Corporate Drama...contd

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