My instincts were to express this incident in a more dramatical way for my own reading experience. But then I decided, a poor man’s story need not be dramatized because the fact by itself is kind of dramatically sad.
I have been in this midsized organization for a while. I have admired the dedication, work ethics and our solution software that’s being used across the globe day in and day out. The team spirit in each employee is tremendous and I have been surprised to know that more than 30% of the employees have spent almost 6+ years in this 10 year old organization and still active in playing their role efficiently. It’s definitely a great company to work with. But does that really matter for a poor employee’s survival???
7th of every month is my salary day. But by 10 th itself I usually get the feeling of a month end because all my money would have gone to so many corporate vultures in the form of mobile bill payment, personal loan EMI, LIC policies, electricity bill, water bill, Bike loan EMI, credit card bill, a bit of borrowed money from my friends and to top it all is my house rent. So, I am not conventionally happy like most others do on a salary day. But this month, it’s even worse. My company did not pay me my salary till the 28 th. The above mentioned financial commitments are just mine; I can imagine the same / worse month for my co-workers. Though the reason behind this tragic financial crisis is not convincing for 87 of my fellow employees, it’s definitely worth sharing the story with my corrupted corporate fellowmen.
The reason for this article from an emotional perspective is to save many other companies from a money monsters like Mr.Big for the story.
Mr. Big (my worldwide sales director) was always in the good books of Mr. Small (my company CEO) from the time he joined our organization which is not more than a year. Mr. Big’s only work at office is to butter Mr. Small and present business proposal for abroad opportunities and keep flying to countries around the world every month, under office expense. Every time he comes back from abroad, he calls for a sales meeting and presents a printed version of 4 purchase orders with a minimum of orders worth $900,000. The purchase order caries information about the company that is buying our software, product quantity, number of license, total revenue generated, address of both selling and buying parties, bank details through which the amount will be transferred and finally the signature of the finance authority of the buying party.
On the 7th (my salary day), Mr. Small calls all the employees for an all hands meet and discloses a story of mishap and these were his words, “Mr. Big has fooled us all in a miserable way by faking all the details on the purchase orders like the estimated revenue amount, the name of the buying party and the signature on the purchase orders. I apologies for what has happened and there is no money going to be coming in for now from any of our customers because none of the supposed to be customers even know who Mr. Big is. I am going to be traveling to Malaysia,
Singapore and other countries for a month and hopefully I should be able to arrange for all your salaries by end of this month. I am sure, not everyone is going to take this in a positive note. So, those of you who are not with me and my ideas can speak to their respective managers and make your decisions”
Now, the reaction of the listening employees is BLINK…BLINK…BLINK…. And you can hear whispers in the room “Is it Mr.Big” ??” “Shocking man” “We must hunt this guy and shoot him dead” and on the other hand, the questions running in everyone’s mind is
1. Why did Mr. Small wait till the 7th (salary day) to communicate this to all of us?
2. How does purchase order matter for this crisis? Because, there was no money deposited in the bank as sales transaction in the first place and Mr. big did not run away with any money from the company as of now? 3. Was the entire company running on forecasted / estimated virtual money without any back up?
4. How did Mr. big getaway with this for the past 12 months?
5. Are they filing a law suite on Mr. Big or is this one big cooked up story?
Today (29th) I have got my salary. But, will that erase all my financial penalties from the records of the people who I owed money? Honestly, nobody cares whose fault it really is. The joy of working for any reputed company is not just work, but it’s the money that matters end of the day. The point ultimately is, “Every month begins and ends with the thought of so called salary for survival. If this chain breaks without any prior notice? Then its just one big messed up confused state of mind for all employees like me…
