Harper Romance Omnibus by HarperCollins Publishers India

Author:HarperCollins Publishers India
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper XXI
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Even after Balwan Singh returned, I couldn’t bring myself to have that conversation about a promotion. It would have made me look desperate – which is exactly what I was, of course.

But one day, when BS seemed to be in a happy mood and I actually saw him practice an imaginary golf swing in the office, I knew I had to take my chance. I tentatively broached the subject. I told him that all my batchmates from MIJ were already earning way more than I was (of course, if you excluded Vishy, the average came down dramatically) and were all designated as manager or general manager or vice president. I hoped I would not have to present my business card to him to prove my case. I doubt if he knew what my designation was, or cared.

The result of my stumbling monologue was a fiveminute silence when I could hear my heartbeat speed up. He just stood there staring at me.

After a while he said, ‘Why don’t you study the designations used in our company and standardize them all? I see some silly designations floating around. That Ramadorai fellow in the factory is called Manager, Managers’ Claims. Which idiot created that, I wonder. We should be in line with all the other companies. Why don’t you study the subject and come back with a modern grade system and designations that will make everyone happy?’

What a clever move. I was now lumped with a huge problem. No matter what designation I proposed, some section or the other would be pissed off and I would be the poster boy for everyone to spit on. Shit!

I called Rascal Rusty and shared the problem with him.

Rusty thought for a minute and said, ‘That’s an easy one. Just upgrade everyone to a designation of the next level. The assistant manager gets redesignated as deputy manager. The deputy manager gets to be manager. The manager will be called senior manager and so on. The only one whose designation should not be changed is the chairman. He probably doesn’t care about it anyway.’

I told him that what the Chairman wanted was a proper study of the grade system and a rationalization of the salary and benefits structure. This simplistic solution of redesignating the entire bunch was not going to help. Above all, the whole thing was simply meant to be an opportunity for me to get a better designation and some more money, it wasn’t for me to rewrite the theory of evolution.

Rusty was unfazed. ‘If you are going to create a grade system that will put all five hundred office staff into five grades from the existing thirty-eight, you can’t win. Just imagine if you and your boss and his boss all went into the same category. You would love it while your bosses would kill you for making such a dumb move. On the other hand, if personnel executive, assistant manager and deputy manager were to be clubbed together as one category, you would be miserable because you would see it as a huge demotion.

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