NEWCOMER FINDS A WORKING SOLUTION

By Vimal Bhatt

Image credit: Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash

This is from when I was new in the Canadian workforce, and still perfecting the art of what is known as “water cooler” chat. One day, a bunch of colleagues from my department were talking softly about our new team leader, someone who had not risen though the ranks but had been parachuted into the team by the head office in another city.

The woman was not popular and it didn’t help that she made no attempt to disguise the fact that she didn’t think much of any of us. Everyone and everything needed to be “overhauled” to use her favourite word.

“She’s just doing that to prove she’s the boss,” said one of my colleagues.

“She really means overhaul when she says so – did you see how she hauled poor Jenna over the coals?” asked another.

“Yeah, she’s a real piece of work,” said the third.

I had got the job after temp work followed by a few short-term stints and it was important I keep it. So it was unsettling to hear them talk this way as it made me anxious about how long any of us would last in the set-up.

But over-riding the anxiety was a doubt. I had caught the expression, “A real piece of work,” and didn’t know what it meant. On the surface, it sounded like a compliment – if someone at work was a real piece of work, wasn’t that a good thing?

So of course, I had to interrupt to ask.

My colleagues explained. Though it can be used in a positive connotation, it rarely is. It is usually used to describe someone who is nasty or unpleasant.

Fortunately for all involved, our story has a happy ending. The team leader didn’t show up for work one day and we later heard that she had been let go. The one who replaced her was a leader in the true sense of the word and much loved by all of us.