A classic and familiar office tale: Meet VP (Vice President) Mojnu. Mojnu bhai, known for his “strict leadership,” has one peculiar habit: never making eye contact.
Let’s begin this serious discussion with two extremely serious incidents, both tragic in their own way. A Sardarjee, celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary, took his highly educated and poetic wife to a posh candlelight dinner.
Eid-ul-Azha was meant to be a lesson in sacrifice, empathy, generosity, and humility. But in our version, it often turns into a festival of flexing, where the size of your cow somehow reflects your spirituality, and the price tag gets more attention than the prayer.
One reason we remain stuck in the slow lane of progress is painfully simple: in Bangladesh, the individual trumps the institution, and the institution trumps the nation.
Meet Imran Bhai. His last vacation was during the 2018 hartal. He thinks “OOO” means “Only On Outlook,” not “Out of Office.” His hobbies include forwarding work emails to himself at 2:00 AM and replying to “Happy Birthday” messages with a Gantt chart. Imran Bhai isn’t alone; he is the unofficial president of Bangladesh’s ever-growing workaholic club.
There is a special breed of professionals in every Bangladeshi office, those who seem to know everything from quantum physics to kebab recipes. They speak with such confidence that even Google starts to doubt itself. But here is the twist: a new study by Stav Atir, Emily Rosenzweig, and David Dunning reveals that the more of an expert you are, the more likely you are to claim knowledge of things that don’t actually exist. Welcome to the glamorous world of overclaiming with “I know it all syndrome” or as we like to call it in Dhaka boardrooms, “Bhai, I already have the idea!”
If you place a frog in cold water and gradually heat it, the frog won’t react; it just adjusts, thinking “I can handle this”. But as the temperature keeps rising, it reaches a point where the frog realises it must escape. Sadly, by then, it’s too weak to jump. It didn’t die from the heat; it died from not acting in time. That’s the “Boiling Frog Syndrome”.
Over a sundowner near the Sundarbans, “Nabila Apa” mocked her nephew’s AI-equipped drone for wildlife surveying, insisting her binoculars and field notes were unbeatable. By dusk, the drone had mapped three islands; Nabila Apa was still zooming in on a single kingfisher. Moral of the story: whether tracking tigers or deer, embracing AI beats binoculars every time.
A Moulana shared a viral story about his childhood friend, an eloquent speaker who became the Imam of a modern mosque in Dhaka.
Years ago, Karim, a skilled fisherman, had a secret trick to catch fish. He would quietly tap the water three times, toss some crumbs, and wait. Like magic, the fish always came.
One of my senior colleagues was a file-hoarding perfectionist, minutely checking every line before approving. His room looked like a paper factory explosion! He also believed everyone was out to stab him in the back, so he trusted no one. When the boss caught him delaying, he would pull a “Chatur from Three Idiots” -- “I didn’t do it!” -- triggering a blame game that turned the office into a daily soap opera of chaos and comedy! Often, I was on the receiving end of that blame game! Trying to be perfect in an imperfect world is like ironing your pyjamas -- hard work that nobody notices, and it’s a waste of time!
South Asia relies heavily on professional accountants for governance, financial transparency, and regulatory compliance and yet the availability of these experts is scarce.
Despite over a decade of investing in Bangladesh’s stock market, I have suffered a 40 percent loss even with a strategy focused on blue-chip shares since 2012. This experience highlights the structural issues plaguing our capital market -- low liquidity, lack of depth, and eroding investor confidence. Addressing these challenges requires bold, immediate measures grounded in global best practices tailored to local realities.
In the viral Millennial Job Interview, young applicant Amy brings an unconventional view of professionalism that confuses her interviewer. Listing Snapchat and Instagram as her “tech skills”, she dismisses traditional tools like Excel, labelling Facebook “for old people.”
Every year on November 10, the world recognises International Accounting Day, celebrating the essential role accountants play in ensuring financial stability and growth across economies.
Motivating employees is tantamount to convincing a fish to walk. While managers shout, “reach for excellence!” we reach for a cup of tea after braving Dhaka traffic to work. They say, “think big!” but our minds are counting down to the next public holiday. And “give it your best!” sounds great until someone realises “the best” had left at 5:30pm sharp. Let’s face it, the only motivation that really works here is Thursday afternoon, when we clock out and finally escape the inspiration overload!
Human resources (HR), once the department that handled payroll, kept track of who took more sick days (or less), and planned those awkward team-building retreats where you felt you would rather be anywhere else -- is now expected to do a lot more than just decorate artificial plants inside the office.
Bangladesh’s digital infrastructure services -- towers, fibre networks, submarine cables and data centres -- have all the potential but sadly, it is buried under layers of mismanagement and corruption.
