Blessing in Disguise

“What the bloody hell? When are you going to reach the client it is 10 already”, the area sales manager yelled. A friend of mine was into “ambassador selling” – promotion of academic publishing. And he had to report to his boss in the latter’s house by 9:50am. Well even a delay by a min meant a scary session from the manager. Today he was late. And his manager still wrapped in his towel preparing to get ready is screaming on the top of his voice.

Already tense over having to cover a distance of 14 Km in the wild, highly unorganized and densely populated roads my friend Tarun steps out of the manager’s house thinking “What the heck? He is still in his towel and he screams at me? Might have drunk and slept like a pig”.

Tarun, unable to take this irrational behavior of his manger took a drastic move to quit the MNC he had been working for and soon settled in a small firm as a sales executive. The price he had to pay – the service of one and a half year in a company being drained out in vague. Now, he has to start from the scratch and prove his caliber.

He put forward his best and the monthly budgets always crossed the expectations set. Initially, though there was not a day that went by, without Tarun cursing his ex boss, gradually his work kept him busy. This time my friend was even more determined that he had to achieve his goal – the throne of a Team Leader or the area manager for his sales team.

Very soon figures spoke about performance; smiles around spoke about team spirit of Tarun, feedbacks indicated customer satisfaction and the ripples of success were soon felt.

It took Tarun a hard six months effort and turmoil to get the very well deserved position – Team leader for the city sales division. Today he heads, rather should I say, drives a team of five. He learnt his lessons –“spear head the team”, “Practice what you preach”.

Looking back he felt such precious six months under the nose of his previous manager would only mean - a meager appraisal that reciprocates the mercy of the manager and yes a scary session every alternate day. When you remind Tarun of his ex boss, my optimistic friend with all smiles on his face explains “He is a Blessing in Disguise”

Well, in what ever field we are, most of us, baring a few blessed souls would come across such managers or higher ups, who have no logic in what they do or say at times. We have to overcome such huddles and take such irrational people as motivators as Tarun rightly said – “blessing in disguise”.