Being a Resource - An Appraisal Chapter

All charcters in the below story are imaginary. Any resemblance to people dead or alive is purely coincidental.

PM: Good Morning dude.
SE: Morning boss.
PM: so how are you?
SE: Doing Fine sir. How about you sir?
PM: Very fine man. So let's start.
SE: ok sir.
PM: I went through your comments for the 'tasks' assigned to you for last cycle. You were on bench for the last two months right?
SE: yes sir.
PM: i find that being on bench (refers to time spent without a project assigned.Need not be sitting idle.) you haven't contributed anything for the company.
You have just attended some technical sessions and submited few knowledge sharing documents.
SE: but sir, being on bench how can i do some work if i've not been assigned anything. and i wasn't sitting idle sir. I was involved in giving KT (knowledge
transfer) sessions to newcomers.
PM: Man. You have to be 'Proactive'. Ask for work. Get ur 'utilization' level increased. No use of just sumbitting few docs or taking KT sessions even though
it maybe useful.
SE: But sir, i was told that there was no project as per my previous experience or training.
PM: No man, there are projects for you in 'pipeline' (trying to show that the horizon has a silver lining!!) but the point to be noted is that you have to set an example for others being more 'motivated' in your work. Show more 'analysis' capability.
PM: Ok leave it. i see that you have worked on a support and testing project the 4 months prior to that. You haven't done any development? There was a 'scope' for 'automation' in the work you performed.
SE: The project demanded only support and testing work sir and apart from that automation and development work was done by the IT team of client side.
PM: Man. That's not an excuse.You have to 'delight' the client by taking up automation work proactively. You could have 'brought business' from the client side like the onsite folks do.
SE: But sir you have never given me a chance to go onsite or have an interaction with the client team.
PM: You are giving lame excuses man. And I see that you haven't appreciated the work of your teammates. You haven't 'nominated' anyone for 'spot awards' or shown any 'leadership' skills.
SE: sir i'm just a SE(Software engg), i don't have the privilege to nominate anyone for awards. Others in my team are either my level or higher.
PM: You haven't shown interest in taking additional responsiblities of the team like being the CC or QA or KM. (hard to explain!!)
SE: but sir we already have team members assigned for these tasks.
PM: but you should have asked proactively to take charge of these roles.hmmm...No use of telling you.and by the way, you have to get used to working in mainframe development for your next assignment.
SE: that would be little difficult sir considering my previous experiences in support n testing.
PM: (losing temper) you are not at all 'flexible' man. you still want to be working on some crap support n testing projects which does no good. I can give you only a rating of 2 on 5 considering your 'peer group' is having team leaders and senior members.
SE: (standing up) you say i'm not flexible!! i was trained for 3 months in java and when i joined production you asked me to do Dot Net coding for 6 months initially with no one to guide or support.You said it was due to some urgent requirements.
after i learn everything and complete the major assignment on Dot net you asked me to to switch to Open systems, where i had to learn all the unix commands and oracle from scratch. Once i was getting settled with the support you assign the testing work also to me saying we can't pull in more members due to 'billable issues' and ask me to be familiar with writing test cases and working on testing tools. Now you want me to learn age old mainframes to do some crap work for some stupid company who can't spend some money to update or migrate their software to the latest platforms. And on top of that you say i have been doing crap support and testing work. do you remember the time you addresed everyone in the project mentioning that we were doing excellent work working day and night and even come to office on sundays to give weekend support. And now you say i was doing crap work and i'm not flexible.
PM:(surprised) what happened man. You are losing your temper. You shud be ready to take up 'challenges'.Be ready to 'work under pressure' to give 'quality' product. I know you are an exceptional 'resource' and a very good 'team player'.(changing track!!) You are an asset to the company.
SE: Yes i'm a resource. just a resource. Just like any of the computer or printer in the office. You provide free coffee vending machines to work day and night and at the end of the month give us peanuts in return for the hardwork we put in. I'm done sir. This resource is happy to announce to you proactively that he is not anymore a resource of this company. I submit my resignation. And by the way i have given a feedback about you to the HR yesterday. He said he'll mail you. Check your mail box may be you'll have your appraisal scheduled soon. GOODBYE:)

p.s. the words in ' ' are those used by Project managers to trick the juniors to show that they know everything, just to create some impressions. If you hear any of these words from your manager be sure that he is lying :)