I have received an offer for a new job last week itself but I was not in a position to decide whether to accept or reject it. Moreover, it had always been a tough task for me to choose between my existing employer and the new master. It’s equally true that in new environment one has to start afresh and prove his credit worthiness, performance and strengths again with positive attitude, right-capabilities, strong will power, high degree of confidence, strong-inner-strengths and credit worthiness; no matter how difficult, hard or tough it may sound; in the beginning what matters the most is the performance of a new candidate. During the first six months of the probation period, where the new candidate is treated as a stranger and an outsider, everyone looks at him with curiosity, probing eyes and suspicion. Besides, every word, action and deed of the new comer is being looked upon with much curiosity, concern and caution. After induction, one is known only by the achievements he brings on board and the personal likes or dislikes takes a back seat. Moreover, in any new job the primary responsibility of a new employee is to achieve the targets of the company; while keeping the company’s mission, motives, objective and perspective in mind while keeping high moral, strong ethics and value system; and last but not the least, in any given situation keeping himself away from the office politics, by all means.
I was not very keen to join a new company but the person who had invited me to work with him is very close to me personally and professionally. As a matter of fact, we have worked together in my previous company at Kolkata where I was working as a Regional Head and he was the General Manager-Marketing based at Mumbai. First time, we had broken all past sales records by selling the entire depot-stocks of building materials before the year-end (31st March), which had never happened in the past.
At 11:30 PM night when I called my boss and told him about the depot stock which was finished, he could not believe it at the first instance and his spontaneous response was: “Is it true, what about the payment?” I informed him that everything was sold against our Cash & Carry scheme. He simply said congratulations and hung the phone.
I was a bit surprised with his cold response; but never mind, I coolly shrugged my shoulders and moved ahead to send the official e-mails to my seniors for immediate dispatch of fresh stocks of materials. The entire branch office and depot staffs were on their toes and had worked very hard for last couple of days to fulfill our mission. It was our well organized plan and appropriate sales strategies which became very successful and hit. Tonight, we were left with nil stocks; we were the largest manufacturers of this particular building materials in the country and in any given situation, 100 metric tons of stock used to be there in the depot for catering the entire eastern zone which included Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and North-Eastern States. After billing to all the eastern states Dealers we left out with 32 metric tons of materials more which were mainly in small batches of old design and unpopular colours; everyone in our team was looking at me with doubts and was not convinced with our sales promotion scheme. Except our depot manager, but still, they took the challenge and started contacting small builders in and around Kolkata, Howrah and 24-pargana areas and accepted even small orders against cash and carry scheme. And finally on the night of 31st, we achieved what we had planned and the last consignment was dispatched from our depot at 11.30-PM night, leaving behind nothing in the stock.
I was driving on my way home when I got a call from Mr. R S Menon: my Boss that he was arriving by the next day morning flight and I must meet him at Kolkata airport. I was amazed, stunned and worried thinking that, what might have happened and why he was arriving so soon; moreover, he had also not told me the objective of his visit which was not usual, because he never does anything without any objective, purpose and planning; but this time he had not shared his plan with me. Never mind, I put the car into top gear and moved towards my home.
Mr. Menon’s flight from Mumbai was right on scheduled time; I reached Kolkata airport and on the run way his flight landed. Within next 10 minutes, I saw him walking straight from the arrival gate towards me and first statement he made: “Good morning, great job done and accept my congratulations”. First time he hugged me and patted me on my shoulders. He told me to take him to the office first. I advised him to go to hotel because office will be opened at 9.30 AM and it was only 8:15 AM in the morning. But he was not ready to listen and asked me to drive him straight to the office. Somehow, I did not like his instruction, I thought, he might doubt my words and wanted to cross check whether the stocks were actually sold out or not. On our way to office, I called my depot manager and requested him to come to the office early.
We had to wait for just a few minutes and the depot manager arrived and opened the office. We were having our depot and office at the same premises and by ten o-clocks the entire sales, depot and back office staff were present in the office. Mr. Menon first visited the depot and after thorough inspection he instructed me to get the depot repaired and painted before arrival of the fresh stocks. Later he sat down with our accounts officer and checked the stock-ledger, accounts books, invoices and payment details. Finally after 12.30-PM he announced company lunch for the staff and declared half day off after the lunch; later he personally thanked every member of our team along with one box of Bengali-sweets each.
