Main pareshaan, pareshaan, pareshaan……

Amidst all the happenings or non-happenings in my personal life I posted last about, comes the latest and unexpected twist on work front. Life has a cruel tendency to give shocks and surprises when least expected; when one is immersed in solving riddles on personal front, work trouble raises its ugly head and when office is doing well it’s the personal stuff which causes itch.

Well coming straight to the point few days back I had a senior guy coming down from head office in Dubai for official visit, nothing wrong in it which means its so far so good. Work and proposals were discussed in length, here I must mention some proposals were out of line with company policy and required much convincing to gain approval. Again so far so good as its only work that’s getting discussed and proposals were genuine based on business case; my interaction with this guy was very positive, in fact I received him at the Airport and next evening we spent a good time discussing my plans – all on positive note. This guy returned to Dubai same night and next day I first heard that superboss, who had initially planned to fly down this month will not be coming; however within no time again got a message not to cancel the hotel booking of superboss as he will be flying down. Once again so far so good as its good to have superboss visit and notice your work; it also meant that I had to spend countless extra hours in office preparing my presentation, but again its all in good spirit

This far and here on not so good. Last evening when I was giving finishing touches to my presentation I received a call from India from an unknown number, this was from a guy I had connected with on LinkedIn about a year back and who can be called my peer in age, experience, qualification and profession. Last time we had spoken he was enquiring my take on some job opportunity he was being offered in this part of the world and talk had ended there; this time he informed me that he was approached by Dubai head office of my company for a position based in my branch office – in fact he was interviewed for my position only!! I was completely taken aback and asked him thrice that whether he was interviewed for position based in Muscat or Dubai, he was clear that this position was Muscat based only and was for my job only, he had checked again with interview panel on this. What was more surprising was that he took names of entire hiring team, so this was not a bluff; during his interview when he disclosed that he knew me personally and we had exchanged notes in past, he was specifically told not to mention anything to me!! When I was talking to him I could actually feel the ground shaking and even after the call ended I was in a trance for most of the evening, even now I am rattled and still don’t know how to react. Before ending the call this guy even informed me that this position is being handled by known recruitment agencies and is live on job groups for about a week now!

I could not sleep for much of the night and when superboss did visit today morning I was trying to pick up any hints which may convey bad news, however nothing of the sort happened and infact before leaving superboss asked me to submit plans for the next three years. What is bothersome here is that my company has a very dirty practice of letting people go after hiring their replacements – so when they identify a bad resource they hire a replacement first, upon whose joining the existing guy is served the notice.

Life has many things to worry about but few things we do take for granted – like going for work every morning; my new worry is that searching for work should not become my new work soon