Bug-Bombing is Sound Business: Pounding Pests that Plague You

COLLEAGUES come in two packages, gift wrapped for Christmas or covered with greasy, second hand newsprint! The gift-wrapped version are the ones to die for, they help you when you ask for it and are there for you when you need them. The best part of them is that they don't live in your pocket, breathe down your neck and look over your shoulder! The other kind though come thick and fast through the air to do all you don't want them to.

There they are, buzzing like death watch beetles near you, whining like an arthritic anopheles near your ear while all you want to do is to finish your work and get on with your life! How do you deal with these bugs? Know them to cure them!

Dung Beetles

Dung beetles are industrious creatures that harvest dung and store it up for a rainy day. The office dung beetle is one of those colleagues who look industrious by coming in on holidays, on weekends and staying late to do their work. They do all this because they are so busy wasting your time during work hours so that you have to stress yourself out rushing to get it done.

Dung beetles are tough; they have hard carpaces(backs) that are impervious to hints, prods or mild remonstrance. They have tough plastrons to protect them from rough ground, so no obstacle you put in their patch can stop their inexorable progress towards you. They live forever so they'll probably be around after you and everybody else has been fired. These pests are quite ghastly as there will seem no way they can be eliminated, but take heart, eventually, even the most myopic manager will notice that all that dung beetles do smell of manure.

So what do you do? Do not allow yourself to be drawn into their coterie otherwise you will find yourself granting them visitation rights whether you want it or not!

Praying Mantis

There is nothing particularly dangerous looking about a praying mantis, in fact it looks rather like an ascetic curate with his hands folded in piety. Observe them closely and discover that these specimens are the most voracious eaters in the insect world, not averse to making a light snack of their spouse!

As in nature, so it is in the workplace! The mantis is a person you will not expect to rush at you and consume you in a flash! The mantis will cosset you and pander to you till you least suspect it and then-Wham! You're pinioned and are being eaten alive!

They spend "quality" time with you, they dress themselves in colours that lull you into a false sense of security and then, one day, when you are particularly low and depressed, out snaps that wily bite and you find yourself lost! They are the ones who offer true friendship but will think nothing of stabbing you in the back the moment the chance presents itself!

They have no compunction in furthering their own career at the cost of yours and as often as they do it, you will stretch your neck out to have them do it all over again the next time because they succeed only too well in making you feel sorry for them! How do you inure yourself from their stab?

Well, don't delude yourself into thinking that you will not be a victim of their duplicity. If you do, you will suffer more than you can imagine. Never get taken in by their heartbreaking stories that tear at your emotions.

Listen to people who can see what's happening and tell you!

Cicadas

Cicadas are those bugs that continuously make a noise on sunny afternoons in the wild. In the office, they are the colleagues who are constantly cribbing about everything, whether you want to hear it or not! They will tell you about other colleagues, about the boss, what everybody else is saying about you and then will move onto the next workstation to tell them what you said about them! These are the rabble-rousers par excellence!

Never get yourself entrapped in their wiles since you will end up as the fall-guy! You may agree with their criticisms, you may even think that some of their cribs are justified but remember that the cicada will go and tell higher-ups that the seditious ideas are yours! If you get swatted, good for them!

Being with them is being part of the swarm! Negative thinking is their strongpoint and they will bring you down in a welter of negativity as well! Keep them at a distance because they really bug you after a while. You can't like them but their danger lies in the fact that if you swat them and they escape, you can be sure that your name will come out the muddier! What you need to do is to agree with their criticisms but counter with positives that negate their cribs. They'll lose interes in you pretty fast!

Scorpions

Scorpions not only look frightening, they can get seriously nasty no matter what their size. They also have great venom regeneration powers so they can strike repeatedly at every weak link they see! These arachnids that stalk the office are there for everybody to see. They are the chronic cynics who slice the air with their stinging remarks.

Everybody is fair game to them except the heavyweight Rhinos in the building (The Boss Group!) They will zap you with their whiplash tongue and then when you cry foul they say it was all said in fun! They are the ones who embarrass others, not in the right spirit, but to enjoy the death throes. They revel in causing the humiliation of others. They can be bosses, and they can be juniors and given an opportunity, they will strike you whether you are up or down! They do this to keep you from noticing their weaknesses. They believe in the adage that attack is the best form of defence. And defence they need to distract attention from their own lacunae! If you see one coming, the only repellent you can use is boundless humour! These vicious stingers are totally derailed by strong doses of amusement. Making fun of them or treating them as a joke kills them and not taking them seriously upsets them completely. All they feared about their weaknesses being revealed come true in the worst nightmare of their lives!

Scarabs

These delightful little pests are ones that hold themselves in suspended animation till they can move about safely again. They were the inspiration to mummify the pharaohs, as they seemed to 'rise' from the dead after many years! Be that as it may, the office scarabs are irritating at best, and can cause havoc in teams. In actual fact these are colleagues who avoid taking things head on because they are frightened and they flee from any attempt to find out what they really think. This may seem manageable at first glance but actually it can get rather frustrating if these people are in your team. Their ostrich-like habit of burying their heads in the sand is a wish they have to avoid seeing a problem. They never voice a negative opinion during discussions because they don't want to upset or annoy anyone else but they will say, "I knew this would happen!" when things go wrong. They may make a strong point outside the meeting but will invariably back down when confronted. It is not as if scarabs are deficient in ability or in the use of their mental attributes, it is a defence act that keeps them from making their point. In teams this is disastrous because they will never come out with their views, and when they do, they allow you or anyone else to ride roughshod over them. They give you the impression that they like your idea when they feel, in reality, that the idea is unsound. They allow you, even encourage you, to make mistakes that could have been avoided. The only way you can fix them is to ask them to rip your ideas or the group's ideas apart preferably somewhere where they can do so in private. Scarabs come alive when they are not watched, so give them the idea on paper for them to be constructive about it. Oddly enough, encouraging them to come out of themselves make them less bugging!

Bugs are bugs and you are you. They have their place in the grand scheme of things and they certainly keep you on your toes! All you need to do is to know them for what they are and know what they can do to you. Recognition is the key! Differentiating the poisonous ones from the insidious ones is a skill you must develop to keep them where they belong. Away from you!

S.RAMANUJACHARYA

professor1@sify.com