Cheque your Spelling

How an honest intention can mess up your life can be easily seen from any organisation that has bureaucracy a mile long. The first call I received was from an account of my client inquiring what new account head to be opened in case of charges by the Bank for return of cheques. ‘Silly man, don’t you have Bank Charges account?’ I sometimes wondered if lack of intelligence was the qualification my clients searched for their administrative personnel. But he hit me with a circular that proved perhaps lack of my own vigilance. ‘So what if this is a new reason, keep the same account’ I answered a bit irritably. ‘But sir, almost alternate of our cheques are corrected with the due signature and boss says that in future, such should be recovered from the staff so I thought that it would be better to opened Cheque error account per employee in charge of writing cheques.’ I did my mental maths of his 5 to 8 such clerks and found logic in his plan. ‘But sir, I have a problem’ he continued and I groaned. ‘We have to now make a procedure to note who has written which cheque cause the cheques may be presented after a few days when they may be so rejected.’ Now that was one planner thinking ahead.

‘Instead of this round about, why doesn’t the person signing ensure the cheque is error free?’ I came up with what I thought was a winning answer stark in its simplicity. He gave such an answer that proved I was not having good memory. ‘But sir, you are aware that boss makes his trips for the company and he pre-signs the cheques before he goes and approves the bills via email’.

The federation of Industry and commerce were the next who invited me on the same issue. They handed me a 300 page survey done by a psychologist hired by them. ‘Summarise’ I barked. The secretary of the federation stammered, ‘The results showed that after warning the writers of the cheques of the consequence of even one error, the subjects started making 4 errors on every cheque compared to one in hundred previously.’ I nodded reminding him that it was like asking a person to think of any colour except the colour red. Only the banned will flash in his mind. ‘Human nature’ I answered asking them to accept humans as they were unless they were Gods.

On my way out, I got a call on my cell phone from my software friends who wanted a strategy meeting. What I had to do with their strategy I wondered. They said, ‘since the federation survey showed errors in cheques, they were coding stand alone as well as linked to accounts cheque writing modules for sale at prices that even the grocer can afford. Was this is a good idea is what they wanted me to tell. I agreed to send them a report of my evaluation provided they paid my fees by direct Bank transfer.

Excuse of a Party

‘I did not know that excuses we made in school to avoid strenuous exercises during physical training would also be useful later after we grew up’ said my son in genuine bewilderment. Peering from my newspaper mentioning comments of the Indian captain for his loss in the match I joined in his amused conclusion. ‘At least our excuses sounded prima facie genuine’ he complained perhaps projecting himself and his generation as experts in excuse creation. ‘You found the logic of late parties telling on the body strength as unconvincing?’ I asked in amazement. ‘When you are part of IPL and Party is your middle name, how can you blame parties?’ I nodded; understanding that the sponsors would like the players to meet their influentials like bottlers and other influential people to promote their business in return for the bushels of notes they pour in the sponsorship. ‘No.. no..’ my son shook his head in disagreement. ‘Party is their middle name isn’t it?’ As usual he confused me, so he elaborated. ‘Doesn’t everyone know IPL stands for Incessant Party Lover?”

That ignited my muse of the mind on excuses that people make to explain their failure which is not convincing prima facie.

Excuse for losing chess game – ‘I was playing with the wrong colour of pieces’.

Excuse for a jockey to lose a race – ‘The shoe was lose; not the horses, mine which made me fidget in my seat.’
Excuse of a famous golfer to lose a tournament- ‘My swinging lifestyle took a toll on my club swing’.

That is enough of sportspersons. Let us see unconvincing excuses in corporate life.

Excuse by CEO for dismal performance – ‘Two building in US fell down and so did our order book even though we are in domestic market and not international.’

Excuse by Marketing manager on his inability to expand the market ‘We were so busy planning and strategizing that time just flew and competitors breezed past us.’

Excuse by a party caterer/ Event Organiser – ‘We were so busy attending parties that we did not realize that we made bumper profits’. Now this party excuse is perhaps made to Income Tax officer on why they did not pay advance tax.

Pay 2 Sell

Two of my students from Management college accosted me in the corridor of the college with a newspaper folded at a news of a joint venture gone sour. I smiled at the juvenile attempt to butter me up by showing they took to heart my advice to scan news for the subject of amalgamation, mergers and takeovers which was the subject handed to me as a visiting faculty. ‘Not just to impress you sir’ spoke Sunil, ‘But to appraise you what we stumbled onto’. Ushering them to an empty classroom, Sunil showed me extracts of the joint venture which had the standard clause of equal sharing of profits and losses. Then he calculated the shares owned by the outgoing co-venturer. The carried forward loss of the joint venture was so high that the capital was completely eroded. Then came the punch line ‘Sir, if the capital is negative, will the seller have to pay the receiver of the shares when he exits the company?’ I swear my arteries froze cold as I had no explanation for this unique situation where the seller will have to pay!

Bidding for time, I reached deep into my memory to search for parallel situations where the seller would have to pay instead of receiving money. There are such rare cases. I was shocked to realize that I had myself paid to sell – my old fiat car. It was in running condition but the new Korean-Japanese models flooded the market and no-one wanted to buy a second hand fiat which once was selling more than the showroom price. So I had to pay the scrap dealer to take the car away.

The Indian social custom/structure of wedding especially in the north is very similar. To make your daughter go to her in-laws place, you have to bribe the in-laws to take her away with dance and song. I believe it is called dowry. Though frown upon and declared illegal, the economics of the situation is perhaps stronger.

Then there was a situation where we paid indirectly to cart away unwanted from our office – our egomaniac boss. We hijacked his profile from the computer and spread it over HR firms and paid them to offer him a lucrative job. Only with his departure could we breathe and actually do something constructive instead of just feeding his ego.