A new book on self-development offers tips on how to stand out and lead in the workplace

I always found Vignesh extremely annoying. There’s no polite way to say it. I haven’t changed his name here to protect anyone because, frankly, Vignesh shouldn’t get any protection. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of “characters” in every workplace, but he was special. Vignesh and I both led marketing for different denim brands in the same company, which meant that my workdays came with a side order of frequent sightings of the patron saint of corporate enthusiasm.

He was the human equivalent of a motivational poster, permanently in your face, always smiling and utterly unavoidable. The kind of person who clapped first in meetings, laughed the loudest at the CEO’s jokes and could recite the company’s mission statement like it was holy scripture. If HR organised a “compulsory fun” activity, he was first in line. At the annual town hall, he was the emcee, talking about how we were one family. Yuck.

In every group photo, there he was: front row, victory sign, annoying grin. Even the toughest-to-please leaders at the company would shake their heads and mutter, “Vignesh, such a good boy”. And yet, despite his overwhelming charm offensive, I found him deeply and profoundly insufferable.

Then, one fine day, Vignesh decided that being in our faces wasn’t enough. He wanted to be everywhere.

I was doom-scrolling through LinkedIn when I saw it: Vignesh’s punchable face on my feed. The post? A long piece on how a broken coffee machine taught him resilience. Yes, resilience. The post was sprinkled with the right amount of fake humility, a selfie that would go well on a dartboard and a moral to tie it all together. Yet, it had somehow scored 30,000 likes and a barrage of comments like “This hit me hard” and “You’re inspiring, Vignesh”. I was tempted to fling my phone across the room, but I did what every self-respecting adult would do here: I refreshed the post obsessively, silently hoping that the likes and comments had plateaued. They hadn’t.

Every morning, like an unskippable ad, Vignesh would pop up on my LinkedIn and X feed, shelling out wisdom like “10 Digital Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Big Boss” or some other equally tortured analogy. Annoyingly, people were lapping it up. My colleagues discussed Vignesh’s “insights” with reverence usually reserved for people with brains. Every like, comment and water-cooler discussion of his videos felt like a personal affront.

Then came that Wednesday evening, when at 5.09 pm. Outlook’s annoying notification chirp announced the arrival of “the email”. It was from the business head who casually wrote, “Harinder, can you temporarily take over Vignesh’s responsibilities? He’ll be accompanying me to Pitti Uomo next week.”

I crushed the Coke can in my hand. Pitti. F*cking. Uomo. The marketing mecca for people in the menswear industry, a Super Bowl of fashion held in the chic streets of Florence, Italy. It was a dream work trip for anyone, let alone the guy leading DIESEL’s marketing (me). I was fuming from my ears.

I stormed into the business head’s office (okay, I politely knocked and then timidly stepped inside) and asked him why the hell had I been passed over. He looked up from his laptop, gave that classical managerial shrug and then said, “Look, your proposal was really great. But we were hoping to meet some important people there and squeeze some PR juice out of this. Vignesh just checks those boxes better. The CEO really likes all the stuff he’s been sharing online. Maybe he doesn’t know you as well. Vignesh’s just … out there more. He’s got presence.”

Presence, he called it. I called it f*cking bullshit.

Vignesh? That brown-nosing clown who joined a year after me? Whose main skill was talking about his work rather than actually f*cking doing it?

Walking out of his office, I felt the sting of anger and humiliation. This wasn’t just a lost opportunity; it was a cold, hard slap on my face from Mother Reality. In that moment, I truly understood: being good at what you do, even being brilliant at it, means absolutely f*cking shit if your name isn’t being taken in a room full of opportunities. It is meaningless if they don’t remember you or your presence.

I always believed that if I worked hard, kept my head down and delivered great results for my brands, people would eventually notice. And I wouldn’t have to “put myself out there” or post about leadership lessons from office appliances. My work would speak for itself, right? I was wrong and delusional. My work didn’t speak, or even whisper, beyond the 4–5 people who saw it on most days.

I was comfortable in my obscurity, paying a price I didn’t even know I was paying. In missed opportunities, muted hikes and God knows what else. A price I now call the Professional Anonymity Tax. While I quietly toiled away, Vignesh was tap-dancing in the spotlight, climbing the ladder two rungs at a time, even as I was holding it steady at the bottom, believing that someone would notice my hard work. He frequently spoke up in meetings with half-baked ideas, whereas I kept even my brilliant ones to myself until they were “perfect” (and by the time they were, someone had pitched something similar and gotten credit).

The drive home that night felt different. I slammed my foot onto the accelerator and heard the engine’s growl (or whatever you call the sound of a protesting 2013 Ford Ecosport). From this moment onward, everyone who mattered, even those who didn’t, would know exactly who the f*ck I was and exactly what I brought to the table.

A fire ignited in my gut. This was f*cking war.

And the enemy wasn’t Vignesh or the CEO, it was every myth about being humble and competent, quietly working hard and praying to be noticed.

F*ck Anonymity. F*ck waiting for recognition.

From now on, I wasn’t just going to do great work, I was also going to goddamn make sure everyone knew that I was doing it.

Excerpted with permission from Who the F**k are You: A Polite Book about Finding Your Unfair Advantage and Making it Impossible to Ignore, Harinder Singh Pelia, Penguin India.