Career Guide: An assistant product manager's dilemma
A day in the life of …
Sabina, an Assistant Product Manager.
9.05: I have exactly four minutes and 46 seconds to reach my office before I’m marked late on the attendance register. Ever since the administration realised that the biometric machines were following the Chinese standard time, we’ve reverted to marking our presence manually.
10.30: By now I’ve had three people stop by my cubicle asking the same question, “Is your boss going to be in today?” You see my boss has been depressed lately, his marriage seems to be falling apart and everyone on the floor has been talking about it.
11.15: The Operations department asks me to resolve the issue of incorrect names being printed on the last batch of the fuel cards. I decide that the whole lot should be discarded and sent for reproduction. I run this by the Unit Head who, instead of his usual yelling about how I should never bypass my supervisor, hears me out.
11.46: Boss is finally in. Last week when he didn’t come in for three consecutive days someone started a rumour of a suicide attempt. Now whenever he doesn’t turn up by 11am, the wise guy in the next cubicle quips “Check karo yaar“. The first time he said that we laughed out loud but the lady next to him gave us a lecture and we’ve been cautious ever since.
12.15: I am at the boss’s desk with a couple of cost approvals for him to sign on. He’s watching some black and white movie on his laptop. His desk is a museum of those useless shiny trinkets you see at those Rs100 shops. He even has a rubber duck which he insists is a stress reliever.
The reality is that I am the brains behind the product we are handling. It’s the only profitable product of the company and I’m not going to let my boss’s personal issues put a dent in my career progress.
1.30: Atif refuses point-blank to ask our boss to join us for lunch. In the last appraisal, when Atif put his case to become a permanent employee, our boss said “But you already have a Civic, why do you need to become permanent?” The only answer Atif could come up with was “It was a present from my in-laws”. Atif and boss both have the same IQ level.
4.15: I am on the phone talking to a corporate customer who has been incessantly complaining when my friend interrupts me. She says my boss is having a really loud phone conversation with his mother and keeps saying “You just don’t understand”. I like my friend but at the moment I could have hit her with the phone receiver.
6.30: Most of the people on the floor have left. I sit late, well because it’s an accepted fact that late sittings mean you are hardworking. I’m going to ask for a big raise by the end of this year so might as well begin building my case now.
7.15: The Unit Head tells me that he has put my name on the fast track performers list. He has been very sympathetic towards my boss, he even found him a psychiatrist. I say all the right things “No problem sir/I am really grateful /all part of my job.”
8.35: I’m headed to my tailor. My engagement is coming up but I’m not going to inform anyone in the office. Female employees’ personal obligations will always be taken as a sign of career non-seriousness, but a male employee’s personal turmoil being played out in public is just seen as a difficult phase of life.
How to be a star performer at the office:
1. Take on extra responsibility eagerly.
2. Build professional credibility and develop a rapport with the senior management.
3. Know when to ask for a raise or a promotion.
4. Be careful when indulging in gossip or divulging personal revelations.
Correction: An earlier version of the headline missplelt the word "dilemma". The correction has been made.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 13th, 2011.
COMMENTS (13)
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I think females are responsible for not being taken as serious after their marriages. They've successfully set a trend of leaving jobs under family pressure.
Sadya: Thanks for your response. But, I think you have not understood, Jehanara's contention. I would even think of her argument as a categorical complaint, against the framing of the career woman as the ideal model for females. This, of course rankles the modernist feminist narrative no end. Which is why she sees it as a fundamentalist and intransigent, militarist position. She, by no means, is alone in this. This is increasingly being said by many. . Regarding the affirmative action being a legal binding in the US, and not in Pakistan: what must be addressed is, why is it desirable to replicate a social construct, which has been responsible for the weakening of the family structure in the West, in the sub-continent. It is not by accident, that Jehanara mentioned India and the West. There is no denying, that there is a vocal elite in India that has forced many Western social constructs on the middle class, despite their moderate / traditional values. This has led to the weakening of the family structure ... and consequently, in the name of empowerment, begun to unravel the social coherence. It is evident that to the rad-fems, this is an ACCEPTABLE COLLATERAL DAMAGE. TO THE MOST OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES, THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. AND IT WILL BE CONTESTED. . Next, to quote you, "The physical limitations of men or women doesnt have to be a intellect/productivity limitation.". Well, I never made the comparison, and that premise, is not mine. You are putting words in my mouth. That career women, feel compelled, to postpone motherhood, because of the added pressure of 'steering their career', is a phenomenon noticed everywhere, where societies are industrialising rapidly. This tantamounts to denial of biological thresholds and gender roles, both of which are necessary to the stability of a couple's relationship, parenting responsibilities. But, again, the rad-fems are in denial of these evolutionary mainstays, and are insistent upon socially engineering the very drives, which enable the males to seek out female partners, and take the risks for establishing a family. . While the elite, can very well afford and absorb the social upheavels that such hedonistic and narcissistic trends portend, there is nothing to allow the middle classes, to grasp the same. Which is why, the Pakistani society must consider seriously, the long-term ramifications of such social experiments and so-called reforms, on our country's future. That the Indians, have allowed this course of action, to go unchallenged, or at least unquestioned, is a failure of the traditionalists and conservatives across the border. The elite in Pakistan, is overly enamoured by trends, and though not aping it entirely, is in complex and influenced by the 'developments' there. A thinking and rational Pakistani, would consider a larger domain of related issues, before embarking on any agenda defined by the rad-fems. Evidently, Jehanara has a strong conviction to state this, and live this principle. . That women, need to be helped and their insecurities addressed, in our nation, goes without saying. But to use it, to hammer in a set of values, that have in the name of independence promoted promiscuity and a vacuous, irresponsible, even immoral / morally agnostic lifestyle, bodes ill for our society and its individuals.
