Who is the smarter one?

My colleagues walk into the office between 9am to 9.30am although working hours are from 8.30am to 5.30pm. Recently it use to be between 9.30am to 10.30am. Yes, one of them (we will call him T1) will only waltz into the office at10.30am. If he sees that the manager saw him entering the office or is within earshot he will loudly claim that he had to go to a client's site earlier, knowing that the manager would not check since they are on good terms. Oh yes, no matter what time he came into the office, he leaves it at 5.30pm sharp. Doesn't matter if he had a long lunch that day. Lately though, he waltzes in between 9am to 9.30am as it seems that his relationship with the bosses are not as great as before. He still leave early for lunch and leave the office at 5.30pm sharp.

His good friend, another colleague here (we will call him T2), also waltzes into the office at between 9am to 9.30am. T2 does the same routines, leave the office early for lunch, leaves the office at 5.30pm sharp.He is the blue-eyed boy as he is the manager's favourite. It is easy to be a manager's favourite, all you need to do is practice blind obedience to the manager. T2 resigned from the office but re-joined the company after a few months. This pleases the manager very much as it is difficult to get another person with the required skills. Always work in pairs is the manager's motto, which means that he always have 2 persons possessing the required skills in any one team. Since his return, T2 has changed.

He has found new strength in his comeback. After all he had a big increment when he left and another increment when he re-joined, all within the few months. His status is elevated, he knows where he stands in the manager's eyes so now he dictates how things are in the office. So what if the other colleague who has the same skills is his team leader, he will only talk to her if he needs her help otherwise he will sit at his own cubicle and talk to the other colleagues. Other than that, he does not have to tell her anything. He does not tell her when he is going on leave, or when he is on emergency leave or medical leave. He will only inform the manager. So what if she asked him to let her know. Her reasons are because that is what team members do as team members are the first persons affected by other members' actions. Well, T2 will do as he pleases. She is the one who will look bad when she could not tell the users where he is on those days. Even when he is going out for early lunch, he does not tell her. So what, if she has to go around the whole office looking for him.

T2 has asked the manager to let him learn some new skills and it has been approved. On top of that, he will be involved in other projects. Since work is according to his terms, he does not let her know either. Furthermore, the manager condones it. These are only some of the advantages of being on good terms with the manager.

His daily routine is waltz into the office at about 9.30am. Go out again in about 10 minutes to buy his breakfast. Back to the office to eat his breakfast. Jokes with some colleagues after breakfast followed by a trip to the staircase for the first of their many smoking sessions for the day.

These sessions could last anything from 15 to 30 minutes usually, although it lasted longer than that at times. They usually last longer when the manager is not in the office. It would be almost 11am by then. When he is not spending his time addressing users' issues, the rest of the time is spent on friendster, facebook, surfing for songs, chatting with friends on the msn. What else could a person ask for in a job. Perks for being an obedient 'dog' to the manager.

But what about the colleague who did not resign? Well, she didn't get any big increment, neither does she get any new skills training nor projects. What she got is being the only team leader who was not included in an in-house training for all team leaders. This is what faithfulness begets. The advantage given to her is that she does the other work besides addressing users' issues, and they include database backup and restore, maintaining all 7 servers including the disaster recovery server, implementing in-house issues reporting procedure, liaising with auditors, among others.

So, who is the smarter one, the obedient or the faithful?