India, Aug. 24 -- It is late at night on a Friday. The street near the desolate office building is empty. This is the non-70-hour work week business district. Office workers have clocked out early, to get stuck with the thousands who also clocked out early, proving that Friday night traffic is governed by Game Theory. The security guards at the office gate - utilising the relative calm - are sharing banter with the housekeeping staff. One of them has cautiously lit up a beedi. At a distance, the designated chai tapri (tea stall) is winding up for the day. The tapriwaale bhaiya - that's the trade-name - is unhooking the never-ending strips of gutka packets hanging over a thread. He still has to wait for his last customer - standing six feet away, in formal wear, uncomfortable-looking leather shoes and a blue lanyard around his neck with the plastic ID card safely tucked in his shirt's front pocket. He's smoking his bi-annual cigarette, alone, staring into nothingness, lost in thought - an island of storm in the surrounding calm. Something has gone wrong. Bhaiya is used to this. He is the silent therapist for many such boardroom casualties. Usually, Friday evening is when the human resources department delivers bad news to an individual, so that he takes two precious days to recover from it at the expense of his weekend. Also, if he wishes to tender a resignation, the notice period kicks in from a Monday and not a Friday, thereby saving two more days for the company. Maybe, our guy had an altercation with the boss. While he is gazing into nothingness, he is probably thinking of all the fitting responses he could have given to his superior's jibe, but stopped short due to the weight of his responsibilities, with the job market not being good as well. How much could he have given back while keeping his self-esteem semi-alive? Will he lose face on the floor for being a pushover? How will he face his colleagues after the news of his purported humiliation leaks out of the conference room? Workplace friendships are fleeting, they depend a lot on common misery. It's like a bond you develop with other prisoners; the day the misery of your compatriot ends and he escapes, you will have to look for other victims to bond with. Or maybe you will face it alone, late at night, near a chai tapri. All such battles are won in hindsight - while driving, in cold showers, or at 2 am in the night while you are struggling to sleep. Jobs are tough. One big issue with corporate life is the useless stress inducers it throws at you. Exhibit A: How can a guy who's a batch junior to me be at the same designation as I am? In a dog-eat-dog world, people still look for outdated concepts like batch parity. Such stress is non-productive, but occupies your mind-space. A businessman can call a younger person "Sir" or "Boss" to sell his stuff. But a corporate guy can never report to his junior no matter how big the compensation is. It is crazy how a non-material issue can change the course of your corporate career. Another key issue is having a boss with an ego as fragile as the current Indo-US relationship. One joke you cracked at his expense, at a house party four appraisal cycles ago, is remembered and is used to ruin your one calendar year of weekends. If the super-boss likes you, and your boss doesn't, it is a career long Mercury retrograde. "He is a talented guy, just that we are not able to utilise his talents well," your boss would say in a talent calibration meeting where they eventually decide against your promotion. Bad bosses are a boon to a growing economy. They contribute the most by pushing talented individuals out of corporate slavery to start their own ventures and create jobs. You complete your last day, put out a heartfelt yet needlessly long LinkedIn post, where you thank the ex-bosses you missed, tag the current boss covertly in a cloud of other colleagues and claim excitement about the journey ahead. All co-workers give a thumbs-up to the emotional Linkedin post where you announce your venture, which gets 100+ comments. Everybody wishing you the best are also waiting for your eventual misery, to feel good about their recurring monthly salary and its certainty. Truth be told, only 1% of ventures survive. Most such adventurers are found pinging their litany of ex-bosses for suitable opportunities at the same salary they left. Entrepreneurship is tough too. But your 2 am battles aren't about words, they are about numbers. Such razor-sharp focus is what helps in life....