Immediately after lunch Mr. Menon wanted to leave for the airport, because his return flight was scheduled at 4.30-PM. While driving back to the airport, Mr. Menon told me the objective, purpose and reason of his sudden visit. It was the Company President and his immediate boss who was having some doubts about depot stocks; hence he had to rush to Kolkata for confirmation in such a hurry. Mr. Menon seemed to be very comfortable, pleased and relaxed and he also promised me a handsome increment with promotion during our annual sales conference which would be held in the month of April. As he promised, I was promoted to the post of Marketing Manager with a very good increment and handsome perks.
We both worked as a very successful team and understood each other so well. He always wanted me to join him at Head Office but I was not very keen to go to Mumbai. And one day I got the news that he has resigned and moved to a big Multinational company from Building material segment, as a Vice President (Sales & Marketing) with a handsome pay-package.
This incident was more than ten years old and in between we constantly remain in touch with each other and suddenly one day Mr. Menon called at my residence, because he was not getting through my mobile number and left a message for me to call him back at the earliest, stating it to be very urgent. During that period I was on an official tour to north eastern states and on my return my wife told me about Mr. Menon’s call. I immediately called him back on his mobile number, within the third ring he picked up the phone and said: “Where were you Charan?” He was the only person who used to call me by this short name and I also used to enjoy it because it gave me a deep sense of belonging and I used to feel wanted.
He advised me to forward my current CV and salary details at his personal e-mail id; somehow I could not say no to him and half-heartedly forwarded all the relevant details. After three rounds of interview with the HR Head and the Chairman of his company, I was offered a job of General Manager (Sales) with head quarter at Delhi, along with company flat, car and good pay-packet.
I was not feeling very comfortable with my present state of affairs and I was cursing myself for buying the present crises by accepting Mr. Menon’s job proposal at the first place. I was well settled in my present job and had spent best years of my life in my present company at Jamshedpur; I was doing extremely well and having excellent relationship with my clients, senior management staff and my team members. I was being looked after by my the management so well that I could not find a single logical reason of my resignation to offer to my immediate boss.
Neither was I having any justification nor any solid reason of my resignation. If I think logically, rationally and reasonably, I must not resign at the first place, simply because, I am well settled, enjoying my job very much, my family is very happy and my daughters very studying in the best school; we have made good friends and were also having the support of our relatives, who were living in the same city.
Although my wife did not say anything but I knew it, she was also not very keen to shift to Delhi with our grown up daughters. But I was thinking emotionally rather than rationally. I was literally listening to my heart and not mind and finally informed my boss about my decision of leaving my present job with a very heavy heart. As expected, he did not like my submission and told me to give it a serious thought and called me the next day evening for further discussions on the subject. Although I have categorically told him that I have not submitted my resignation for the sake of bargaining or negotiations, I have no problem with the company, job profile or my present emoluments, I simply wanted to quit. He was not at all convinced with my reasoning and felt very bad with my unprofessional approach and unwarranted decision. First he never expected such an act from me second he had never thought that I will be so adamant, stupid and upfront in taking such a suicidal decision. Later he informed my decision to the senior management team. As expected, the HR head called me first and later our Business Head; both of them very calmly listened to my emotional reasons and stupid logic's which could not sound convincing to them at all.
At the same time they did not want me to feel hurt or get upset, therefore, after long hours of meetings and discussions, finally they promised to forward my resignation to the Chairman Sir who was out of the country at that point in time and requested me to wait till he came back to India. Meanwhile, they also advised me to give a serious thought about my decision and suggested me to drop the idea of leaving the company for the time being, if possible.
Sometimes in life it so happens that our mind drives us towards one direction and our heart pulls us to another, almost different route altogether and we remain stand still at the cross roads of our lives where, on the face of it, all the roads and directions look similar but the actual destination can be reached only if we can put our right foot forward towards one direction, but which way to go, only the time will know the right answer.
With Prayers
Gurcharan
