Asked to Leave

  “Do you think, she will come back? How was she looking like?” I asked Devika to know whether she would come back or not.

  “I don’t know much, but since this morning I got shifted here, I had seen her talking to someone over the phone and crying badly.” She said.

  “I don’t know how to deal with this situation. What if they don’t find her parents? It has not gone to police though.” I asked.

  “Ram, as a mother, I can’t leave this kid like her mother did. If you don’t mind, we can keep her with us, at least until the police finds them out. She needs everything what our daughter does.” She made not only feel me proud to be her boyfriend and husband; but entire humanity was proud of her. I saw tears in her eyes, requesting me not to deny that request to take her with us.

  “Okay, listen, you take care of both the kids, and allow me some time.” I went out after asking some time for making the decision, and I went to the admin office.

  “Here he came.” The sister-on-duty said as she saw me entering into the room.

  “We are looking for someone who can take care of this infant whose parents are missing. So we can give that baby to you if you can take that responsibility.” The Admin officer said.

  “It will be our fortune sir, trust me. We are honoured with this, I and my wife wanted that to happen, that’s why I came here.” I was happy about it and thanked him.

  “Since it is legal procedure, I have to arrange papers formalities, got them signed by you and the CMO of hospital. You can wait here, and have a cup of tea.” The Admin officer ordered the tea, I could not deny that. Meanwhile, he asked his office boy to get the papers signed, and come back.

  “Here you go.” The admin officer gave me her adoption papers with a smile. I went through it and got to know that if their parents are not identified within 35 days from that day, the legal parents would be I and Devika.

  I followed the sister-on-duty nurse and came on in the ward where Devika was resting like a lady lion, with her two newborn kids.

  “Is that done?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is done. And thank you very much for the wonderful decision. I would have taken her along, but you know I can’t take care of her in terms of everything. You know what I mean.” She was murmuring with Devika, I was extremely happy seeing Devika smiling on what the nurse had said. And happy to see myself surrounded by Goddesses in the form of Mother, wife, and 3 daughters. I had never got the reason to forget the earlier miscarriages, because of which Devika had been under depression and feeling insecure in spite of my motivation and promise to be there with her throughout the life.

  After 2 days, we came back home with 2 wonderful and beautiful daughters.

  “We will help some other kids, once we settle down and earn some good money.” Devika said.

  “So we will start Orphanage once we have funds with us.” It was the silent promise made on that historical and memorable day.

  We were happy to name both the daughters Davinah and Reena.

  ***

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  From Colleagues To Friends

  And Friends To Colleagues

  2012, D*ksh BPO, Gurgaon.

  At about 3 PM in the afternoon, we all were having good time with each other, working on the collection data. I laughed as Jai Singh was the talk point, Shamim was poking him, and in fact both of them were exchanging jokes. I stopped celebrating after I saw the floor manager looking at us time to time.

  “Show me your dialler? Are you on Wrap-up mode, or Ready mode?” I found Mr. Jolly, our process manager standing behind Jai Singh.

  “Here you go, sir.” Jai Singh pressed the ‘Alt’ and ‘Tab’ keys and gave him an opportunity to have a look of Agent’s Outbound Dialler, where 200 connected calls were showing Jai Singh’s brilliant work.

  “Sir, this is not done. You can’t just come and ask anyone this question whether he was on Wrap-up, or Ready mode. It’s insulting and as a team, it doesn’t give us positive energy to work for the process. Because we care and we love to give our effort at the best.” Rishi Pal Singh Chaudhary was one of our friends who raised his voice on behalf of all of us.

  “No, I thought he was on Wrap-up mode.” Mr. Jolly was not talking with the manager’s command, as he had realised that he could have asked him in a more humble manner or checked his CC Pulse application, which he was using to check Agents’ performance.

  “It’s Okay Rishi. Let it be.” I said as we were putting ourselves in trouble by messing up with him. He had the authority of marking Leave, late login, Stacks, incentives, Overtime and everything which was related to our performance.

  “Ram and Jai Singh, you guys are very innocent, and trust me guys! People would not let you survive like that. Today you guys are asked to show your computers; tomorrow they might ask you to bring the meal for them from outside. So, you have to take care of your job, and start becoming fearless. Bring that attitude.” Rishi was going to celebrate his 35th birthday next month, so we made our minds to fight back.

  From that day, Mr. Jolly didn’t ask any of us to show him our systems, however when I got the salary, there I found the deduction for a day salary instead of the extra payoff for over time.

  “Sir, I want to check my attendance.” I asked for the details of file which he had sent out to payroll.

  “Check your HR-Tool. I am busy right now.” He asked me to return as he was doing something on his computer with solitaire on minimised window. He would have asked me to come back, or wait.

  I went through HR-Tool, and discovered that a day was marked as ‘Absent’. I realised I had gone home at 12 noon as I was not well and had to go to the hospital. So, I took the hit on my one and only source of survival in the town.

