The Pigeon and The Statue

It’s pretty amazing talking to people you once worked with. You tend to learn so much about them and yourself in the exchange. You also get a lot more gossip including those involving you – about how your new-found friend and some old trusty ones felt bad, let-down and de-motivated when they were witness to your ex-boss bad-mouthing you. Ex-bosses are a special category I tell them – It is in their interest to do what they are doing. We are wrong in expecting them to be our saviours, we anoint them as our own ‘Santa Claus’ and we expect the goodies, to our own doom, while ignorant of the fact that the ex-boss is busy with his own Santa. This chain ties up neatly all the way. There are links in the chain which are sturdy, strong, and reliable and depending on where you are looking from, it is where either the search begins or ends.

So how does one deal with such a situation? Well one certainly has to accept the fact that on ‘some days we are the pigeon and on others we are the statue’. But in this role-play the opportunity to be the pigeon is important.

If you have a ‘prolific pigeon’ for a boss who has taken a particular liking for you, the ‘Statue of Liberty’, then you are in for a lot of shit [pun unintended]. The challenge is to find pigeons who believe in fair and equitable distribution of their ‘holy droppings’ and not be partial towards any particular statue no matter how appealing. That’s what a man-manager is supposed to do I believe – motivate his team.

Oh! And I guess I would start campaigning against pigeons being used as docile symbols of peace. Have you ever seen a particularly mean, combative, insecure, your-worst-nightmare-pigeon? I believe there is an active lobby within the CIA or Mossad or MI6 or whatever-spook-agency trying to character-assassinate the pigeon. It is a bird of prey and god help you if you are a particularly nice statue [ref. ‘Statue of Liberty’, the one who stands for free speech

Going back to dilbert, I believe Scott Adams got it right when he describes the pigeon (he calls it ‘The Boss’) as follows:

http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/the_characters/index.html#boss

pi·geon² - The Boss - He's every employee's worst nightmare. He wasn't born mean and unscrupulous, he worked hard at it. And succeeded. As for stupidity, well, some things are inborn.

His top priorities are the bottom line and looking good in front of his subordinates and superiors (not necessarily in that order). Of absolutely no concern to him is the professional or personal well-being of his employees. The Boss is technologically challenged but he stays current on all the latest business trends, even though he rarely understands them.