The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

~Lord Kelvin

Myths, stereotypes and preconceived notions, some shatter and some remain; Lord Kelvin would have been much more careful about saying what he said here if he had any idea how things would pan out in the future, anyhow – coming back to our article, quite a peculiar name, wouldn’t you think? This idea came out of brainstorming session our team was having (we do a lot of that) – so the question was if you could relate people at work with airplanes, who would be which type of plane! It occurred to us that airplanes like people have a personality of their own; some are lean, mean and ready to go; while others can look like they really deserve a break.

The Unpowered (Employee)

These people primarily come to office for recreational purposes, their own or someone else’s. All show and no go as far as work is concerned – the most common reason why they are kept in the team is because they are either funny or they have the ‘right’ gossip. They take their lives and careers as a joke and others are only too happy to play along.

Defining features – Generally slower, less massive, and less expensive than other types. Mostly used to glide off a cliff, catch wind on the beach or setting useless world records!

The Propeller (Employee)

These are people who applied the ‘take life as it comes’ adage to their professional lives with not so pleasant results. They are not updated with the new technologies or best practices and are satisfied with just working as they have been working. The two most common things you will hear them say is “I’m going with the flow”, or “just riding the wave”. By the way propellers are the planes used for crop dusting too – now we’re not suggesting anything!

Defining features – They are quieter, fly at lower speeds, and have lower load capacity. However, they are significantly cheaper and much more economical than jets.

The Jet (Employee)

The ‘with it’ guys. Good at their work and conduct, they know how to soar to success – literally! They use a variety of techniques to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd, including but not limited to – being loud and intimidating, being so fast and efficient that no one can catch up, taking the ‘lesser’ aircraft types for a ride. Needless to say, Jets are expensive, oh yes!

Defining features – More powerful than a than ‘unpowered’ and ‘propeller’ types. As a consequence, they have greater weight capacity and fly faster than propeller driven aircraft. One drawback, however, is that they are noisy.

The Cargo (Employee)

This employee was made to work, and doesn’t that make everyone happy! Anything and everything that walks in the office will offload their work on them, although the opening is usually – “hey, you busy?” or “can you help me with this small little thing?” Of course later on it doesn’t remain a small little thing. While the off loader is busy relishing the break they just created for themselves, they take solace in the fact that their work will be taken care of by this Cargo Airplane of employees. No one clearly knows what drives these people – maybe they really like helping others, or maybe it’s because of their inability to say no.

Defining Features – Has greater weight capacity than any other type of aircraft, not necessarily faster. Better stress handling capability as compared to other aircraft types.

Which type are you?

In the fast paced urban life of today, people are expected to play many different roles depending on the situation, time or place they find themselves in. For example if you are an aggressive go-getter, you would not think of showing the ‘my way or the highway’ side of yours in a PTA meet at your child’s school, or would you? The truth is that there are some traits in our personality that are invariably constant, our responses remain the same even though the context might have changed… these could be learned responses or inherent personality traits. Hence the old adage “you can tell how a man is by looking at the way he treats the waiter at a restaurant”.


Without getting into any rights, wrong or judgments, let’s think of the most common places people find themselves in a social environment and then try to extrapolate their behavior in these places into how they are most likely to be in the office environment.


The “I-Own-The-World” kinds

These are the worst kinds to encounter in a cinema hall. They come in with rowdy kids, come in late and stand in front of you waiting to be seated, will crack dirty, loud jokes, oblivious to others, will have their mobiles on full volume, and will make and receive calls during the most gripping scene that the poor director was able to put together. They will utter the best dialogues before the actors who are paid for the job are able to, making the storyline lose all impact for their neighbours. They will probably try to put their feet up on the seat in front, take offence if you ask them to tone down, and might get down to abuses, or worst still fist-fights.

