Ignorance is bliss

One of my managers once told me that I am too "naive" and that I don't understand office politics. I felt a little weird hearing that comment, because I did not see a need to understand office politics, and I will explain why.

Imagine you are driving a car in a road full of traffic, and suddenly the vehicles in the lane next to you start moving ahead and your lane does not seem to move. What would you do? You will try and squeeze yourself in the next lane (by putting on the indicator, hopefully!) so that you can move ahead too. At least that's what most people do. Now imagine, that the lane next to you does not exist, and that you are waiting in the traffic for it to clear so that you can move ahead. Now what would you do? You would peacefully wait in your lane and move when the traffic moves. So what is different? When you start comparing your lane with the next, that's where the problem starts and the peaceful waiting goes for a toss.

I have been working in the industry for more than a decade now. Every year, we have the annual appraisal. You must be aware that ratings and comp hikes are important aspects of the annual appraisal. Whenever I got my ratings and my comp hike details, I never bothered to check with my colleagues what their numbers were. I was happy with my rating and comp hikes. One important think to note about me is that I am extremely self critical - I always feel that my bosses are being kind to me and hence giving me what I am getting. I never attribute it to my hard work and intelligence because I always feel that I can do more. Keeping this in mind, it was always a cake walk for my managers to discuss these numbers and ratings with me because I always agreed with them. So you could call me an "easy" person - someone who is not a trouble maker.

In the recent past, I started doing something differently. I started discussing my ratings and comp with my colleagues and you can guess what happened. I was obviously not happy because I found out that they were getting more than me. I used to be happy most of the times, but now my happiness went for a toss, because I got to know. I was no longer ignorant.

Upon socialising with other office colleagues, I found out what was happening with respect to "office politics". And no prizes for guessing what happened - I was unhappy again. My happy blissful life suddenly turned into a life of complaints, comparisons, and dissatisfaction. I shred my ignorance, and look what happened. My happiness disappeared!

This happens in all aspects of our lives. Pick any and you shall know what I am saying - personal relationships, work, business, or anything under the sun. I see this phenomenon every where.

I was happier being ignorant, not knowing how games are played, how people are cheated, how credit for your work is attributed very easily to someone else - basically not knowing about the shit that happens. Now I am aware and not as ignorant. But am I happy? Well..!