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Dutch Harassment, Harassment, Harassment at work, Harassment Netherlands, Indians not proactive, non-proactive, nonproactive, pro-active, proactive, proactive Indians, Work Harassment
After the defeat of Dutch team to Indian Hockey team, Dutch IT gurus called for a quick emergency meeting Sunday night. “Have Indians become proactive?” was the question on everyone’s face. “We all know Indian employees are not proactive. But lately we are getting signs that their proactiveness level is increasing” said the chairman. Not surprisingly there was a huge uproar among the members. “This is absurd! Hockey and IT is very different” said one member. “Kom op, even yesterday we used the PET on Indian employees and it showed same status as last time, 0 proactive units”
The discussion went on for 30 more minutes and after a quick vote, it was concluded that the Indian employees remain as non-proactive. Chairman also said that the existing guard set on the LinkedIn profile of Indian employees will remain the same. Meeting was adjourned and the IT crowd left happy “Mooi, prachtig conclusie! ” said one of the members to the press reporters waiting outside. The next day was the press meet.
Monday sharp 08:00 the press meet began in The Hague. “We are happy to announce that there is no change to the Indian employees status in spite of our Hockey loss”. To a huge applause chairman continued “But 11 Indian hockey players will be exempted from this list for the first time in history!” silence fell over the meeting room. A reporter reminded of the hockey support staff and also about the Indian cricket team. “Okay, we can include 3 support staff and the same for cricket team so that would be 28 Indians who are recognized by the Dutch as proactive”.
An international reporter asked “On what basis you say Indians are non-proactive? How do you measure proactiveness?” Chairman said the decision was made based on PET done in some companies.”PET stands for Proactiveness Evaluation Tool. We apply this tool on the belly button of the employees. If the tool shows green then the person is proactive. Red indicates non-proactive. We also input nationality of the employee before the test. Mooi eh?”. The reporter then asked about the employees working in other countries. “Then the employees can show their belly button to the web cam, our intelligent tool can pick it up”. Dutch IT workers cheered “hipperdepip”… “hurray” “hipperdepip… hurray”
Chairman said Indian employees need to be reminded of a particular “Heineken story” to teach them about pro-activeness and old daily wage system. Chairman then said that on LinkedIn profile, none of the Indian employees will be given recommendations. Worst-case if that happens then the word “proactive” will not be mentioned. Chairman said they will deploy crawlers to search for recommendations and any Dutch IT employee doing the same will be prosecuted. “Absolutely no recommendations?” asked a reporter “Nee, absolute, super, helemaal niet”. Chairman’s face got red… hands started to tremble. Someone quickly removed the glass from the table… crowd went berserk… and then chairman started “Nein Nein Nein Nein”
Meeting got over and Indian expats gathered for the press meet met the chairman and congratulated “This is good progress of 0.00001%, sir thank you. We have seen many caste systems but proactive caste system is the first. Thank you sir, thank you very much, thank you, thank you”
One of the Indian expat leaving the meet told the reporter “You know… Dutch are very tolerant people… It is a good sign some Indians are recognized as proactive”. Reporter then asked “Is that what you really think about this press meet?”. Indian then continued “Yes, my colleagues are all nice people … I love going to my office every….” Reporter interrupted “Okay stop, is that what you really, really, really think?” This time the Indian’s smile disappeared… eyes narrowed to slits ..fingers clenched.. “Tolerant? Tolerant my foot! Stupid chairman and his IT shingidis! They think we are second class. You know what? this country is a mental asylum of preconceptions. Trust me I am telling you .. you know .. I am telling you….you know”.
[Okay, hope you liked the story 🙂 . It happens rarely but there had been instances in my work-life when I had witnessed people getting insulted in the name of “pro-somethingness”. So jokes apart, if you ever felt you are being harassed at work in the name of proactiveness then understand you are not alone. You may report this to authorities or Embassy. If proactiveness can be measured then it should be stated how and applied to all employees equally ]
