Once upon a time, it was your teacher's concern. Parents reprimanded you for it every now and then. Now, prepare to put your handwriting under some heavy-duty scrutiny.
A Mumbai-based SME in the IT-BPO space, a billion-dollar global IT giant in India and a utilities company that belongs to one of India's famous business houses are looking closely at the handwriting of their employees.
But these magnifying-glass wielders would prefer to keep their identities under wraps.
Practising graphology, you understand, is not quite the done thing. At least not openly. Psssst: go ahead and do it, just don't talk about it.
"Our employees or prospective employees are not aware that we follow graphology," says an HR executive at one firm.
"If employees get conscious about their handwriting being tested, they may get conscious and the natural style might never get exposed," says Trupti Patankar, 22, a graphologist from Mumbai who's outfit Maestro Analysis is planning a foray into the corporate world.
Patankar learnt to read into handwriting from the Pune-based expert Milind Rajore while she was still in college. But unlike most of her peers, who are into "personal counseling rather than working with corporates", she chose the path less trodden.
So what do companies expect "graphology" to do? Lend its help in recruitment, internal job postings and even appraisals. "If a company wants to appoint team leaders, through your handwriting companies can find out if employees have leadership skills or not," says Patankar.
Handwriting, it seems, can also be analysed to uncover frauds. She adds, "In case there is a financial misappropriation, companies can analyse handwriting samples and identify the culprit," she says.
The polygraph "lie detector" effect (nervy people get caught out)? Well, not quite, but to similar ends.
Other applications include personality-fit slotting. Companies can find out which employees to assign jobs that require teamwork and which to jobs that demand individual performance.
It can also track if employees have suffered from depression or ever had suicidal instincts in their lifetime. And emotional health plays a role in work performance as well.
"Most attrition takes place in companies because of non-compatibility or because employees cannot sustain the work pressure. By studying the character and thought process through the writing style, we can ensure that each employee gets the right job profile," she says.
Despite such marvels of hand reading (or handwriting-reading), Patankar is playing it cautious in her approach.
"It's very difficult to convince corporates, as many relate it to astrology," she says, "Graphology is science." It's just that such advanced forms of scientific prowess must be exercised in stealth.
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