@Mohsin - The Pakistani corporate world has rules and regulations that are male employee centric. Affirmative action is a legal binding in the US, not here in Pakistan. The physical limitations of men or women doesnt have to be a intellect/productivity limitation.
I hope you will keep reading the Career Guide feature of Express tribune, the next two columns will take the discussed issues further.
@Sadya: Disagree with you. Where is the female accountability? Women get all the benefits of affirmative action, but rarely the fullest weight of social corrective measures, when they bungle in the line of duty. . And regarding how the 'baby-boomers', brought benefits to women at the expense of the 'weak family'. You just disclosed the spades in your hand. It is exactly this that Jehanara is speaking out against. All too often, women have been straight-jacketed by the rad-fems, into 'have it all' rock and the hard place. . It is not just the women who are on the treadmill. Men have been on it all along ... and for good evolutionary, and biological reasons. Men, are not in denial of their biology and limitations. Radicalised feminists are.
@Jehanara - It would be unfair to contrast the benefits & limitations of career women here in Pakistan with those in the West. 'Radical feminists' or to be more specific Baby Boomers did bring equal pay-scales, maternity leaves and flexible timings for the working women in the western world. And it has benefited them hugely. With a relatively weaker family structure, women have been able to attain complete financial independence with the support of law.
Here in Pakistan, you are absolutely right to say that working women are like hamsters on a treadmill. There is no legal coverage and honestly even if there were, the social structure & family obligations would just stretch women even more. Ordinary women equipped with degrees became powerful leaders and change makers in the Pakistani workplace, but the men just stayed where they were. That's why there is a disparity.
@Imran - this applies to all industries actually. Two things that are important to note in this APM's story are 1) depression at the workplace and 2) gender stereotyping. Both are far more prevalent than we realize.
@Murtaza -that's whole dilemma- she believes in herself and just doesn't want to get caught up in someone else's drama but she can't be critical of her boss even though she doesn't feel very sympathetic towards him.
FYI - the incorrect spelling of 'dilemma' in the title heading is not my oversight.
"The reality is that I am the brains behind the product we are handling. It’s the only profitable product of the company and I’m not going to let my boss’s personal issues put a dent in my career progress."
Can't fault your self belief.
We will realise sooner than India and the West for sure, that this bill of goods that the radical feminists have sold us career women; of 'empowerment' and 'advancement', is a treadmill fit for a hamster. My husband and I had to sit down and think it through. It sure did take time. But we realised that while the dual income, was very enticing ... it wasn't worth the stress it would bring, into our lives and the distances it would create in our interpersonal and family relationships. We give up too much 'personal satisfaction' as currency, for the paycheck from our 'professional achievements'. It is not possible to 'have it all'. Yet, that is exactly, what our consumerism driven media is pushing at women. Why? Because of course, a linear graph of economic upswing, has to be effected. And how to do it better, than by creating an artificial paucity of time by making us busy through our waking hours. Get us all a degree and get us all to work. Pretty soon you will see us eating out of packaged foods, and ordering in take-outs. Ditto for outsourcing education, to tutors for kids and hiring ayahs and creche services. All, of course, furthering the grist and the mill for more 'employment' for other women, who in turn have been promised the same, shallow economic empowerment. We will realise sooner than the rest. For sure. My Ammi was more empowered and liberated and in control, than I am. I have worked for 10 years. Never again.