Blame game

The blame game. Where would one understand such a complicated game other than the corporate? I say this because I myself learned this in the corporate.

Let me describe a very particular incident which told me about the blame game in the corporate. When I had started my corporate career I was working under a team lead. Let's call him A. Most of the times A food appear very friendly. He would never scold or shout at anybody. If somebody made a mistake at work then he would take that person aside. He would speak with that person in a very polite manner understand what had gone wrong. He would understand the root cause and would tell the person that it is okay to make the mistake. A had a very good reputation with his team as well as with the management. It seem that he had no enemies. Everyone would like A. However I uncovered an uncomfortable truth.

I was a quality control reviewer. I would have meetings with A every week to understand the trends of quality. I would tell A about what is going well in the project and where the improvement is required from a quality standpoint. I would provide detailed graphs and tables which would help the analysis and also it would tell where the next action is required. A was always impressed with my work. He would openly tell me so and also he would highlight my work in front of the next level of the management. Initially I do was in favour of A. But one day A said something that made me anything my choices.

I was presenting my weekly quality analysis to A. I had seen a trend in the dip in the quality. I showed the data and highlighted it to A. He studied it and said that this dip has to be attributed to the performance of K. K was our trainer and she was soon to leave the project. I was surprised to hear that from A. A and K where friends and they had taken ahead various responsibilities. K was very competent and she was a very good trainer. Everyone who was trained by K had excellent conceptual understanding. I found it in appropriate to blame K for it. This is when A said that any person who lives the project should be blamed for any ongoing mistakes. He for the said it makes the job easier. I was really shocked that A said that. What he said was logically correct but morally and ethically completely wrong. He was trying to make a skip code of a person who had contributed a lot to the project but was leaving the project very soon. This did not sit well with me but the explanation to the management resided on shoulders of A, so I could not do anything. However I realised that I have seen the darker side of A which was not known to many.

I learnt a lesson that day. I learnt that nobody is your friend in corporate. When anything goes a wrong the easiest target would be thrown under the bus. It did not matter how much we had given to the project but if we are the easy target the blame game will evict us.