  I went to him after an hour, expecting that he would give me an opportunity to clarify my doubts about the salary deduction.

  “May I have your one minute please?” I asked for permission.

  “Yes sir, have you checked your attendance?” He asked.

  “Yes sir, and I was sure that apart from the overtime pay as we had worked on Christmas day; the Leave would be updated on HR-tool.”

  “You didn’t remind me for overtime. You just marked your attendance for the day on HR-tool, and for leave, it was not approved as you went home at 12:00 PM and as per the policy, sick leave has to be approved in case we get notified at least 4 hours prior.” He said.

  “Sir, I had come to work, but since I had medical issues, after spending an hour in the sick room, I had to go to the hospital. And I went to the hospital. And in my case you were also the witness of that scenario, I have sick leave in my account, and I was sick as well. I don’t know how 4 hours prior intimation comes into the picture.” I was not ready to accept it easily, so I was negotiating with my manager with extreme politeness and humbleness. I had fear of that moment, when managers ask agents or executive level employees not to argue with them when they talk. Managers use their seniority and take advantage of the position to shut those voices, which are raised for rights.

  “We, as management, have to align other agents as well in case someone is not coming and also people lie generally while asking for leave, that’s why that law comes into picture.” He was trying to justify his action, which was taken to take personal revenge.

  “But it was not a lie sir; it was serious pain in the chest. I have the doctor’s reports for the same as well.” I said.

  “Sir, since the payroll is over, I can’t help. I will give you more opportunities to do Overtime next month so that you can earn better.”

  I had nothing much to say, and let him know. I had gone to him with expectations of justice, and was coming back to my workstation with anger and frustration. Anyone who had faced such bosses can realise where I was coming from.

  “My salary is deducted.” I told Rishi after being silent for a few minutes.

  �
��Did you see the result of being nice?” It was a question on my life. I started asking myself if being nice to someone is great or worse. I found myself baffled.

  “I have no weapon to kill his terror and cruelty. So you tell me how to deal with this? Should I leave and let them know that they were wrong? Or should I complaint against him and invite the trouble? Or should I start begging apologies for nothing wrong that I did.” I asked him expecting no reasonable and practical answers. Because there was only one answer which Mr. Jolly was aware of. He was taking revenge as I never went out for smoking because he didn’t create that kind of comfort level. We used to hear about his and some of our teammates’ group outing in the weekend, or some hill station trips. Except the birthday cake or farewell party contribution, I was merely a part of them as we had two different worlds around us.

  “Terror? Cruelty? It’s not there for me. Why should I be terrified to someone who is just an employee as I am?” Rishi was right as his statement was making sense.

  “But we can’t directly fight for our rights with him or ask him to work nicely, be good to the entire team, not to just 4-5 people.” I told him while looking towards the door.

  Mr. Jolly came on in and settled himself in the chair comfortably, found the best chair for himself afters scanning for 2 minutes and got melted down in the MS Excel database.

  “I am frustrated today. I have no reasons to satisfy myself against the salary deduction, and overtime rejection.” I called home and shared my sadness with Devika.

  “I have no answers how you will deal with that, but remember one thing, before doing anything, keep us in mind, we have to take care of our daily and monthly expenses, our children and their education and also you have to withdraw PF as well, so don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to leave the job with bad note.”

  “Ok, you gave me an idea. My manager knows about all this.” I was excited as I thought I got a solution to deal with him.

  “What idea you are talking about my dear?” She asked.

  “I found the reason why he doesn’t care about overtime and leave as he knows that I have responsibilities. So, he assumes that we will not leave the job easily, or would not complain against them as we have responsibilities.”

  “The idea is to change the job after finding the better one?” She asked.

  “Yes, and in addition, not telling the new organisation that I have responsibilities so that they have the fear of attrition, they would apply that on me and become nice to me.” I let her know what I was thinking.

  “And you will make a new girlfriend too. Right?” I knew what she was trying to do by saying that.

  “I have no such intentions as of now; you are strong and skilled enough to take care of that part.” I said and both of us were lost in the world of imagination, loving each other, doing everything what happens between lovers. With love, comes the care. So an idea which had turned old was lost somewhere as another brand new idea had come to take its place in my mind.

  “Okay. I will do that, I mean think about changing the job, not girlfriend. But, I don’t want you all to suffer because of that. There is medical policy for the family. I don’t want you to stay out of insurance coverage, so I have decided to fight back; it’s not good to hide something. It’s not the solution.” I said.

  “Yes, you are right.” She said and agreed.

  I was out of hell thoughts and I started seeing the world differently. Again hope was alive; I was wondering what a magic that Devika had done. With that, it was also confirmed that if you don’t get a solution discuss it with your friends, discuss it with your love. You will find the conclusion.

  “But what if you are still waiting to be blessed with a girlfriend or boyfriend?” I asked myself.

  “Then your parents can help you out to come out of the bad situation.” I answered the question, asked to myself.

