Desi Dilbert Moments: PTW, Sharma Ji Syndrome & Other Corporate Survival Skills
When I was in Mumbai, someone once shared a saying that was supposedly popular at Reliance:
"Jitna paisa utna kaam, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram."
(Do only as much work as your pay justifies — and leave the rest to divine will.)
It stayed with me. In our professional lives, we often come across moments that, when narrated later, become jokes — memorable incidents that get quoted again and again. I call them Desi Dilbert moments. They're funny, but also painfully true. They surface when you're in a similar situation — and just hearing them makes people smile, defuse tension, and become more open to solutions.
Personally, I’ve mastered this technique in the workplace. It has helped me build stronger connections with colleagues — and more importantly, get things done. 🙂
One of my favourites came from my former boss, Subu, at Jasubhai Digital Media. He once narrated an incident about someone with the surname Sharma, known for creating a crisis and then solving it — just to demonstrate his importance.
Subu called it the "Sharma Ji Syndrome." The name stuck. And it stuck with me.
Even now, in my current role, I often deal with problems that seem too minor to deserve attention. Yet once you’re involved — and before you even reach the root cause — the same person who escalated the issue ends up solving it. If you call them out for overreacting, they justify it with a lecture on “the importance of systems and protocols.”
You know it's a classic Sharma Ji Syndrome moment.
But thanks to the drama around it, we stop short of calling it that. Worse, we sometimes even clap for them — celebrating the “problem solver” who, in reality, was the “problem creator.”
PTW: Pretending to Work
Another term I coined (and I’m proud of this one) is PTW — Pretending to Work.
It originated when I was at Denave.
PTW is a very real, highly practiced, yet entirely unofficial corporate skill.
Sadly, it never made it into any personality assessment framework, despite decades of research.
We’ve all seen it — employees who look extremely busy, yet never seem to deliver anything meaningful. You question their KRAs, review deliverables, conduct check-ins — but everything seems “in progress.” Eventually, with some experience (and some cynicism), you conclude that the person is simply a master of PTW.
Another Classic: "Kam Utna Hi Karo Ki Salary Zyada Lage"
Recently, a friend sent me a quote on WhatsApp that made me laugh:
"Kam utna hi karo ki salary zyada lage."
(Do just enough work to make your salary seem like a bargain.)
It was appraisal season. I shared this line with my team.
They looked perplexed — a bit suspicious even.
Some of them probably saw it as a signal (yes, Signaling Theory 101) that I was hinting at low hikes. A couple of them told me outright:
“No Sir, please don’t say that. We’re working hard and deserve a