Meeting Mr Bra!

An office friend shared an interesting incident with me. He and a few others had requested their project manager to release them from the current project as they found it no longer challenging. They were all in IT support and for the last one year they were doing the same task and no learning and growth were taking place. They had their valid reasons. The project manager called the group of disgruntled souls to come and visit him. They went. The manager was busy and asked them to come to his cabin after one hour. They came again. The manager was busy inside chatting on phone. Five minutes, he gestured by showing five fingers. The gang entered after five minutes. The manager asked them to take their seat and asked them “So why do you guys want to leave”? “Sir, we don’t have much work. Besides, IT support gives us very limited learning opportunities”. “Sir we want to go into software development role and so not keen on continuing with IT support”. “Our ratings have remained at the average 3 for the last two appraisal cycles.” They told. The manager stretched his hands sideways and pushed his back and went in a reclining position in his chair. Then after few seconds he sat straight. “Well where do you want to see yourself five years down the line guys?” he asked. “Software development, Business development roles” were the answers. “And what kind of salary growth are you expecting during these five years?” the manager looked at them like a cat, which watches a rat from a far distance before going for it. He had definitely something in his mind. “Sir around 12% growth yearly”, one of them answered. “Absurd. Increase your expectations. You have heard that saying, aim for the stars then you might reach the moon. Increase your ambition fellows. Read Anthony Robbins. Just 12% expectation will get you just 2%. And you know although our company has huge brand name it pays very less. This working life has nothing great to offer you young fellows. Stand up and be different. Get yourself counted among the elite. Salaried class always will remain poor and dissatisfied. Anyway, please come back to me after lunch. Hopefully we will find out a solution”. They left. A lot was going through their minds.

They entered the cabin post lunch. A fat fellow in his mid forties was sitting beside the manager. He looked a bit like the actor Boman Irani. “Friends this is Mr. Sanjeev Bra. He will tell you something very interesting and helpful”, the manager declared. How can a person’s title be Bra? Sanjeev stood up and shook hands with all of them. Then he introduced himself as a senior fellow working for Amway (the famous MLM cosmetics brand) earning more than a lakh every week doing nothing. He started some eight years back when Amway had just entered the Indian market. All he did was recruit five Amway distributors just like him. These five went to add more distributors and the chain kept getting longer. Right now he has more than a thousand Amway distributors under his down line and he keeps getting commissions from the products getting sold by the chain. He has visited US, UK; all expenses paid by Amway. And he requested them to take Amway distributorship by just paying Rs 5500 and then carry the Amway success story forward within the company. They will soon earn like him in lakhs without making much effort. All they have to do was to recruit some more distributors who are good and have good contacts. They will soon go places.

The guys were shocked. What a project manager? They couldn’t say No directly so bought some time to think it over. The Amway fellow wasn’t much happy. He knew these fellows are unlikely to be Murgis (hens). The guys came back. After lot of dilly dally and inspired by fellows like me who want to create a revolution in the world they decided to report this matter to HR. After all it’s against company policy to solicit business inside the company.

The manager’s behavior is understandable. These types of fellows (exceptions are there) who joined the company quite some time back have suddenly found themselves in big positions. They do not have the requisite knowledge to perform in today’s dynamic work environment. So they delegate their work and sit idle reading news papers and chatting away the office hours. And the fault lies with the company management because instead of pushing meritocracy they went with seniority while appointing project leaders. Colonial hangover still continues with the elderly population of India. And lots of these people are in management positions in various companies. So the manager’s mindset was decipherable. But one thing that keeps baffling me is that how can a person’s surname be “Bra”. My enquiry in this matter continues.