Back To Bliss: A Journey To Zero - Santosh Jha (best authors to read .txt) 📗

my ass. And that is not only it. Somebody has even gone on to blame it on my boozing. Areh..! I have been taking liquor since my college days and if that was such a big doom for me, I would not have been an editor for the last fifteen years. The problem is, editorial is like the young widow of a poor man whom everyone wants to rape and then declare her a witch.”

“Oh ho...! Editor Saheb, you always look at things from a wrong angle”, the sales head said. “Why the hell you feel editorial is a week and meek widow? I tell you a story I was told recently. Once there was a global convention on women’s right and women of all ages from countries all over the world had gathered to discuss measures and action for betterment of women’s plight, especially working out a plan to protect them from the torture of men folk. Serious speeches were being made and there was so much noise. In the midst of all these, a beautiful teenage girl sat on the front row of seats and kept polishing her nails, looking completely disinterested and disenchanted by happenings around her. Many women were watching her and finally a woman speaker from the dais could not tolerate it. She called the girl on stage and said to all women present there, ‘we are discussing such grave issue of women’s deprivation and torment by men and this young lady thinks her nail polish is more important than all our issues. Such women actually are responsible for our plight’. All women present said, ‘shame…shame…’ The girl remained unmoved; kept polishing her nails. She went up to the mike and said, ‘your problems are yours, I do not have any, you consider the men as such big demons but I make them dance on the tip of my small finger’. She stepped down from the dais rocking her ass”.

“So you mean to say that I should also walk confidently swaying my ass! Hell on you...already so many people are wanting a piece of my troubled ass and if I start swinging it, how many hell will break loose on me on daily basis?”, the editor replied laughingly.

The general manager looked irritated but he chose not to say anything. The editor was making indirect remarks on him and he was shocked that the sales head had clearly shifted his loyalties to his rival. The sales head had apparently chosen the lesser devil to square up with the lord of devils. The editor could sense the support and he was elated at his possible smooth sail when he would confront the Boss, though he had not completely dropped his guard against the sales head.

The marketing head pointed out, looking at his wristwatch that they were getting late for the proposed post-lunch meeting with the Boss. The general manager asked them all to end the meeting and move to the hotel. The editor was however enjoying the irritation of the general manager and wished to indulge more.

“General Manager Saheb, a few minutes back Pandey Ji has told you that the torso of your newspaper is emaciated. You don’t pay enough; don’t even allow enough leaves to sleep well, at least make mandatory provision for coffee and sandwiches in such important meetings like this. What did the Boss say...? Yes, work efficiency and quality management...! Huh...empty stomach deputed as security guard for chicken biryani...! Pandey Ji, this work efficiency thing is not for me...even my great grandpa would not venture into it...you better call Marco Polo...you said it quite right, I am going to offer my resignation to Boss and will go home with whatever is left of my devastated ass. The number of attacks my ass has survived is more than the attacks India faced from Mohammad Ghauri to Lord Curzon.”

“Subhanallah...! What great knowledge of history! Editor Saheb, you must have been the topper of you school in your tenth grade exam?”

“Huh...I would not have been in this thankless job of a baniya had I been the topper.”

The general manager had no option but to order chicken sandwiches and coffee.

The Boss was on his couch and sipping black tea when the attendant ushered in the four. The sales head was the most vocal of the four and least timid when with the Boss and that is why he was not afraid of sitting on the nearest sofa of the Boss’s couch.

“What you like to drink in day time Editor Saheb”, the Boss broke the silence.

“Nothing...I do not drink at day time...only late evening.”

“No..no, you took me wrong, I meant to say tea or coffee”, the Boss said smiling, “but anyway, people say you even enjoy whisky at day time?”

“In winter, when you exhale, smoke like thing comes out of your mouth but it does not mean you have fire burning in your stomach. The myopic vision sees demon in the cloud. I doubt; the global warming is more the result of the heat of jealousy that has gone up manifold in recent years.”

“Is the room temperature here okay with you or should I ask the attendant to pep up the air-conditioner knob”, the Boss asked, smiling.

The editor understood there was no sense stretching the issue. He simply returned the smile. First time in hours, the general manager also did manage a grin.

As the coffee was served, all four waited for the Boss to start the conversation. Nobody wished to take the lead and face the first ire of the Boss.

