A Real Story on Corporate Shamelessness
How much can a man fall down in his virtues, for his own benefits?
I won’t be telling my thoughts here. I am just going to narrate a story of a guy. This story is 100% real and based on actual facts and incidents.
Let us name our guy - Akaash. Akaash is a guy who possesses all those qualities, probably every guy would dream of having - a magnetic personality with charming smile, a perfect face, an attractive and seducing voice, confident attitude, intelligent and innovative mind, enthusiastic, handsome with amazing communication and convincing skills, friendly behavior and many additional qualities.
The only flaw he has is that he is young and inexperienced. The story begins when he was just in the final semester of his MBA in Human Resource Management and happened to get into a new start-up recruitment consultancy at Bangalore, for his on-the-job training.
Why, is this a flaw? You will come to know as the story continues.
So, Akaash went for the interview, which was taken by Maya, the Senior Manager of this new startup recruitment consultancy; let us call it SS recruitment consultancy. He dressed well, in typical business formals. He answered confidently to Maya, the Senior Manager, who took the interview. Without any doubt, he got his first job. He got the offer letter. He left such a powerful impact on the managers that he was offered a salary of almost double, than what others were offered even when they were experienced people than him.
He happily joined the consultancy, and entered the recruitment world. He made calls, sent emails, talked to the clients, got the candidates, convinced people about the job even if the salary they would be getting was peanuts. He worked hard, was happy and well contented with his job. Within a month, for a start up company, he convinced two candidates who get successfully placed in the companies, whereas other experienced people were still struggling with their numbers.
For a startup, SS recruitment consultancy had only 3-4 people in the company. There was no proper office too. They hired a large mansion and made it their office. There was one Assistant General Manager called AA, the senior manager called Maya, our Akaash, 2 more recruiters and one office boy.
Slowly, the days passed and the team began to grow. There were more recruiters now. Maya was a senior manager and a trainer too. With increase in business, came increase in responsibilities. There was someone needed to take the interviews of increased number of candidates. But, since there was no one for this ‘start-up’ company, who could take the interviews, the managers asked Akaash to take up this job and leave the recruitment process of calling and messaging people. Akaash took it as a nice learning experience and began to take interviews of the candidates. He would do that whole day, filter the candidates for the second round and make reports. Without any doubt, he was a success in this too. The Assistant General Manager AA portrayed himself to be very religious man, singing hymns, calling Akaash his younger brother and would always give blessings to him. Maya was also very fond of Akaash. All was going well.
The consultancy began to grow more, and now there were more clients as well. They needed proper teams and team leaders. Akaash had, till now proven to be really efficient and above their expectations in all the responsibilities they had given to him. So, Akaash was asked to lead the whole team of recruiters for some duration of time, which he did excellently.
But, the SS recruitment consultancy needed more people for leading the teams. Also, they had more money now, so they could afford experienced people now. Here came our two more team leaders Pushpa and Asad, followed by one more trainer called Aman. Pushpa was 7 years experienced. Amar and Aman were also 6-7 years experienced in their job profiles. Pushpa and Aman were a couple. Our Akaash was still just 4 months experienced, yet his abilities and achievements and probably the managers’ needs made him to become a team leader of recruiters.
New people came and immediately became friends with Akaash, because of his friendly behavior, and supportive nature. Pushpa’s boyfriend Aman had some troubles with Akaash’s personality and began to feel insecure about Pushpa. However, Akaash showed no interest in her, hence Aman slowly became normal.
Pushpa on the other hand, had issues with her ego regarding her experience. She could not tolerate the fact that a 4 month experienced guy could share the same kind of authority she had in the office. Moreover, she was offended because Akaash didn’t take any interest in her. Anyways, so there began a game in which Pushpa would unnecessarily try to talk rudely to Akaash, which Akaash would avoid to maximum possible extent he could. But, slowly his patience began to wear off, and he started retaliating back, whenever Pushpa would go beyond her limits. Akaash was reporting to the Assistant General Manager AA, so he was not answerable to Pushpa at all. Still, she would try to boss him, and he would retaliate.
Pushpa could see no result of this, so she started another game. She started getting close to the Assistant General Manager AA, both in physical and emotional way. She and her boyfriend started poisoning AA against Akaash, over some petty issues which may or may not be true – no one knows. The Assistant General Manager AA had his own inferiority complex against Akaash, because of Akaash’s personality and appeal. The whole thing agitated him so much, that he also entered the game that was being woven by Pushpa and Aman.
Now, Akaash had already spent his 6 months in the company. He was working well and people loved him in the office. At the end of the month, he got called by the Assistant General Manager AA to his office and was told that he would get his promotion letter of being a team lead soon, so he should start staying on the floor supervising his team instead of spending time on recruitment processes and interviews, etc.
