Other side of the Mirror: The ones that get away
Have you ever noticed when you have worked long enough in some place that there are certain individuals who get away with things. They bend the rules and still escape retribution. They can be moonlighting, running a business through the proxy of a wife or an uncle, skimming the accounts, running an office kitty, misusing their position to enter into happy little personal arrangements with suppliers, generally doing the dirty on the company and it is an open secret, yet they have some tacit permission to carry on regardless. No one ever questions what they are up to. They have a special dispensation.
It is a corporate chemistry that defies explanation. I once remember catching a person on my staff on a Mumbai newspaper in what was a blatant exploitation of her position and I as much as said so. A few days later I was asked to meet the General Manager and we chatted of this and that and then he said it would be nice if I withdrew the warning letter I had issued to you know who because sometimes it is better to let things lie and you know how it is.
I said I hadn’t a clue how it was and all I knew was that the lady had been taking graft to write nice things about people and companies and that was unacceptable. Journalists did not take gifts to write about people.
He said, your warning is causing problems, after which profound statement he pointed his finger at the ceiling and poked it a few times, to emphasis the Big Man “ooopstairs.”
Ah, I said, light dawning, this is the old armtwist.
Suffice it to say the lady’s letter vanished from the files and she returned to her winning ways.
The irony is that at the same time we were penalising a normal run of the mill staffer who had no clout up or down the stairs for having enjoyed two nights hotel accommodation free in a 5 star facility.
That is just the point. The scam artists go about their scamming without a care, their backs protected. Then we cleanse ourselves on some poor sod for a relatively minor indiscretion. Everyone gets so holier than thou. Show cause letters are flung about and there is a meeting held to discuss the issue and senior executives talk about setting examples and how such things cannot be allowed and either the chap must go or at least be issued a warning.
And you are listening to all this froth and you are thinking, hello, brother, do you know what else is going on, have you looked around your 150 employees and twigged who is actually taking you for a ride.
Finally, the chap selected for the company sacrifice is beaten away in disgrace and the office air is sprayed with purity and “dishplin” has been reinstated.
A couple of days later the scams pick up speed again and life returns to normal.
The trick lies not in what you do but in who you are, in your body language and how you do it.
I have never been able to figure it out. You know who is up to dirty tricks. The whole floor knows it. Yet the in house conspiracy elects to protect some and serve some up as sacrifice endures.
Does anyone know how the choice is made? What is about some people they can set their own rules while others are promptly indicted for putting a little toe across the line.
Somewhere out there in Mumbai that little lady is still milking her job for all its worth and, one day, she will be on the Inquiry committee to decide someone else’s guilt.
Probably been on several.
