Cribbing

Generally I hate to write about cribbing. But I had a conversation where in my friend was cribbing about his work place, this so called recession and its effect on him. I would like to write about the strange situation in which he is in at the moment.

My friend incidentally happens to work for a neighboring IT company. First let me write some points about the recent recession.

> Managers tend keep an eagles' eye on the team-members performance.
> The so called friends (before recession) tend to outsmart each other,.
> People generally do not want to make mistakes, especially in their work.
> Individual work is preferred over team work. After all you need to separate the milkable cows from non-milkable ones. Also easy to fire individuals rather than entire team.

The situation my friend is in, is kind of a strange one. His team comprises of an individual (Lets call him A ), who is unsure about his role. He is either trying to demoralize the entire team to save his job, or he is trying to outshine the rest of the team members.

Assume my friend is given a piece of work, which he might take 2 weeks time to complete. But this particular individual " A ", tends to shout out loud in the meeting saying, this work can be done in 4 days.

This particular individual " A " after the meeting is done, is not even bothered to help, to complete the task in 4 days, he is only interested in his part of the work.

My friend's concern is during this time of recession, what will the manager feel about him. A task which can be done within 4 days, is being done in 2 weeks. Does the manager feel, is this guy, a non milkable cow. So my friend feels he is the one in the line of firing, just because of this so called individual " A ", who incidentally happens to pass sarcastic comments about others work and try to find fault in others work.

All I can say is I am quite lucky not to be in such a team.