Working for the sake of work

Yesterday I made a fool of myself. My boss asked me, "in which job band are you, C or D"? and for a moment I just couldn't remember the mapping of my role name to the job band letter. I stared blankly at him and said "I have forgotten that". You should have seen the look on his face, he just couldn't believe it and I could see that he was thinking "this lady is a jerk".

This might have happened to me because I am just out of an year long sabbatical and it was a totally different world out there. But forgetting one's job band? this is kind of extreme. isn't it?

Although this is extreme (and I hate myself for that response), many a times I have realised that I am not too interested in things like "how much salary hike are we getting this time?", "what is the percentage of performance incentive this time?" etc.

It is not that I am a non-ambitious person who comes to office just because there is nothing to do at home. I am a very ambitious person and have been performing "above expectations" all the years that I have been working. It is also not that I am not interested in the salary I get. In fact, like everyone else it is "more the better" for me too. But somehow I am not the one who analyzes every rupee/dollar on my pay-slip. It might be due to the fact that I am not the sole bread earner in the family and my salary is kind of bonus for us :-)

Whatever may be the reason and people may call this "being ignorant" but somehow I am not cut out for that.I work for the sake of "work". I work hard, love taking up challenges, enjoy my work and strive to deliver the best out of me. And then, what is my boss for? To give me the salary hikes and incentives I deserve.

It might sound snobbish but I guess my productivity levels are high because I do not take those 'n' number of coffee breaks to discuss "how much salary hike are we getting this time?" and then 'n+n' coffee breaks after the salary hike to discuss "this is not a raise at all, it doesn't even cover my petrol expenses" :-) No offence meant to people who discuss this or people who take coffee breaks, in fact they should continue to do that because, people like me, who are interested only in the crux of the matter are happy with whatever information we get when we overhear their discussions.

There is a flip side to not taking those coffee breaks but that would be another post.