An Honest Confession About Confessions

/ June 3, 2014 / 3 Comments / Uncategorised
Although I am going to talk about confessions, allow me begin with apologies. There are apologies and apologies, but the one which stayed in my mind is that of Neil Armstrong to Indira Gandhi. Armstrong was told that Mrs Gandhi had kept awake to watch his landing on moon – it was at 4.30 am. He responded “I apologise for the inconvenience we caused you, Madame Prime Minister. Next time, I shall make sure that we land on the moon at a less unearthly hour.”
It is an expression of respect in the garb of an apology. English language allows such nice expressions. An apology like the one tendered by Neil Armstrong can only humour the recipient.
The apologies tendered by people while at work are in a different [and lower] class.   An employee does something wrong, and he sees the danger of facing a disciplinary action. So he offers apology. Apologies in organisations practically have a standard format, unwritten though. And here is the unwritten format:
“I wish to inform you that if what I did was a mistake, then…..”
This should go down as one of the most insincere form of apology, if at all it can be called apology. The interesting part is that Labour Officers of the yesteryears would close the issue with this apology. An apology is expected to show remorse and penitent heart. No such consideration on either side.
A confession on the other hand is “a statement admitting that one is guilty of an unacceptable act, usually a crime.”
But such a definition is for the lay person. The young people mean something else, perhaps they mean opening one’s mind to people. This was a discovery I made recently [so much for the digital immigrant!]. I must share what I read and saw.
I stumbled upon a Facebook page ‘TCS Confessions.’ Interesting it was. Of course there were confessions, here is a sample:
Once upon a time, just out of sheer naughtiness and curiosity i was playing with the light switches in the corridor outside our ODC in Global Axis Bangalore in-front of the washroom putting them on and off to see which light turns off (i thought they were the corridor lights )…i repeated it n number of times thinking the lights were not working. I didn’t realize that they were the switches of the ladies washroom ..and the lights were going on and off INSIDE it and a girl or two who were coming out from there gave..weird looks…and THEN i realized what i was doing Imagine what the girls inside it must be thinking…as if its the ghost entry time for some horror movie…LoL i just ran as fast as i could ! [Copied and pasted]
This may perhaps still qualify as a confession. But there are some very sad, some very angry ones which spit poison or fire. They are personal statements of great disappointment. Sometimes of anger, and disgust. Bosses and Performance reviews are favourite subjects. And yes, the favourite target: HR!
I thought TCS was perhaps the only unfortunate organisation. I was wrong. I discovered this when my curiosity took me further. I googled ‘Confessions.’ That shows you 18+Confessions. Here is a ‘gem’ from that site:
#8132
During lunch at work last week, I ate 3 plates of beans (which I know I shouldn’t). When I got home, my b.f seemed excited to see me and exclaimed delightedly: “Darling I have a surprise for dinner tonight.” He then blindfolded me and led me to my chair at the dinner table. I took a seat and just as he was about to remove my blindfold, the telephone rang. He made me promise not to touch the blindfold until he returned and went to answer the call. The beans I had consumed were still affecting me and the pressure was becoming unbearable, so while my b.f was out of the room I seized the opportunity, shifted my weight to one leg and let one go. It was not only loud, but it smelled like a fertilizer truck running over a skunk in front of a garbage dump! I took my napkin from my lap and fanned the air around me vigorously. Then, shifting to the other leg, I ripped off three more. The stink was worse than cooked cabbage. Keeping my ears carefully tuned to the conversation in the other room, I went on releasing atomic bombs like this for another few minutes. The pleasure was indescribable! Eventually the telephone farewells signaled the end of my freedom, so I quickly fanned the air a few more times with my napkin, placed it on my lap and folded my hands back on it feeling very relieved and pleased with myself. My face must have been the picture of innocence, when my b.f returned, apologizing for taking so long. He asked me if I had peaked through the blindfold, and I assured him I had not. At this point, he removed the blindfold, and twelve dinner guests seated around the table, with their hands to their noses, chorused: “Happy Birthday”.. [Copied and pasted]

There is ‘IIT Confessions.’ Then there are ‘IT Confessions,’ now here you can expect what is certain to happen – somebody has made a website – ‘itconfessions.in’. This website says “Tcs Confessions, Accenture Confessions, Infosys Confessions, Wipro Confessions and other MNC’s Employees Confession… All of them just at one place.” So don’t go to various websites or FB pages, just stop shop for confessions!

That had to happen, right?

There are actually pages on FB called Accenture Confessions… etc. And they have interesting confessions:

This post in respect of all girls 
There are 2 type of locations in Accenture:-
–> Rank # 1 is DDC facility
–> Rest are other locations
DDC me eyetonic bahut milta hai yaaro 

Many pour out their hearts, some like this, and HR seems to be a favourite target:
Recently, I had a conversation with one of the HR who was just came as a regular visit to our ODC and I asked her a simple question. What is the criteria to get A band in TCS. The moment I asked this question, HR lady got a weird look at me as if I asked her to come with me on a date. Then, she started replying to my question and to my surprise, she told me that one needs to be role model for his team, be ready to give hand to other teams, participate in other activities in the project and the last one and even I was expecting this too was ” BE GOOD TO YOUR SUPERVISOR”. There was no mention of your performance in work, getting appreciations for your work etc. Well, thats TCS for you. [Copied and pasted]
I never imagined that not just cyber-crimes but cyber-confessions could be so interesting. The definition of confession has changed from “admission of one’s guilt” to “unchecked public expression of feelings, thoughts towards company and colleagues anonymously.” For the oldies who worry whether this reflects on the company, whether it is proper for an employee to vent out his feelings unrestrained albeit anonymously and that too publicly, whether this should entail disciplinary procedure etc. – go to hell man! – read your law books, and discuss all this with fellow oldies ending with a sigh and ‘oh, those were the days’.
Who cares? Certainly not Digital Natives!!
I must confess, things have changed! Yes, They have changed!!
Vivek
PS: Confessions went viral in 2013.
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