Sales walla - a short story

My attempt at a short story:

Sales walla

The Day hadn’t started well but then Mondays rarely did. Not that he had got much of a weekend anyways. In fact the whole of 2011 seemed to have gone by in such a rush! Sitting there in that noisy room full of people he couldn’t help but feel how much more he could have done! And how less he got paid! In fact his basic salary seemed like a joke. But as the ‘accounting’ guy had explained- incentivized pay was the way ahead and the variable package had seemed attractive!  He should never have caved in during the final negotiations five years back. Should have never agreed to the ‘rainmaker’ expectations that had been put forth in front of him! After all he had been doing well in his earlier role so why get into this?

Had life really gotten better working for Wizdom Corp? It seemed that he just kept moving from one meeting to another! Always trying to justify things to everyone and trying to keep one step ahead.

And his clients weren’t any better- if only they could understand the value-add that his products brought to them. Sometimes he thought this was just the struggle phase of his life! Facing tough customers, convincing the higher-ups, fighting the politics and still trying to find some time for the family despite the endless travel and meetings. Was it as bad for the managers and the VPs? The administrative guys? The accountants?  They always seemed to be putting up photos of holidays with the family- maybe he should have just become an auditor like his mother had told him to. But he had been seduced by the glamour of sales! That’s why he had joined this new institute that had opened near his college and got a sales certification. His buddies had laughed at him. Most of them were going off to do their masters in the ‘States’.  He remembered seeing them all off at the airport when they left wondering whether he should have done the same.

He still remembered his first ‘battle’ almost immediately after he had joined here. The entire sales team had given up and they seemed to be quite happy to put this hot potato in his lap. A large and regular customer was refusing to pay up as he was alleging major delays and mix-ups in deliveries and although the contract did not mention any discounts the customer was not ready to pay anything over fifty percent! The consignments had initially been delayed and then delivered to his office- that too during their investors meeting- instead of his factories and no one was ready to take responsibility for the goof-up. The GM-Sales did not know what to do and he seemed to have come in at just the ‘right’ time. He met the client seven times over the next month and in the last meeting in the client’s vintage Bentley, they had shaken hands! Not only was he able to get almost 90% of the invoice value but he also got a new order from the client which would take care of a healthy percentage of their next year’s target! That’s when Mr. Agarwal had really taken notice! Agarwal, the COO had been his biggest aggravation by far. He seemed to take a personal interest in ensuring that he got sleepless nights and making him feel responsible for any account or customer that did not work out.

Agarwal was still called ‘boss’ throughout most of the company- he had been around for most of the company’s existence- right from the time when the founder Mr. Dutt had recruited him as a sales executive! But for a couple of bad decisions a few years ago he was slated to be the next CEO but instead the board had decided to go look for ‘fresh talent’.  The exponential growth of the company did necessitate a more professional management and after Mr. Dutt’s demise they did seem to have lost a little direction.

Around the office he had once overheard someone say that the board wanted to bring another power centre into the company as they felt the COO had become too dominant. He tried not to get too engrossed with these stories- he liked to think that the COO and the rest of the top management were there by dint of hard work & intelligence and that everyone in the company had a shot at the top chair- that was why he had joined. So he always worked extra hard to please the COO (couldn’t hurt right), and his sales & marketing head Bose kept trying to help him out. Bose & he went back a long way- the two of them. It was hard to believe that Bose used to be this shy gangly teenager when they had met up in the sales certification course. Their ways had parted after that till one day they happened to meet up in a hotel lobby where as usual he had been waiting to meet a long-overdue client. Bose had mentioned about Wizdom and things had got rolling from there. He sure owed B big time for recommending him and he told him so even after 5 years but Bose kept saying that he wasn’t the one had eventually made the selection.

After that initial success with the goofed-up order, his workload had just seemed to grow exponentially! Tasks that he didn’t know existed had piled up on his desk! When his parents had come to visit him, they were alarmed at the amount of work that he was putting in and his father had even called up their family physician and arranged a check-up. He could understand that they could not quite get what he was after! His mom kept telling him that it was not the right way to live when he had to suffer so much just for sake of work! But even after so many years, he used to always tell his wife, he could never think of himself as anything other than a ‘sales walla!’ She probably understood though sometimes the incessant phone calls & crazy demands from his company drove her to the edge too.

He remembered a course he had done at Rishikesh few years back. The guruji had asked, what they wanted to feel when they were on their death-bed? The room had gone completely silent- that question still bothered him. Maybe this was not the right road not even the right journey.

He almost missed it when they called out his name though he had been informed by the event management team. His wife was suddenly hugging him- when had she got back from the minister’s wife’s party? He got up, gave his trademark salute and hurried up to the podium amidst applause to collect the “Rising CEO” award while reminding himself to thank all of his team in his acceptance speech.