all, PK countered.

Son, looks like they are already planning to take action against you for defiance. If you keep quiet, you will not only lose your job but will also go unheard and unsung. So, if you are going to lose your job in any case, it is better to go down fighting than surrendering to a bully, PK’s father said.

PK then drafted his response, carefully copying and pasting points from the diary that he had maintained over months.

His reply by now had grown to ten points, each of them proving that Mr. Late Nightaholic was a habitual bully and a sadist who was, by crying wolf all the time and de-motivating juniors, not acting in the best interest of the firm.

PK gave it a once over and pressed the send button.

The email was gone. No reply came.

PK went to bed quite depressed and distressed.

He didn’t know whether he had done the right thing. Should he have pandered to Mr. Late Nightaholic’s ego a little more, a little longer?

Surprisingly, the answer was a resounding No!

Should he start looking for another job?

PK kept tossing from side to side. He felt as if he was being stabbed with a few hundred knives.

Strangely PK’s father looked very relaxed.

He didn’t worry that his son was soon going to lose his job.

In fact, he appeared to be quite pleased to see his son standing up to bullies in his own, quiet yet powerful way.

In the morning when PK woke up, the first thing he did, even before brushing his teeth, was to check his BlackBerry. Yes, there was another message from the Managing Partner.

It was only one line: Do you have a problem working with [Mr. Late Nightaholic]?

PK was relieved, just a little.

It looked like that the Managing Partner had somehow seen his point of view. He had surmised that whatever Mr. Late Nightaholic had told the Managing Partner was only half the truth and understood that there was some kind of a tussle going on between Mr. Late Nightaholic and PK.

So it was not all lost, PK hoped.

PK reached office early that day.

Mr. Late Nightaholic was already in and immediately called PK to his cubicle and started shouting at him as to why he had left office the previous evening without informing him.

Suddenly Mr. Late Nightaholic’s intercom rang.

It was the Managing Partner. He wanted Mr. Late Nightaholic to meet him right away.

The session lasted for around half an hour, after which PK could see Mr. Late Nightaholic wiping sweat from his forehead.

Then PK was called in.

PK thought it was now his turn to sweat.

He was, however, surprised to see that the Managing Partner was very calm, unlike the night before when he had sent that nasty email.

He gave PK a patient hearing. He did make a few sarcastic remarks in between but when PK finished, he appeared to understand PK’s point of view.

I can see that you have an issue. I will speak to the HR regarding this and sort things out, the Managing Partner said.

PK turned out to leave.

By the way your drafting skills are really good. Your e-mail was crisp, to the point and very much like an English Lawyer, the Managing Partner, himself an Oxonian, complimented.

PK was stunned. He came back to his desk and couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear.

From an absolutely hopeless situation, PK had just risen like the Phoenix, literally from ashes.

P.S. That was the last time PK spoke to Mr. Late Nightaholic. It was decided that the two won’t be working together on any matter.

Mr. Late Nightaholic tried to be friends with PK.

He told PK that he viewed him as a friend and didn’t want to harm him in any way.

Mr. Late Nightaholic, however, was asked to leave the firm after a month.

Moral of the Story

PK seriously wondered what would have been the outcome if he had kept quiet, as most of his colleagues had advised him to, and not sent that email?

What if he hadn’t kept so meticulously a complete diary of events?

The answer that came to was obvious.

PK would have been adversely noted for defying his seniors.