  “What’s the matter my best friend. What is the mystery of that adorable smile?” Rishi saw me with the as-usual-smile; and asked me.

  “Thank you my friend. Now I don’t have to worry about my manager’s terror and his I don’t care attitude.” I gave him credits and appreciated him for being there to take stand for good thing.

  2014, eYogi Technical Services, Gurgaon

  Mr. Wilson was the one who took my interview the time when I had been given the choice of changing the process or quit; eYogi was well-known technical support company brand those days not only in India, in fact in the USA as well. I had changed my mind to not to leave after that meeting with Mr. Wilson.

  “What are your hobbies?” He had asked.

  “Social service, writing, sports and games, cooking are some of them. And..” I had been interrupted.

  “What do you write?” He asked by giving me hint of his hobby as writing, as I found him excited.

  “I have written a Novel so far. It’s about a poor farmer’s life.” I let him know about my recently completed project.

  “What about your hobbies sir?” I asked him.

  “Writing is one of my hobbies.” He said and smiled.

  “I know the reason you are being transferred to my team. In my process, I drive people, not task. Because I feel if team is ready to perform task, it would be completed within the timeline with quality. I have seen people here who give importance to the targets, and pressurise them to perform better. But, I believe it’s not the good idea to achieve success. It’s as good as ploughing farm by beating bulls, without letting them eat and drink sufficient stuff to plough farm.” He said.

  “It’s just an example. Don’t assume you are bull and this process is a farm, that computer is plough.” He laughed out loud and I followed him with that.

  One of his teammates Manjit Singh looked back with headset put on his head and smiled. Manjit Singh used to manage floor, train people, Honey Singh was the one, who used to believe in doing his work and go home. Some of the In-Ground Support people were reporting to Manjit Singh, some of them were reporting to Mr. Wilson.

  From the day of interview for In-Ground Support team, Mr. Wilson proved that he was aware of the real definition and the best example of the people management. He had different perspective of looking towards the success. He was talented and skilled enough to understand the person, which was giving him positive results in terms of performance of the process, teammates’ satisfaction, and least attrition ratio among the teams in the entire organisation. I was happy to know about results of Rewards and Recognition, where Mr. Wilson had been honoured ‘The Team Leader Of The Year.’

  Darkness And Happiness Of Sinking Life

  “Hello sir. How are you? I have joined this process recently.” I took an initiative to talk to a colleague who was sitting alone in the corner-workstation.

  “Hi brother, don’t call me sir. We are in the same platform. My name is Honey Singh.” He said politely.

  “My name is Ram.” I offered the right hand for the handshake as he brought his hand forward. Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I was seeing people who used to give me their left hand while offering the right hand with full energy.

  After spending some time with Honey, I had observed that he was not normal; his mental situation was like a fighter who is tired up after fighting for entire day, but it would have been so early to ask him about that.

  “Good morning Honey ji! Let Ram sit next to you, and let him know how our process works.” Mr. Wilson asked me to sit with Honey and it was about midnight in Gurgaon; the city was full of buildings and the buildings were full of working employees. I had already talked to him, which made easy for both of us.

  “So, tell me what you learnt in the training?” Honey asked me to start the conversation; and broke the silence.

  “Call script was given by Shayne, and I was trying to memorise it word to word.” I said.

  “You want to join me for coffee in the cafeteria?” He aske
d and looked towards Mr. Wilson, who smiled.

  “Sure. Let’s go. By the way, you can tell me how the entire process works.” I asked.

  “Nothing special brother, they make innocent Americans fool and suck blood, I mean take their money. You were in the customer service earlier right?” he asked after enlightening the nature of business.

  “Yes, I was; and you know why I was transferred to this process?” I asked.

  “No, what had happened there? I have heard that many of them were asked to leave or get their process changed.” He asked to clarify.

  “We had been asked to retain 90% customers or more, to survive; which you know was not in our hands.” I explained him the reason for my process transfer.

  “Means?” He wanted me to go in detail. I decided to explain him as we had whole night to talk about the process, and take the process knowledge of In-Ground Support.

  “Means, everybody who was asking for refund, had to be retained with freebees or extended subscriptions.” I said.

  “What if someone is not ready for freebees and extended subscriptions?”

  He asked to continue the conversation.

  “Then we were trained to offer the partial refund, let’s say if a subscription costs $169.99, we were taught to ask for one time service charge deduction of $99.99, most of the customers used to agree to that. If someone was not agreeing to that, we were supposed to talk to them and convince them unless they threaten to file chargeback.” I told him about the reason of my failure in the prev. process, which was the target of retaining 90% or more customers or the amount whichever was higher.

  “We also do the same thing brother. But the only difference is we don’t probe them hard to retain the refund, and process it if it is related to site visit.” Honey let me know he was also living that moment where people used to beg their own money which they had paid couple of days before with expectations of solution of the issues of their computers.

  “Do you like working here?” I asked him.