Finally it happened to me too

I once read a forward. It was nice with the picture of a small kid praying with closed eyes.

God give me Courage.

God give me Health.

God give me Wealth.

But God, please

don’t give me Strength.

For I will break my manager's skull.

Funny it was and was not different from what most people in IT industry speak about. Surprising though, I have not felt that I had such nerve breaking managers yet. And there were not many difficulties with the client too to make me pray that hard. Of course, there were and are few, I would prefer be stuck inside a worm hole (Not the one in the space). But never had a chance that would push me to drop my pen to avoid it hurting the other person. And that was until last week for I had the opportunity to pray like that kid in the email forwards.

Well-known for creating issues out of no where and prone to claim superiority over others; Mr. Biscuit was one I always tried hard not to judge. Marked as shrewd, cunning and in general a huge show-off trying to get attention all the time, he was also a best person for everyone to mock for fun. Lucky enough to see things from far side all these time, but this month brought us closer for building a small tree house, he being the customer and myself the engineer designing the house. The early weeks went on as expected with him asking for 40" widescreen TV to a swimming pool inside it. I was as usual calm with myself and decided to keep a iPhone instead of TV and a mug of water for the pool. Requirements were finalized and the team worked on the tree house building on the impractical necessities. After weeks of hard work with little hocus pocus and a drop of Felix Felicis potion, we were ready for the review last week.

On first look, he was even pleased with the ladder we had put to climb the tree. But then he complained that the number of steps is even. We decided to break one spoke on the top. Slowly we climbed up. Once we reached the entrance, he was worried that the door is opening inside. It was hard to convince him that if he tries to pull it outside, he would fall from the tree house. As we went inside, more and more comments poured in ranging from need for fireplace, ping-pong table inside this small 50 sq feet cabin and concrete lining inside the house so that the construction will be strong. Though I was able to control my anger to all these comments or requirements on the "Day of sale", my anger temperature shot out of the thermometer when he suggested building the house on the ground instead of the tree. But sill he wanted it to be called a "tree house". I wished that I could really build a tree house; make him stay inside and finally lit up the tree. The hell broke loose after that as I gave him one among the five. Heated arguments and exchange of spells and curses went on and on before he walked off saying that the house looked smaller than the tree. I was just glad he got jinxed at last.

What was so significant on this was this was the very first time, I have lost control of myself in a meeting and I don’t regret anything in it. All that mattered was that being right in what I do, I deserve the right to say what I feel is right. Customer or your manager is just a person on the service you provide. You can do your best to listen and understand them. But never must you loose your self-esteem for any reason. I hope that I can maintain the same as I travel through my career and meet more challenging persons in the future.