Memoirs of a Corporate Being

Suddenly, yesterday afternoon an ex-colleague got active in my mind after lunch. He had to, since I am a Business Development Manager cum Account Manager cum partial HR person who never gets out of office (During interview this part of the job sounded more attractive to me) interact with clients via IM, Phone and Emails and currently two months away from the next salary review.

So keeping with the frantic pace of my co-workers’ professional activities (Everybody gets lively during this time of the year including the CEO), I got down to my work. First thing to do was to think through the situation.

I have acquired a deal for the company (Playing my part as a Business Development Manager) where the client will pay USD $$$$ per month for at least 3 months. Our company has to provide the customer with service of 6 copywriters on a monthly basis.

Good Thing: New Order; CEO is Happy; Client has paid 50% for the month in advance
Bad Thing: New Order and No Resource; CEO is Unhappy; Client has paid 50% for the month in advance and we have gleefully signed a contract with him

I am the Account Manager so one part of my duty is to move around the various departments of the company with a saintly gesture providing my feedback to Project Managers and hunting for some potential worker for new project. (Obviously they have to manage that while working on their previous assignments :))

Good Thing: Someone might volunteer; Less Cost to Company; CEO is Happy
Bad Thing: This someone might be convincing in words and not in action; Project Fails and Client is Unhappy; CEO is Unhappy

I am the Partial HR (My immediate boss Plugged in this attribute inside my system last year during my appraisal) and its time to use my connections. Immediate news from the Full Time HR about the hiring is:

We have identified the 6 Copywriters
4 have agreed to join but their writing skills have to be duly tested (The pretty HR assured me that they have been ruthlessly screened by the CEO’s nephew and obviously they are his friend)

So the bottom line is, by any cost CEO should not be unhappy and its time to get into my HR shoes.

Quite evidently, an ex-colleague got active in my mind after lunch. We met each other some five years back when we were fresher in this Industry and were planning to open a Rock Group with a difference. Things did not work out too well (That’s an understatement!) as he left the job after 5 months. The reason he provided was that it’s difficult for a creative person to wake up early and come to office since it limits the horizon of his artistry. We were in touch for few more months, before he forwarded a job offer in my official mail account (There had been rumors that something provoked him and some were bold enough to spell my name as if they were answering some Objective Type Question in an Examination!) and as a result we had some mental and physical abusing sessions where I came out triumphant. I don’t want to elaborate it any further as it would be like blowing my own trumpet.

Anyways, that’s past and in the last 12 hours, I have gathered some significant information about him.

Right now, he does not work in any company. (This is relevant)
He does some Freelancing (One of his close acquaintances told me that currently he is looking for a fixed income)
He does have a weird inclination of keeping strange creatures as pets and lately he is having a... (This is not new to my ears. He once possessed a pet snake)
The most important thing at this moment is that this guy writes brilliantly and still does so!

So I decided to spring a surprise and visit him physically. Locating his house was not difficult. He was not available, so I started a discussion with his father. He told me that I am fortunate that we met as they have shifted to another place sometime back. So who is staying in this house? This was my obvious question. He mentioned my friend’s name. He stays in this part of the house rest is rented. I was silent. He added that his son refused to leave. After half an hour he left.

I waited for an hour and then he entered. To describe it precisely, there were two of them. One was two legged and the other was four legged. Feature wise they were different but their facial expression and movements were peculiarly similar. They started to move towards me. I tried to remember something which I read sometime back in Wikipedia:

‘The Rotweiler or Rottweil Metzgerhund ("Butchers Dog"), is a "medium to large size, stalwart dog" breed originating in Germany as a herding dog. It is a hardy and very intelligent breed. Rottweilers also worked as draught dogs, pulling carts to carry livestock to slaughter, meat and other products to market. Some records indicate that earlier Rottweilers may have also been used for hunting’

They were close and … Well that is another story!