Life's Lessons!

Reading Biographies, life experiences of great men/women has always interested and inspired me. There is a sumptuous spread of food for thought. It also makes one realize being true to self and others is so simple but in reality very difficult and over and above to follow those principles and disciplines in life a bigger challenge! There are stories of great men /women who have achieved something significant in their lifetime! Their achievement and stories reach the masses and people try to follow their footsteps and imbibe the learning’s as they tread the path along.

Having said this, there are unsung heroes that one comes across in life. These heroes have taught one the meaning of life and are a true role model in their own way .

Going down the memory lane I remember what my VP in a previous company mentioned. His father was in a highly paid job. His mom was doctor. They had all the luxuries in life, a palacial bunglow, servants, full time maids, two cars, drivers and every thing. As kids, they (VP and his brothers) enjoyed life and childhood. When they passed out the 10th grade and entered colleges their father got them enrolled in a typewriting learning school! These brothers were embarrassed, they would not be typists or secretaries or clerks, they had enrolled to courses of their choice in good colleges and the last they needed was to learn typewriting!!!! But they had no excuse and father was very particular of them learning typing. With much hesitation and humiliation (friends made fun of them) they attended the classes for a year until they were pretty good at typing! This was forgotten as they graduated from business school, joined good companies like their dad and kick started a wonderful career. Once they (all brothers) were settled over a family lunch, one of them dared to ask the long forgotten humiliation their dad had summoned them to and he gathered all courage to do so and asked ‘Dad, why did you insist us to learn typing, it was very humiliating then but now we have put it behind !’. Dad’s answer was very humble and simple ‘Sons, I am sorry, I had to do it, all of you were brought-up in luxury and enjoyed everything in life, When you entered college there were two chances either you would do extremely well in your studies and excel in your career or you get into bad company , college drop out! As parents we had no time to track you as we were busy with our own career. Luckily you all excelled and have made us proud. What if ?... had you been a looser! All this wealth and fame are temporary, the least you would have had is basic education and a skill that would help you earn your livelihood! By the way, I too learnt typing and pretty proud that I can type faster without any errors compared to other VP’s and manager’s in my company!” My secretary is very proud of me as I do not bother her for simple letters and I understand her work”. They were dumb struck. The learning, we need to do a reality check in life and prepare ourselves to lead a simple and contended life when life demands or brings us to such situations. Wealth is not everything! Secondly, you need to practice before you master a skill! Most important, do not get humiliated or look down on people who do little jobs. Be happy that they have a job and the satisfaction that they are not depending on anybody! Respect all! A lesson well learnt?

In the last 15 years of my career, I have had the privilege to work with some great VP’s like the one I mentioned above, directors, managers and colleagues. I was hardly 20 then when I worked for one manager in a private company. The very first day my colleagues scared me saying that I would have a tough time working under him as he was a very irritable person. Irritable he was, he always found mistakes at anything and everything. He would point out mistakes like there is no comma in the date that you typed (who looked at the comma!), the English is not right, the letter alignment is not good and so on. I would get very frustrated and angry and curse my luck for working with him. He once asked me to file a pile of papers and just before that had yelled at me for some mistake in the letter. I was furious and forgetting my training on filing letters, punched the papers randomly and placed the file on his desk and turned around. My face was red with anger! The next minute I remember is the file flying out of his cabin over me and all the papers landed on the floor! Only one colleague of mine was present and he did not know what to say and walked away! I was scared, I did not know what to do next! I realized my mistake and at the same time felt why should he throw the file?!!! How rude!!!! Anyways, I silently picked the letters and filed them neatly and decided that I would resign the very next day! Later over coffee, when I met my colleague who had witnessed it I broke down and told him of my decision of quitting the company. He convinced me that this person/manger was a very good human being and probably was testing me since he had very bad experience from the previous support staff.

Don’t know what happened to my manager next day. He called me and the colleague (who had witnessed the episode previous day) to his cabin, gave some prasadam (he was a very religious person), asked us to sit down and put the same file in front of me! Oh No! what next? Is there a better way to file things? What am I going to face now? Thoughts were running in my mind and believe me, I was shivering. I was scared. There was silence, I did not open the file, just stared at it. He broke the silence, he said ‘Kanna (means child in Tamil), I am sorry, please forgive me for being so rude to you yesterday, I behaved very badly with you, before apologizing to you, I went to the temple this morning and apologized to the Lord for behaving so badly with you’!!! What was I hearing, was I dreaming, I could not lift my face, the whole night I had wept as I had been humiliated so badly, I had decided to quit but was not sure as I was supporting my family with the earnings and my father was happy for that. I cried and cried loudly, I had not vented my feelings until then! I looked at him and said ‘Sir, please don’t say sorry, I too made many mistakes yesterday and behaved arrogantly by not doing my job correctly! (I had shown my anger on him by not filing the papers properly) He replied “I know you are a beautiful little child, I am also sure that you are very intelligent and will excel in your career, but what I realize is, you are not serious, you need to be more attentive and have an eye for detail when you do things, I know you will over come these, but, when I guide or someone calls out the mistakes, people will learn better, I treat you like my daughter (he already had 3 daughters) and want to see the best in my child, go now and don’t cry, what will you have for lunch, lets go and eat Noodles, I know you love noodles!”….. I left the cabin crying. I will never forget that day in my life. Lesson, never judge a person on the go, never hate a person who guides or corrects you, only those who really love and care for you, call out your mistakes or stop you from doing blunders. He was one such, he was and is my God father till today!

I have learnt so much from him, he taught me the basics of office administration, about check lists, keeping reminders, competing tasks on time, confessing when at fault and so much more. After working 3 years with him, he one day asked me to start looking out for better jobs that now he was confident that I would do better in bigger companies. He even took me to an interview at an MNC, conducted mock interviews! I got the job and with a very heavy heart had to bid good bye to him. He taught me what was win-win in the real sense. Punctuality and discipline, I learnt from him…..hats off to him……I am still in touch with him and every time I win an award or get a promotion he feels so proud of me and says, ‘I know it, my kanna is a smart girl!’……………………….. He never held back people, he trained them, disciplined them (a teacher!) and let them free, most of them who have worked under him are doing well in their career and thank him for all his guidance! Never crib if you have a disciplinarian boss, cause such bosses are always right! You learn from them……………..