Corporate Comedy

‘What kind of work is this?’

‘Is this how you attend to an escalation? Are you not supposed to analyse the complete case, converse with the customer, login to their system and check the details?’

Her manager had blurted it out all in a single breath.

‘Sir….. I had tried doing that. However, with the given troubleshooting options I was unable to figure out the solution. Even the other system was not responding. Hence I …….’

‘I don’t want an explanation!!’, her reporting manager interjected and walked away.

Sonali wanted to explain the entire situation but the truth was, she actually had no explanations. She knew it was her mistake! But it was certainly not her intention to make a mistake. More so, her manager was in such high temper that his indignation would not allow her to speak at all. Needless to say, that keeping quiet was the best option.

However, her mind and heart were craving to blast out her frustration. She walked back to her seat, grabbed her mobile and punched her sister’s number. Her manager’s anger was done. But what about her anger and justification? Her mind was absolutely preoccupied with that. Sonali was a technical support engineer and was in charge of the maintenance of allotted clients’ servers. And, in complete sincerity to this responsibility, she had tried doing a server reset to check whether it worked this time, since all the other options had failed by then. However, this lackadaisical approach had deleted the data which was stored in the server. Off course, there was a cloud backup for survival. Technical firms always had the intellect to maintain that! But that backup server was currently featuring as ‘inaccessible’. This had led to the end client calling her manager for a report. And, it was that which had lit the fume to the fire.

All this verbal thrashing had disturbed her enough to share this happening with someone so that she could burst into tears. She dialed out to her sister, knowing that she would be able to blurt out the entire incident nonchalantly and this would make her vent out her frustrations and hence make her feel much better.

‘I’m in a meeting. Can you please send me a mail or message if it is something urgent!’

‘I…’ Even before she could mention anything, the call stood disconnected.

‘Off course, it was not her sister’s fault. What could she do? She was at work too!’, thought Sonali.

In the corporate world, divulging your annoyance to fellow colleagues was too risky to be ventured into. Writing a mail to her sister did not sound like a good option. But it wasn’t bad either. It would certainly make her feel lighter.

‘Hey……..my boss yelled at me today for something, I wasn’t aware would wreak a havoc. And that too as if I had made a mistake knowingly. What does he think of himself?...............................’

The mail went on for one page with every badgering remark and all wrapped up in slang. Sonali’s eyes were teary by the time she had completed her written vengeance. This venting out of all her annoyance brought her a lot of respite. She was feeling much more relaxed now. She conveniently typed the first letter of the email and being swayed by her reprieve, chose the first name which popped-up in her mail and pressed the crime button, ‘Send.’

Why would she do that? Well, that is what becoming over-emotional does to a person…..Cap the intellect. And this happens maximum, during temper!

Even before she realized her blunder, the mail had already reached the lion’s den, her reporting manager. Shutting down the laptop would not help nor would unplugging the LAN cable. Technology had come a long way. It was lightning fast. Her manager walked to her seat in no time.

‘Sonali, can we speak?’

‘Yes Sir!’, she gasped.

Her manager led her to a meeting room. Sonali followed him quietly. She knew, no explanation would help her now, especially given the words she had penned down. They entered the meeting room and there was pin drop silence. She knew this was the end of her career.

‘Sonali, I want you to understand that just like you, I need to answer to my managers as well. I understand your irritation but imagine what I would have faced when I had talked to my manager this morning! The customer had complained of careless maintenance of his system. This not only raises a finger on your capabilities but also points a finger on the entire team. My intention was certainly not to disturb you so much but to understand the gravity of the situation. Are we in good terms now?’

Her manager forwarded his hand for a shake.

‘Yes Sir!’ came a bleak response.

Sonali shook her hands with a startled expression. What his manager had just spoken had actually not sunk in effectively. Her manager had walked out of the room before she could completely comprehend what had just happened.

Sonali was taken over by an absolutely unexpected, completely unusual, pleasant surprise. The situation turned out to be completely contradictory to what she had expected.

Apparently, her manager had the rare maturity to understand her state of mind. And also had the exquisite goodness of soul to forgive her. That was unique and admirable. All her irritation, anger, fear…..the entire mix was completely dissolved out in her amazement.

Sonali’s phone was now ringing. It was her sister.

‘Tell me! What was it?’

Sonali was now cautious enough to walk out of the office building before she could narrate the entire incident to her. This episode had actually taught them both the significance of corporate privacy.