Reminds you of someone at work? Probably, yes. These are the colleagues who will be the noisiest of the lot, disturbing others, talking at full volume in an open seat environment, will shout for the pantry boy the loudest, and scold him if he is a tad late at the top of their voices, keep their mobile phones on during meetings and training sessions, will probably not acknowledge you when you’re sitting in front of them, always occupied with their laptops or their mobile phones. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.


The Mr. Pushy

This person is part of your group – angry, loud and impatient and he does not always know why. He will tell you which movie to see, in what seating area, when to laugh, how much to laugh; and God save you if you let out a chuckle instead of a laugh. He may also feel the uncontrollable urge to recommend what you should eat and so on and so forth, only you both know that these are not really ‘recommendations’.

You can pretty much imagine how this person would be in the office, he’s lurking around somewhere near you to find the next person he can control, now get to work before he catches you reading this, or this is the last thing you’ll do in this office! Conversely, they could also be repressed and undermined in the office by others and then they need to find an outlet, and guess what? That outlet is you, next to them in the cinema hall.


The Lost Soul

You know this type when you see him, outside the movie hall he will have a hard time deciding which movie to go for because he’s not really ‘looking’ at the options when he is looking at them… in short – he’s lost. You know why he’s here? He was pulled by someone else who was very interested in watching a movie – this poor guy has no interest in the silver screen, and he is too laid back to say so. You might catch him sleeping or playing games on his mobile inside – unless, of course, the person who pulled him in was his wife – then he dare not. To pretend to be interested in something that you are not is not an art that sits well on most people, but here you are.

In the office, this person will be reluctant to attend stuff that makes up the corporate niceties but can’t stay away – he’s always pulled in by more “corporate” colleagues. You’ll see him sitting in the corner during birthday celebrations and farewells. He will talk when spoken to, and that too in monosyllables. He’s most likely the happiest in front of his computer or immersed in files. He is otherwise a dedicated worked, but finds himself out of depth when he’s out of his comfort zone, his work.

A variant of this is the guy who is totally engrossed in the movie – a lost soul of a different kind. For him, nothing else matters but the make-believe world of the glamour town. He will sniff for clues after a Sherlock Holmes movie, and have a swagger in his walk after an angry-young-man-will-take-on-the-entire-world flick. Watch out for him, he’s looking to pick a fight and he actually thinks he can take on the entire set of fellow movie-goers at that point of time.

At the office, he has the tendency to lapse into a world of his own – he might show up for a meeting he has to present at and then realize that he does not have the presentation with him, or worse he forgot to make one. He might walk into the office loo and then forget why he came there. He might also think that he can battle the “villain” boss in moments of extreme schizophrenia. Hey, give the guy a break, he’s usually harmless.


The Rule Breaker

These are people who come in late and get the tickets by breaking the queue citing “it’s a sort of an emergency” as a reason, then they insist that the seating assistant point the torch at your face, and when they finally sit next to poor you, you first do not realize that they’re intoxicated… you’ve just seen a rule breaker in action. Sometimes they come in groups, like school kids who come in after bunking their classes, change their clothes and try to act mature – only that they’re really not and you can spot them from a mile away by the ruckus they create.

At the workplace, more often than not these people think that they are somehow special, and that the standard rules of conduct and professionalism don’t apply to them – that is it okay to keep colleagues waiting at a team meeting; that is it just fine if you leave an hour earlier without notifying anyone. Rationalization does not help, you will ultimately just have to put the fear of God into them, or if that is not possible than at least the fear of job.


The Mr. Happy to be here

Not everything has to be about negative stereotypes all the time, if you’re lucky enough you will see this person and you will see him having a good time enjoying himself and making others enjoying along with him. They probably have found the holy grail of work life balance and they’re not afraid to show that they have arrived. At the movie hall they’ll be happy to get you food if you’re hungry, and be considerate enough to ask if you’re having a good time and possibly even drop you home after the movie… now don’t take unfair advantage of them!

Needless to say these are the kind of people dream work teams are made up of, they have the capability to turn around a gloomy atmosphere into a lively one and one that is conducive to co-operative work. For a company is only as good as the people it attracts and manages to retain.