People pleasers

One of the worst kinds that you can find in the corporate world are people pleasers. Let me defined them for you. They are the type of colleagues who would try to impress you by all possible means. They will bring you gifts without any occasion. They will try to find out what you like only to get it for you. They will arrange your chair. They will decorate your desk. They will do anything to make you happy. But here is the catch. You never asked them to do it for you and they do it with malicious intentions.

I met several people pleasers during my corporate career. One particular stands out. Let us call her Neha (pseudonym of course). I met Neha when I had joined my previous organisation. When I joined she was a working with a different team. She was loud and she go to always appear busy (focus on "appear"). We would smile at each other. We would not talk much because there was nothing to be spoken. But her traits were visible: she would arrange the chair and desk for her manager; she would bring chocolates for everyone without any reason; she would bring gifts to the people of high ranks etc. She would do a lot of things so that people would praise her for her kind and generous attitude. Yes, it was all for name, fame, and praise.

Later Neha joined my project. I was supposed to be her trainer. With that the love bombing started. She would come to the office earlier than me. She would arrange my chair. She would bring me chocolates without me even asking. I had to tell her that I do not eat chocolates so that she would stop bringing them. Once she heard me telling somebody that I like dosa, so next day she decided to surprise me with a dosa which she had prepared herself. She had brought me dosa from her home and she emphasized that she had made it because she knew I like it. But she did not stop there. She had taken the pictures of dosa and posted them on social media with a caption "delicious surprise for my beloved friend". I would be not active during the working hours on social media so I did not know when she had posted it. I came to know later that she was eagerly waiting for my reaction on her social media post. She was disappointed when she realised that I had not seen that post. A friend who happened to be Neha's old colleague had told me about the post. She had shown me the post and told me to act as if I had not seen it. I agreed and I did so. She would also shower love on my social media posts. She would show by various ways how she values the friendship.

This attempt to please continue for several years. Neha would try to act nice, kind, and generous. In reality she was neither of it. She was doing it only to make her look good in front of other people. It was just for a show and not for real.

Few years later I moved to a different project. Once I moved out of the project Neha completely disconnected with me. She did not text me or call me, I was absolutely the glad for that because the love bombing was unbearable. But that showed her true colors. I understood that it was never out of a pure emotion. It was a way to manipulate. Thank god I never got manipulated.

If you are a corporate professional or a student looking for a job, be aware (or beware) of such people pleasers. Do not go by the way they act because it is all for the show. Be very careful in the corporate. It is a walk in the park; but the park is Jurassic Park.