Akaash felt delighted of this role change. He got a dedicated team of 3 recruiters, and he began to guide them about the whole process of calls, recruitments, etc. Slowly the time began to pass, and Akaash’s team was still the highest performance team. But, Akaash was not getting his promotion letter yet. Nor did he get any salary hike. He would ask his Assistant General Manager AA about it, and to that he would get a reply - “We are working on it. We are thinking on it. We will let you know.” Akaash worked well till month end.
On 27th day of Akaash’s seventh month, the SS consultancy director came to Bangalore from Hyderabad for monthly review. The Director stayed the whole day and talked to clients. The next day, i.e. on 28th he, along with AA and Maya called Akaash to their office, and “closed the door”. They asked him about his performance and stay in the office and consultancy. Akaash happily told his experience about his stay, telling about his learning and what all he had gained. He spoke high of his managers, who helped him grow so much in such less time.
Well, to his shock, the director said that Akaash’s managers were not happy with his performance, and he showed Akaash the whole past month report, where his achievements were zero. Akaash got shocked, and told that he was involved in supervising his team and was asked to not get involved in recruitment process. The director and the managers denied this, and simply asked Akaash to either resign from the company or they would terminate them. Akaash was already trying to recover from this. He somehow controlled his anger and said to them that he would resign. He would go back to his seat and send them an email for resignation.
To his humiliation, they asked him to write his resignation, there and then on paper, and hand it over to them. AA and the Director took his resignation. Maya didn’t say a word. Akaash went out of the room and left for the home, already too disturbed to think anything.
Later that night, Maya called Akaash to apologize for the whole situation. She said that her name was taken in the decision by the director, but she was never known about this. They never even consulted her for the feedback. She tried to act casual to him and asked him to forget about such mean people, who could play politics like this.
Akaash didn’t say anything.
Moral of the story: Never accept a change in your job roles, responsibilities and promotion work, without getting a written proof from your management.
This was a true story, and I am really amazed at the meanness and cheapness of humans. I used to think, such characters only existed in movies or stories.
I don’t know how can people humiliate God, by calling themselves God’s man, when they can not respect the same God’s creation and when they have heart and mind of conspiring against good and efficient people like this.
I seriously don’t have any words to say about the conspiracy, but such things really make me feel ashamed of such human beings, who could fall to this extent for their own benefits.
I won’t be telling my thoughts here. I am just going to narrate a story of a guy. This story is 100% real and based on actual facts and incidents.
Let us name our guy - Akaash. Akaash is a guy who possesses all those qualities, probably every guy would dream of having - a magnetic personality with charming smile, a perfect face, an attractive and seducing voice, confident attitude, intelligent and innovative mind, enthusiastic, handsome with amazing communication and convincing skills, friendly behavior and many additional qualities.
The only flaw he has is that he is young and inexperienced. The story begins when he was just in the final semester of his MBA in Human Resource Management and happened to get into a new start-up recruitment consultancy at Bangalore, for his on-the-job training.
Why, is this a flaw? You will come to know as the story continues.
So, Akaash went for the interview, which was taken by Maya, the Senior Manager of this new startup recruitment consultancy; let us call it SS recruitment consultancy. He dressed well, in typical business formals. He answered confidently to Maya, the Senior Manager, who took the interview. Without any doubt, he got his first job. He got the offer letter. He left such a powerful impact on the managers that he was offered a salary of almost double, than what others were offered even when they were experienced people than him.
He happily joined the consultancy, and entered the recruitment world. He made calls, sent emails, talked to the clients, got the candidates, convinced people about the job even if the salary they would be getting was peanuts. He worked hard, was happy and well contented with his job. Within a month, for a start up company, he convinced two candidates who get successfully placed in the companies, whereas other experienced people were still struggling with their numbers.
For a startup, SS recruitment consultancy had only 3-4 people in the company. There was no proper office too. They hired a large mansion and made it their office. There was one Assistant General Manager called AA, the senior manager called Maya, our Akaash, 2 more recruiters and one office boy.
Slowly, the days passed and the team began to grow. There were more recruiters now. Maya was a senior manager and a trainer too. With increase in business, came increase in responsibilities. There was someone needed to take the interviews of increased number of candidates. But, since there was no one for this ‘start-up’ company, who could take the interviews, the managers asked Akaash to take up this job and leave the recruitment process of calling and messaging people. Akaash took it as a nice learning experience and began to take interviews of the candidates. He would do that whole day, filter the candidates for the second round and make reports. Without any doubt, he was a success in this too. The Assistant General Manager AA portrayed himself to be very religious man, singing hymns, calling Akaash his younger brother and would always give blessings to him. Maya was also very fond of Akaash. All was going well.