“At the very outset, I want to make a few things very clear. Our media house is not part of a group of industries. We are not running this newspaper as a shield or pride for other sister concerns. You all know, we are only into media. It is why we have to be fitter and smarter to survive. Our profit motive has to be more aggressive than some other media houses. Our survival and growth depends on our profits alone as we do not have profits from other verticals to feed the newspaper. Now, life is tougher for us as we have twin swords hanging from both back and front. On the front, we have public to answer to as we have taken huge moneys from share market. On the back are our international partners as we have also availed foreign direct investment (FDI). We cannot take profitability casually. Twenty years back, when I joined my father in this business, profit was as unpredictable as monsoon but my father would sleep well. I cannot, though I can control profits better. But, this is how things are; we all have to breathe whatever the reality of ambient air is. However, this does not mean that profit is all that we should care. We sell a product which has social utility; we have an emotional connect with our customers. Profitability does not mean that we compromise on quality, especially the human quality. The excellence is not only confined to profit maximization; it is a way of seeing work as a commitment towards overall satisfaction. Am I making myself amply clear?”

There was complete silence. All four were too apprehensive to say anything. Anyway, they were not sure to whom the Boss directed his words and what exactly he wanted. Not that his sincerity was above doubt.

Bad habit like an itch has its own inherent pleasure. The hierarchy system in work models has created such safe havens where any non-performing and stupid employee can breathe easy. One can pass the blame either on the boss or on the subordinates. Hierarchy ensures, success is nobody’s sole prerogative and failure is nobody’s individual problem. The public sector knows it better than private sector but, along the vast sea of private sector, there are beautiful beaches of hierarchical non-performance where all people, from a clerk to CEO enjoy the blue comfort.

Nobody wants initiative in business as it will not only mean extra work, but worse than that, the added trouble of the hierarchy. One’s work in any stage of the hierarchy means added share for all. The top people would never bother to take initiative because of the pain involved in taking along all his subordinates to be involved in this initiative. The hierarchy desiderates it. Even most competent and hard working top management guy would shiver at the idea of carrying the entire hierarchy on his own shoulders. That is why, top people devise such work patterns which either individualizes excellence or skips hierarchy problems. There are magician CEOs in industry who get astronomical pays for their individual excellence but if they are asked to ensure that their excellence gets broad-based, that is; the same excellence is reflected in the subordinate hierarchy, they will either quit or fail. The Boss knew it quite well that all four of his top and mid management guys were smart operators in their individual capacities but extremely poor as team people. None of the four had ever taken any initiative or interest in subordinate building. The Boss knew; he had a difficult task at hand. He knew it; the four were never going to be a team for achieving a collective goal, as they believed more on balance of power politics than the power of the balance.

The sales head would always be the one to break the silence.

“We do understand that we are facing difficult times. I have read that corporate biggies are slashing their advertising spends and GM sahib was telling us that our advertising revenue has fallen by 35 per cent because of the economic slowdown. This throws a challenge for all of us to put in place new structures for ensuring higher work efficiency and excellence; that too quickly after ascertaining the procedural or other bottlenecks.”

“Pandey Ji, please leave the task of mouthing the management jargon to some CEO of some big FMCG corporation. You better stick to your Marco Polo intelligence. It suits us better. What would Marco Polo say in these situations?”

“Blessed be his soul in heaven. Better, he died before the liberalization era and the globalization pains otherwise he could not even move out of his country...! Visas are so difficult today. Anyway he would have been detained by FBI at some American airport.”

“And what would he say about our newspaper?”

“This is what I was telling Editor Saheb in the meeting we had just before we came here. Newspaper is not only about first and last pages. Somehow, we have not been successful in having good content in inside pages. The fizz is missing in our soft drink bottle; though like the rival, our bottle is also full and same size, same price too.”

“Editor Saheb does not drink soft drinks, he likes whisky and it has zing, no fizz”, the owner made a remark to hit the chord with the editor.

“It has the fizz...I do not take whisky with water like Pandey Ji, I take it with soda.”

“Okay, Pandey Ji, if you are made the editor, what would you do to improve the content of newspaper in these inside pages”, the Boss asked.

“Sir, one can change his bed, it is easy, but one cannot change his bed partner, however dissatisfied one is from both his life and wife”, the editor intervened before the sales head could speak.

“Editor Saheb, nobody is going to change even your bed sheet, let alone bed and bed partner. I am not a content person anyway. Whatever I said about the newspaper content is not even as a sales person but as a reader. As a reader I get bored. I may not complain but younger readers do want freshness and fizz in the content.”

“It is only natural, everybody is. Are you not bored seeing the same wife every day and eating the same dishes she makes, even when as a simple onlooker, I rate her most beautiful woman after Meena Kumari and Madhubala”, the editor said.

“Editor Saheb, no personal comments here, we are discussing