A Strange Day Serendipity - part I

I am not sure if it can be called an ‘achievement’. May be ‘accomplishment’ is a better word to describe. Actually it depends on how you see it. Anyway here is the fact. As I swiped my access card this morning to enter the office, I stepped into my sixth year here in this company. I know there is nothing to get excited about this,.. really nothing. I am at least smart enough to know that I will be totally let down if I expect something that would cheer me up here. But it couldn’t have struck my mind even remotely when I swiped my card this morning, the kind of things the day is going to bring to my table as it goes on. It all started with my manager leaving an unusual but an overly cordial smile while walking by my desk. Trust me! That IS strange for the standards of our relationship.

A team from the UK is visiting my office today to review one of the most important project proposals of the recent times. You know, after working in the sales force department so long and working on different project proposals for different customers, I kind of believe that the new projects are not as much important to the customer as they are to the vendors. So be it. For me, it is just another day. That’s the only ‘motivational’ thought, I figured, would get the ball rolling when you work in this kind of a startup company and especially when you work for someone like Moron Kumar. Sorry.. Mohan kumar. Not some kind of a prejudice or anything but I can tell you, the former is more apt and more popular. Except the courier guy and the name-board I don’t remember anyone in the office addressing him as Mohan Kumar.

It is hard to believe what I have ‘sacrificed’ last night for putting together a presentation for the proposal discussion scheduled this noon. I was burning my midnight oil on this presentation and very importantly I could not go to Rajnikanth’s new movie which got released yesterday. Yes. To me, that is ‘sacrifice’ and ‘important’. Something I never wanted to happen again in my life after that fateful summer holidays when I was admitted in the hospital for typhoid. I was in my 5th grade then.

It is my responsibility as the narrator to help you get the clear picture of who MK (Moron Kumar) is and what he does before you get your own opinion. Surely it is not something I like doing but it’s my duty here. Whatever!!
MK is a kind of a manager that no one would ever want to work for but everybody wants to be the manager of. He is as much skillful in pleasing his managers as he is in making his subordinates’ lives miserable. I have been writing the responses to RFPs and creating presentations for him for almost 4 years now. Not once would he let me talk to the customers directly or lead the presentation. None of the documents I have written so far have had my name on them after they reach his inbox. Most of the times I end up sitting right next to the whiteboard during his presentations simply watching the grass grow. (Well, in fact they are my presentations) And I am the only privileged person to hit the enter-key to pull up the next slide when his eyes turn my side. I know, I can really do better than that…

Coming to the serendipity part of the story, here I am.. sitting in my cubicle in front of the computer looking at this email from my sales force head. It reads,

Hi Ram,
I reviewed the presentation shared by Mohan and it looks just fine. There is a change in the plan though.This time we want you to drive the presentation as MK has to look after some dev progress this afternoon.
Sorry for the late notice. I hope this is not a burden for you and you will be willing to take up the offer. MK would have already shared the ppt with you. I am attaching again. You got another 2 long hours to catch up.
Hope you understand the kind of deal we have in front of us. All the best. Come back with flying colours.

Thanks,
Suresh Shinday
Department head, Sales Force.

What can I say? What better chance anyone could ever get when working for MK? 2 hours went like a flash of a second. I don’t even remember what I have been doing for the past 2 hours except one thing. I saw this beautiful girl Akhila from my college joined my project and going to be sitting right in the opposite cubicle of mine. She asked me (never even spoken once in college) to accompany her for the lunch today as this is her first day in the office. Oh boy! Can this day get better anymore?

[ The serendipity continues... wait for Part II ] ... :-)