[Originally published on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/office-diaries-jack-all-master-universe-dr-a-k-srivastava/ on 25 April 2021]
Some 16 years back, I retired after 34 years of service. During my career, after spending about a quarter of professional-life in Research & Development, I opted to be transferred to the Business Development wing. Here, I headed business operations of a division which was a pioneer in development of indigenous know-how and production and marketing of a group of eight speciality-chemicals called catalysts. I will be describing real-life situations and what lessons future managers may learn. This is the 9th article in the series. See others at:
Not giving up till the last (Nov 18, 2020)
Excess of everything is bad (Nov 24, 2020)
What all is written in the equipment-manuals, take it with a pinch of Salt ! (December 4, 2020)
The Need for Common Sense (Dec 14, 2020)
When an Analogy with Marriage Ceremony Saved the Day ( Dec 27, 2020).
New Year’s Gifts and Huge humiliation (January 15, 2021)
Anti-Dumping Duty on Imported Catalysts (February 16, 2021)
Reconstruction in Iraq - Visit to Kuwait (March 27, 2021)
In those days, in most of the Govt. public sector offices, there were two distinct classes of employees, roughly in ratio of 90% to 10% respectively: one who got their position on merit, through country-wide competitions, and another who had some god-fathers in the bureaucracy or a strong political linkage and got their positions based on after mock-interviews, set-up for a single or couple of persons. In such cases the outcome was predictable and known to everybody, including the candidate(s).
I shall focus on one of my colleagues in office, with whom I shared a cabin for a long time and whom I will like to refer as Mr. K. We had great respect for each other, because of our different personal reasons. Though he had a Master degree in Mathematics from Punjab University, he could be easily categorized in the “well connected” class. Mr. K, like other people in his category, had no known and assigned projects/responsibilities. He was used by the bosses only on a ‘when and where basis’. Since such persons had great free time during office-hours, they used it mostly for self Public Relations (PR), writing poems in their native languages, gossiping, serving the boss for most assigned officials as well as personal tasks. Getting a brilliant tutor, if possible free of any costs, for boss’s children, fetching a “pure single faced (ek mukhi) Rudraksha” beads string for the boss, a Banarasi silk, a Baluchari or Kanchipuram sari for the Ma’am for free or on heavily discounted-rates, getting free passes for a cultural evening or getting a ‘peti’ of choicest mangoes from reputed destinations in India during the season for the family and similar other such assignments/jobs made their day.
In those days, getting customs-clearance was a big issue for both inbound and outbound foreign-trips of company’s bosses and ministry’s senior officials, while bringing, beyond the permissible limits of imported cigarettes, foreign liquors, perfumes, chocolates and many times adult-magazines and other banned-items, and arranging foreign-currency from black-market at reasonable rates. Mr. ‘K’ was in great demand as he had good working contacts in the customs department at the airports. His official routine was generally not known to his colleagues as he had never punched his entry and departure in office, unlike his other co-workers. Many times he had to see off or receive / get custom-cleared at the odd hours in the night, for which he had special approvals for home telephone-lines (a rare privilege in those days and available to top bosses, as mobiles were yet to arrive), getting extra-local transport allowances etc. One thing was very evident that many times he made more money in local conveyance than his normal monthly salary.
I vividly remember one instance when I was astonished to see Mr. ‘K’s real super-performance and he showed his real worth and connections. Our company was hosting an international conference where about 500 delegates had sent their assent for participation and presenting papers, including about 150 delegates from Europe, USA, Middle-East, Japan, USSR etc. In those days, for such jamboories, it was assumed as a must to have congratulatory-messages / forwards from the country's top political-bosses like President of India, Prime Minister, Administrative Minister, Heads of Scientific and Technical organizations etc. and get them printed in the souvenir. Our company sent, in advance, formal request letters to all major ‘Who is Who’, including the President of India. We got back required letters, as per our standard-proforma, from most of the people, except from the President of India. A reminder was officially sent to the Press Attache of the President of India. To our utter surprise, we received a regret-letter from the Press Attache, which was very rare, as our company was a Central Government Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), with 100% shares with the President of India. Here, the services of Mr. ’K’ were summoned. As I was sitting next to him, in our shared cabin, he told me he was very busy and he needed to attend to an urgent task. He left the office in a hurry and returned in a few hours, with a wonderful congratulatory-letter signed by none but the President of India himself. He first showed me the letter before rushing in the cabin of our Chairman-cum-Managing Director. That day I realized the horses of the race don’t run daily like others in the cart.
Mr. ‘K’ was never denied a promotion in his career, whereas many others who burnt the midnight oils for running the prized-projects were denied timely promotions, because of lack of vacancy at higher level. In Mr. ‘K’s case , it never occurred because many other departments were ready to lend a higher post for him, on condition to be regularized later-on.
I had another colleague (I shall recall him as Dr. ‘S’) who was a senior scientist having a Ph D. degree under a renowned professor from the Indian Institute of Sciences (I.I.Sc.), Bangalore. He was more after extra-curricular activities than his normal duties in Research & Development (R&D). He was running a liaison-business as local agent and getting project-bills cleared of many local and outside contractors, on commission basis. He used to take local ponds on lease and do fish-farming on a large scale; organizing ‘Jatra Dance ’ (a popular folk music and dance programme by reputed artists), winning in auction parking lots. The climax was when he requested his Departmental Head to give him a formal No Objection Certificate (NOC) required for the award of ‘Padma Shri' award (one of highest civilian recognition in India), and offered to get the Head of Department (HOD) another ‘ Padma Shri’ next year. The HOD could not believe his eyes, as the accompanying NOC requests had nine recommendations for Dr. S from top political leaders of the country, from almost all top political parties. Luckily, the NOC was not given. I have many more stories, where a person got the top positions primarily based on an unethically acquired degree, got selected many international positions of repute, many awards and recognitions, using his high political connections.
I do believe that such activities may still be going on in many Government and other offices, with or with-out knowledge of senior officers, in the same or different mutated forms.
In real life, ‘Merit is Not the Sole Criteria’ always. One needs to be more practical than only a theoretically principled guy. As nothing succeeds more than success, one should try to be ethical and law-abiding but not shy away from using all resources at their command, including personal contacts.