Harpic Challenge

Last evening it was dinner time. My wife brought her plate full of chappatis and curry, sat down and switched on the TV. Ads were going on. As the first piece of chappati entered her mouth I saw her closing her eyes and shaking her head. I never felt any problem with the food. I was wondering as what went wrong. Then my focus shifted to the TV ad. Harpic Challenge Ad ! It was actor Abbas smiling and holding the Harpic toilet cleaner. The ad shows the toilet before Harpic and after Harpic. “Why should they show only this ad when I eat”, my wife complained. (I agree, how can one eat without watching TV, would the food be tasty otherwise? I forgot to mention about that happy house wife with Abbas in the ad. Why shouldn’t she be happy? Even I will also be happy if Abbas comes and cleans my toilet, every day better!).

One needs to be sensitive while telling something - what to tell and equally important is when to tell.

We had a customer visit. The customer was a retail giant in the US. Rick, the outsourcing manager was the one who was visiting us to decide what projects to be awarded. The sales manager was desperate to get some orders as he managed to achieve only 30% of his sales target, we were already into 10^th month of the year. So we decided to provide as much inputs as possible to Rick!

Rick arrived Bangalore on the previous evening. We, presales team, went to meet him at Oberoi and decided to have dinner at Tandoor on MG road as Rick wanted to try out something spicy. He liked and ate all spicy items especially the Chicken Tikka. Before the food would start taking effect on him we bid good bye with the hope that we would meet him in our office next day morning.

Rick did not disappoint us. Sharp 9 AM he was in the office. His eyes were 25% closed though, partly because of the chicken tikka after effects and partly because of the humpy and bumpy travel he had in that 20 Km stretch from Oberoi to ITPL. We did not want to lose a single minute. Straight away we started with the first item in the agenda “Technology capabilities”. Though we had given in the brief to our technocrat that the customer was interested in Microsoft technologies, our man started with Java technologies. Either our technocrat did not read the brief or Java was too close to his heart or he did not know much on the MS front. Whatever the case be, as he went on explaining each tier of the 3 tier architecture Rick’s eyes closed exactly 25% each at end of each tier, so he did not see the conclusion part which talks about what we could offer to him. He lost interest in subsequent sessions that would have had some relevance to him. First off all he was tired and we started pumping him information which he was not at all interested to start with. End result – no addition to sales manager’s revenues!

It was a festival day at my village. The approach road from main road that goes in front of our house was getting repaired. The contractor and his staff came. The road roller came.  I said “goli maaro home work ko” (forget about the home work). I could do home work tomorrow also, but I did not want to miss this excitement. I also joined as a spectator. Don’t get a wrong impression that it was an elaborate process. They would arrange the scattered stone pieces. Spread some soil on top of it. Sprinkle water and press those stones using that heavy road roller. The stones knew, the soil knew, the road roller knew, everything on the earth knew that when the first rain would come all the soil would go off and the stones would go to its original scattered state anxiously looking forward to the next “pressing session” which would be 5 years away, next election time!

Something strange thing happened that day, I was not disappointed. This road roller just went off the road a little bit and got stuck. The driver tried all stunts, the road roller just made weird noises, but it did not move an inch. Think tank formed and joined together - contractor, his staff, driver and a few villagers. Discussion was how to pull this huge fellow out. They were all worried. Bring a crane, lorry or truck, or even an elephant, suggestions were many. Then a brilliant suggestion came from our “Chittappan” who happened to walk past the scene. ( “Chittappan” is not a name. It means father’s younger brother. Since he was “Chittappan” of three prominent youths Kuttappan, Varkey and Jose in that area, he became “Chittappan” to all of us! ). “It is so easy no, last time an ambassador car had the same fate, we just lifted it. We can try the same thing six of us can join and lift it”. Contractor could not control his anger, he was about to hit “Chittappan when somebody told him that “Chittappan” is mentally disturbed and he keeps making such illogical statements. Poor man, he was not in his senses when he told those words, it could happen.

Soon your little child comes home from school tired,  -  instead of offering a juice, soup or coffee -  if you ask him/her “what did  you learn today, what is the home work, how much you got for maths”

Soon your spouse returns home after a busy day at office, - instead of planning to have a dinner or tea and watching any of those no brainer “Kadher Khan Vs Govinda” movies,-  if you list down 10 problems you faced today and 20 problems that you would face tomorrow

Soon your old father or grandfather reaches home after a medical checkup due to the frequent chest pains he gets – instead of asking him to take some rest – you break the news to him that Ramamoorthy in the next lane died of cardiac arrest half an hour back

Then you are no different from we, presales team, and the Technocrat who switched that customer fully off.

Lastly, one request from me as usual, I am requesting this since I do not have any control over this. Please read my blogs when you are absolutely sure that you have free time and when your urge for reading something becomes uncontrollable - I have control only on what I write. Else, you would start calling me “Chittappan” ! I am fine with that in this situation. Do think about it when you jump into that conclusion about somebody dearer to you.