Actually the meeting room is not
boring. The architect has tried his level best to make the meetings as
interesting as possible from his end; probably he knew the purpose of the room
and the people who would be using it. The huge meeting room has good texture
painted walls with yellow and blue lights. In the middle of the wall there is a
huge circle engraved and is written our mission statement Think Money. Think
FICI. Now if any person had money and he/she is sane then FICI should be the
last thing to think of-we have highest brokerage in the market, we have more
number of inactive customers than the active ones, don’t want to spend on
customers but still want new customers and the best part is we are like damads
of the family don’t want to take any responsibility but still want to enjoy the
royal treatment and take credit of anything good happening (which is a rare
case in my company).
I take a seat in the meeting and
the meeting begins. No. I am not the guest of honour, nor it is that without me
the meeting should not start or that I will give some valuable inputs. Its just
that they were waiting that the conference room door should be shut before the
meeting begins and its an unsaid rule of corporate-if you are invited to the
meeting last minute then you have to contribute by acts like- shut the door, make
arrangement of tea in the meeting, jump off from the seat the minute projector
stops working, etc. The lower your designation more times you jump off your
seat in the meetings for different reasons.
The meeting is pretty boring as
its an agency –client meeting. There is this agency who has come up with an
idea of a high profile event for our esteemed customers. Poor guys don’t know
what they have landed in- its like asking a zamindar
who has made his living looting farmers to invest in mall property. Its
difficult to get money from my firm especially for an event like charity
fashion show. I actually started imagining my boss acting like zamindar sitting
in verandah on bed made of wood and nylon strings holding a hukka and just not
listening to the party who has come up with a decent proposal. The scene is
same only difference is we are in AC rooms, instead of bed there are huge
chairs with wheels, there is tea replacing hukka…cigarette would have been the
replacement but I think again the architect foresighted this and put smoke
detectors.
As the modern day zamindar-
peasant exploitation is going on, I am interrupted by vibration of my cell
phone and I realize its not me the whole meeting is interrupted by it. Although
its on vibration still it makes a drilling sound…damn these glass top tables.
Earlier I knew without seeing the msg that who it would be but now I just grab
the cell and open the msg. I should’ve known –someone is offering me flat 56%
discount on LED TV’s. Atleast they are trying to make me happy from their end J
Now that I am disturbed from my
imagination, let me concentrate on the meeting. There should be something I can
learn from it. I’ve seen my boss giving attitude to outsiders- he says if we
are firm on what we say and talk about numbers it adds weight and there are
less chances of getting bluffed. And its always fun to act serious and
authoritative as if you are the only decision maker for this 300 crore
multinational company. I want to contribute to the discussion but I don’t know
what stage these formal wearing, English speaking peasants n zamindars have
reached. I should take that tonic which mom always wanted to give me for better
concentration. I start listening to whats the discussion about. Thankfully its
still at the stage where my boss is explaining the business model of our organization…I
think he started with background of the company right from the history of the
stone fixed at the entrance which has the company establishment date engraved
on it. I share jokes on this with my friend who is not part of the team. She
msgs “ Tell him that brand team was not in place that time otherwise they would
have rejected the stone for the font being non-compliant” I was about to laugh
on the same but I realized I was in meeting and I am trying to concentrate. At
one point of time I was scared that my boss don’t disclose the appraisal system
of the company but to my horror he started telling the story of how he got
promotion this year. For a moment the 2
guys from agency and me, all 3 had same expression : we-are-not-marrying-our-daughter-to-u-lets-stick-to-business.
I again got bored and started
studying the meeting room. Think Money. Think FICI. Seriously if anyone had
money, why would they think of us- they can think of shopping, holidaying in Bangkok,
lavish weddings. If people want to make money they should be thinking of KBC,
winning a lottery, aspire to marry kids of mallya, ambani’s, etc. In any case
they should not think of us, the only person who thought of us and got money is
the copywriter of the creative agency who got this line for us. In the process
of getting that look of concentration I start concentrating on the brown n
yellow wall opposite me. I see some shoe stamps on the lower side and for the
first time I see it so keenly that I discovered its not texture painting. Its
bloody wallpaper. It’s a wallpaper. I want my name on the company website for
this discovery, if not that atleast I want to share it with my friends. With
excitement I pick up my phone to msg them and before I could unlock it and
type, I hear those 3 haunting words- MINUTES OF MEETING.
Blank. My mind is blank. I don’t know
if I heard –“Sanjana will mail minutes of the meeting” but I am sure this occurred
just when I discovered the wallpaper. I looked around the room and I realized yes
it has to be me, I was the junior most person. The unsaid rule again- the lower
your designation, the more intellectual looks u give, the more good looking you are(if you are a female)- the crappiest work you are
assigned-write minutes of the meeting. But I don’t know what was discussed in
the meeting, we are not allowed to give inputs then how can they expect that we
hear everything. I shout in my mind- you cannot trap me like this. We get up
and shake hands- wait, please someone tell me what was discussed.
In return what I get is -Bye. Hope
to hear from you soon. I hate wallpapers L