The consultancy began to grow more, and now there were more clients as well. They needed proper teams and team leaders. Akaash had, till now proven to be really efficient and above their expectations in all the responsibilities they had given to him. So, Akaash was asked to lead the whole team of recruiters for some duration of time, which he did excellently.
But, the SS recruitment consultancy needed more people for leading the teams. Also, they had more money now, so they could afford experienced people now. Here came our two more team leaders Pushpa and Asad, followed by one more trainer called Aman. Pushpa was 7 years experienced. Amar and Aman were also 6-7 years experienced in their job profiles. Pushpa and Aman were a couple. Our Akaash was still just 4 months experienced, yet his abilities and achievements and probably the managers’ needs made him to become a team leader of recruiters.
New people came and immediately became friends with Akaash, because of his friendly behavior, and supportive nature. Pushpa’s boyfriend Aman had some troubles with Akaash’s personality and began to feel insecure about Pushpa. However, Akaash showed no interest in her, hence Aman slowly became normal.
Pushpa on the other hand, had issues with her ego regarding her experience. She could not tolerate the fact that a 4 month experienced guy could share the same kind of authority she had in the office. Moreover, she was offended because Akaash didn’t take any interest in her. Anyways, so there began a game in which Pushpa would unnecessarily try to talk rudely to Akaash, which Akaash would avoid to maximum possible extent he could. But, slowly his patience began to wear off, and he started retaliating back, whenever Pushpa would go beyond her limits. Akaash was reporting to the Assistant General Manager AA, so he was not answerable to Pushpa at all. Still, she would try to boss him, and he would retaliate.
Pushpa could see no result of this, so she started another game. She started getting close to the Assistant General Manager AA, both in physical and emotional way. She and her boyfriend started poisoning AA against Akaash, over some petty issues which may or may not be true – no one knows. The Assistant General Manager AA had his own inferiority complex against Akaash, because of Akaash’s personality and appeal. The whole thing agitated him so much, that he also entered the game that was being woven by Pushpa and Aman.
Now, Akaash had already spent his 6 months in the company. He was working well and people loved him in the office. At the end of the month, he got called by the Assistant General Manager AA to his office and was told that he would get his promotion letter of being a team lead soon, so he should start staying on the floor supervising his team instead of spending time on recruitment processes and interviews, etc.
Akaash felt delighted of this role change. He got a dedicated team of 3 recruiters, and he began to guide them about the whole process of calls, recruitments, etc. Slowly the time began to pass, and Akaash’s team was still the highest performance team. But, Akaash was not getting his promotion letter yet. Nor did he get any salary hike. He would ask his Assistant General Manager AA about it, and to that he would get a reply - “We are working on it. We are thinking on it. We will let you know.” Akaash worked well till month end.
On 27th day of Akaash’s seventh month, the SS consultancy director came to Bangalore from Hyderabad for monthly review. The Director stayed the whole day and talked to clients. The next day, i.e. on 28th he, along with AA and Maya called Akaash to their office, and “closed the door”. They asked him about his performance and stay in the office and consultancy. Akaash happily told his experience about his stay, telling about his learning and what all he had gained. He spoke high of his managers, who helped him grow so much in such less time.
Well, to his shock, the director said that Akaash’s managers were not happy with his performance, and he showed Akaash the whole past month report, where his achievements were zero. Akaash got shocked, and told that he was involved in supervising his team and was asked to not get involved in recruitment process. The director and the managers denied this, and simply asked Akaash to either resign from the company or they would terminate them. Akaash was already trying to recover from this. He somehow controlled his anger and said to them that he would resign. He would go back to his seat and send them an email for resignation.
To his humiliation, they asked him to write his resignation, there and then on paper, and hand it over to them. AA and the Director took his resignation. Maya didn’t say a word. Akaash went out of the room and left for the home, already too disturbed to think anything.
Later that night, Maya called Akaash to apologize for the whole situation. She said that her name was taken in the decision by the director, but she was never known about this. They never even consulted her for the feedback. She tried to act casual to him and asked him to forget about such mean people, who could play politics like this.
Akaash didn’t say anything.
Moral of the story: Never accept a change in your job roles, responsibilities and promotion work, without getting a written proof from your management.
This was a true story, and I am really amazed at the meanness and cheapness of humans. I used to think, such characters only existed in movies or stories.
I don’t know how can people humiliate God, by calling themselves God’s man, when they can not respect the same God’s creation and when they have heart and mind of conspiring against good and efficient people like this.
