Sometimes it needs lot of guts to say no!

I was in a meeting with one of our existing clients at Salt Lake City in Kolkata when I missed two calls on my mobile kept on silence mode. One was from Ms. JC, Executive assistance to Mr. R. K. Ghosh: the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of one multi-national-company (MNC) with head office at Kolkata: Ms. J. C. Thomas.

After an hour or so, when I got free, while driving back to office, I called back Ms. JC who picked up my phone on second ring. She sounded very desperate and tense over the phone. After some formal exchange of courtesies, she came to the point: “Mr. Ghosh wants to know your date of joining Sir, that’s why I called?” I told her that I would get back to them by the week-end and ended the call.

It all started a month back; when I got a call from one HR-Consultant regarding a suitable job opening for me in a very reputed MNC for a senior position, having seen my Bio-data on a job portal. I told him straight-forward that I was very happy with my present job and was not keen to change it, therefore politely turned-down his offer.

To my utter surprise, the HR-Consultant was very smart and kept insisting, motivating and requesting me to at least meet the prospective employer only once for a formal discussion. He also suggested that it would give me fairly good idea about the current trend in the job market and my present worth in the corporate world. And if by any chance, the offer did not suit me or seemed unattractive, I was free to simply walk away by turning down the offer, it was that simple. But I found that whatever the HR Consultant had suggested in the beginning was not correct, right and ethical, it all turned out to be a real problem in my professional and personal life rather than a solution.

Although I kept on postponing the meeting with the prospective employer but I could not find out a suitable exit from the present crisis. Finally, I had to accept the invitation with a very heavy heart. At the same time, the consultant was also very patiently arranging for alternative dates of interview by keeping my convenient day, date, time and venue accordingly.

Thereafter, last week, I got a call from the consultant informing me that the President of the prospective company was coming to Kolkata and would like to meet me on Saturday morning at Hotel Oberoi Grand located at J. L. Nehru Road, Kolkata, over breakfast. On Friday night at 9.00, Mr. R. K. Ghosh, the CEO, would talk to me over phone for a preliminary interview and he hung up without waiting for my consent.

I was wondering, why this was happening to me, when I had not forwarded my Bio-data to them; and then why they were so keen to meet me. Moreover, there is no dearth of good professionals in the market today as the ratio would be 1: 25 or more, then why me? This question kept bothering me for a very long time.

As per schedule, the CEO spoke to me over phone for about half an hour which ended with a positive note. The next day, as per schedule, I met with President too. Surprisingly, I got an offer letter by the same evening through e-mal. The offer was very nicely prepared and included higher position, good designation, handsome pay-package with an additional bonus, 15-day foreign trip immediately on joining, at their various manufacturing units all over Europe, USA, Canada and UK, for formal induction and preliminary training.

No doubt, the offer was very attractive indeed but still I was not convinced, not because I was afraid of change or accepting new challenges or I was not interested in earning more money, better career prospects, new platform where one could have immense potential of learning new management skills, tricks and tools along with totally new environment to work with and perform. In totality it sounded very challenging and full of excitement but still something very important was missing which I could not realize in the beginning.

At the same time, I was working for an Indian company, very happy with my present employment where I was doing a fairly good job, earning decent salary, enjoying my day-to-day work, enhanced my professional qualification, my colleagues were very co-operative, my team has been very dedicated and devoted and quite satisfied with my seniors’ attitude, they being very co-operative and always available for consultation, and the core strength of the management was its strong ethics and corporate policies, where besides clients the vendors, employees, environment, health and safety were also equally important considerations for the management’. And last but not the least; here I have been treated like a human being and not like worker or slave. I strongly feel and believe that I am serving under the management of the best, caring, decent, good, loving, warm and right kind of people, who never does any harm to their employees, clients, vendors, society, country, environment and Mother Nature, ever. I am sincerely working, fully enjoying, very happy and extremely satisfied with my present job, my seniours, work-culture, environment and atmosphere; so is my family.

Later I discussed this issue with my beloved wife, and after listening to the new job-proposal, she simply asked me one question: “Honey, you always treated your job as your second wife, now what happened, don’t you feel that it would be like separating from your second wife? Please answer me honestly?” I was taken aback with her very simple question, which of course, was very relevant at that point of time and also waked me up of my slumber. But I was having no ready answer with me.

Therefore, I started asking more probing questions to myself but in spite of my best efforts I could not find any valid reason and right answer which could convince me or motivate me to take up the new assignment against my present job. It was true that I was thinking more superficially rather than rationally about the present crisis but after giving a deep and serious thought, I felt more attached towards my present job, company and its location (Kolkata), for the first time I realized and understood that how much I loved my second wife.

And today, I got a call from Ms. JC asking me about the date of my joining with them. I was totally confused, disturbed and upset with myself. In the first place, I should not have accepted the proposal of the HR- Consultant. I knew, he was very aggressive, dominating, excited, enthusiastic and pushing type of professional but I should have behaved more rationally, firmly, maturely. I should not have shown any inclination or weakness towards any new job-assignment in the beginning. I know, it’s his job to influence prospective candidates for the new career-opportunity and prospects but that does not mean that I should have jumped in an unknown territory without giving serious thought. After all, it was related to my career, my family and future.

In short, accepting the proposal of the HR-Consultant was my first mistake, attending telecom interview was second, and going for the personal-interview was my third mistake. I should have taken a firm decision after weighing the pros and cons of the proposal and stick to that. No matter how big the offer was, if I didn’t want to change the job I should have enough guts to say a big no to them in the beginning itself.

Finally, the very next morning, I sent one regret letter to my prospective employer for not being able to serve them in this life time and also tendered my sincere apologies for all the inconvenience caused to them in this regard. Later, I also made a call to the HR-Consultant for all his help and assistance with a special request note appealing him not to send me any more interview calls in future or pester me again with another job-proposal.

With Prayers

Gurcharan