PFMS Crown

It was Valentines Day of 2014 when Nivya Chettiar told us (me and Sandipa Veldandi) that she has put papers. What a day to break up with Asian Paints! Now since she is leaving, the HOTO sessions were sure to begin. I was aware that now the PFMS crown was going to be placed on my head. Ravindra took things which didn't include Portal technology. PFMS is Performance Focus Management System which has all the goals of employees and at the year end there are appraisals and ratings.  All the salary increments are based on this. So as rightly said by Aditi Gulati, my manager, I had to handle the most crucial and confidential system at the critical point. She explained all the dos and don'ts. She was always more of a friend than manager; both I and Ravindra had the same thoughts. When the crown was put on my head, little did I know that it’s going to be hilarious as well as tedious experience! The HOTO started with knowing the application; it was playing with xml and database. The data was very important so I kept the backups every alternate day. The support thing started with elixir tickets, mails of issues, team viewer sessions with users, sametime chats and the phone kept ringing all the while. I also had to miss 6.50pm train; texting Vidya Shinde that I won't be able to catch it. At a certain point I was so frustrated that I almost threw the phone on Ravindra. There were tit-bits on how to solve the issue raised due to one L&D question. Let the owner decide what to do with the application. Like Hanuman calls Jai Shri Ram; here I was calling T Sriram for understanding the issues. Maximum of the crowd had completed with End Term Self Appraisals; putting in details what all they have done for the year.  Now it was End Term Review and the ratings were put by the Reporting Managers. Countless laptops touched my desk and when it came to the rating page; those went on the red chairs. The real fun started now. My friends on the floor tried every possible way to know their rating! Talking to me in person, on chat, on calls, doing all the buttering and what not! Even Aditi asked jokingly, "Whats the count of rating requests!” Anyone can get tempted to know it; but I already had enough with this system to do such searching. I literally went blind on the names; what I cared of was just the employee code. And I also have self made principles which kept me away from doing such business. The thought of making money did strike my devil mind, "Want to know your rating? Give this amount!” But the angel in me always super imposes the devil from doing wrong. The next set of hilarious incidents was with managers. Some of them wanted the ratings to be changed. So they called up and requested for the change. I said I will route back the PFMS phase; then you change the rating. There were a few smart ones who replied, "There will be a ratings table in backend. Just change from GA2 to GA1." Again the business came in devil mind! Now I updated Aditi with the count of rating change requests which I didn't do from backend. The next hilarious scene was on Pre-Moderation phase. Ramesh Nair Sir came to my desk and actually gave demo of the issue. He was the first person to do with this phase. When he selected the rating from the drop down; it showed in the graph but the rating got vanished from the drop down. Oh My God! I was thinking now what am I gonna hear! But he just said, "Fix this issue. I want to finish it today itself". Done with all the phases; I heaved a sigh of relief! But this wasn't over yet. Now the reports: I had to develop a new report for the Critical training question; which was in demand as most of the HRs were following up on it every single day. Finally the PFMS cycle was done and I removed the PFMS crown from my head; feeling light and laughing on the overall experience!