I seriously don’t have any words to say about the conspiracy, but such things really make me feel ashamed of such human beings, who could fall to this extent for their own benefits.
Wish strength to Akaash, hope he has enough support to bounce back. That's what matters in end.
ReplyDeleteIt hurts and angers me reading this. cant write all that I am going through.If its as real as you say, I cannot imagine being sane going though this.
@DD
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely real, and very fresh too. I was also so angry on the whole situation, that the only place I could find to vent down my anger was my blog. Obviously, I could not use real names here. Still, people need to learn more about the "corporate politics". Sometimes rules, regulations and even audits fail to cover such scenarios. And one is left with nothing but bitter memories and bad experiences to go ahead with, for no mistake of his. Thanks for reading such a long post!! :)
Politics:
ReplyDelete'Intrigue or manoeuvring within a political unit or group in order to gain control or power'
Money,Fame,Power,Ego : All make breeding ground for corruption.They don't go alone.One 'usually' follows other.
Your point in introduction about 'young and inexperienced' may be attributed to the end consequences, but I have seen experienced and elderly people go through worse humiliation, when they have more responsibilities of family n kids.
Nor is it about Start-up or Big Companies; Bigges have bigger problems bigger politics.I believe with your experience you have seen glimpses of it that sufficiently well.
Life is not all roses. Never been.
Hope Akaash makes best of this Life's lesson and get back on his feet with greater vigour and fervor. Be with him, with you he can make a difference.
ciao
I feel sorry for Akash but I don’t know why I am so willing to point my fingers at Akash!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree to Mr. Anonymous because 'young and inexperienced' explains how he became a victim. The other side which I see is; in 90% cases, god never gives pebbles to someone who knows to throw! For me, that explains way Akash became a victim despite having all enviable qualities. You see…god always makes sure that no one gets everything to ensure harmony! :-D
Well, you need to learn the rules to play the game because politics happens everywhere. I won’t call it politics! I don’t know what Mr. AA might have been thinking but just a vague thought that came to my mind was if he disappoints Pushpa and Aman, he will loose two people that too with experience for just one guy who has just few months experience. Of course Akash is brilliant and has proved himself over the past several months but…you know…this is why they say thinking from a boss’s head is tooooo complicated! It has never; it still is not and will never work as per what is written in the books. What makes all of us sure that we won’t do the same thing as Mr. AA in such a situation? I am not supporting him for what he has done but there is a saying, if the petal falls on a thorn or if the thorn falls on a petal, the petal suffers! So the petal should make sure that neither it lands on a thorn nor a thorn falls on it. I could link this to ‘PLAYING-SAFE’ part of your blog page. ;-)
You would probably now ask ‘how could Akash evade the situation even if he played safe’? Well, he cannot! What I meant was, when you understand your surroundings you can see things coming. You would agree that there are probably 100s of DOs and DONTs when you are working in a professional environment and it is very essential to know all of it to have a peaceful life at work. Getting a written proof is one such thing which Akash failed to understand!
Probably we all might be lucky to have never been in Akash’s shoes and that we all had someone to guide us and show how things work in reality (I had few people to guide me and I feel grateful to them). The only message I can write here is: Losing is a way of life. But when you lose, don't lose the lesson! We all make mistakes. The only thing is, when we lose; don’t try to put the blame on someone else. Forget if it was his/her fault and think if there was anything you could have done to evade the situation and that’s when you learn the lesson. If you blame someone, you will never realize where you went wrong! :-)
You are absolutely right. And, that is the reason why I shared the story here. So that, other people don't fall into similar trap. People call me over professional because of my knack of writing emails to everyone instead of calling them on phone..lol..but with guys, sometimes I feel that things get more casual than formal. Even if you feel that something is wrong, you just have some level of trust on the person who has been your boss, has been appreciating you, giving you responsibilities and talking all good about you.
ReplyDeleteAkaash has learned his lesson to never 'trust' anyone, no matter what. Always play the game of your side without any flaws. In one way it was good for him, that he learned this lesson so early in his life. As said by 'Anonymous', sometimes even experienced people get to meet worse experiences. I've known this experience of one of my friend's relative who was a General Manager in a textile company and he got fired off, without any reason, just because company didn't have much funds. There is no limit to injustice.
What I meant to state here about Akaash is that, even if there were some issues with manager and his co-workers, they should not have asked him to resign like this on basis of 'low performance', which was absolutely fake. Mr. AA didn't have guts to say that directly to Akaash, and hence he framed him into a fake report and got it done by the director. This was sheer cowardice and lack of discipline. Anyways, what is done can't be reverted back. I hope youngsters learn their lessons after reading this post and always adhere to "Get it in written" rule, no matter what.