"Thieves do not have a conscience. The whole notion of
them being in possession of any sort of honour is a charade designed by society
to provide some comfort letting politicians rule. There may be some who stole a
bread to survive, but having prevailed over the chaser once, they steal and run
forever, sometimes, even ending up stealing and running the country. Watch Oye
Lucky! Lucky Oye if you don’t believe me.”
Thus rambled my boss, with a mix of deep philosophy and
quirky references. It was an impeccable style I must admit. With so much
abstraction thrown in, you could never really counter the reasoning and rebut
the argument no matter how right you think you are. For no man in his right
mind would question his boss’ philosophical outlook or the taste in movies. The
real point however, goes for a toss and by the time you go around that barrage
of words, the decision has been locked and stocked with your boss holding a
couple of smoking barrels over it.
Before I stray any further, not unlike the Boss, I must orient
the uninitiated over the situation at hand. And you will need the orientation
if you are not from my line of work. Here I am, a Sales Officer for an FMCG
giant, looking after the sale of my products in Punjab. You will understand my
role a tad better if I explained the functioning of the sector. The lowest
cadre is the salesman, who goes shop to shop, booking orders for his company,
depending on the shopkeeper’s needs and his targets. It isn’t an easy job as
the shopkeeper wants to keep less while the salesman wants to sell more–
typical conflict of interest there. You see that shampoo in the shop even
before the ad has appeared on TV, that’s a good salesman. The shopkeeper is out
of your brand of toothpaste? That’s an incompetent salesman, and in my view, a
retarded shopkeeper for who in his right mind, would not stock my toothpaste in
his shop. That thing sells more than Rajni’s movie tickets.
My role is to ensure that the salesmen visit the shops
regularly and the distributor supplies regularly to shops. I also go around on
these ‘beats’ with my men to ensure things are ship-shape. My boss, as you may have guessed is the Area
sales Manager and manages a handful of officers like myself. Having taken over
just a week back, she is on a travelling spree, hopping from one Officer’s
territory to another’s, working long hours in the market and acquainting
herself with the distributors.
The above statement
came about a fortnight back. After yet another long day’s work that included “working
the market” in the blistering heat, noting down the distributor’s stock and
inspecting the stock condition and inspecting stock unloading that had just
arrived from the depot, we had just settled to have a cup of tea with the
distributor. They had only begun to exchange formal introductions when the
manager entered with a worried look on his face. As it turned out, one piece of
a very expensive cream had gone missing from a shop during our visit to that
shop earlier during the day. The shopkeeper was sure for he had only kept three
and had only allowed us inside his shop today; after all, an ASM’s visit does
warrant an invitation for a tea.
To my mind, it could either be the shopkeeper or the
salesman. Both had motive and I could trust neither. I weighed my options; the
shopkeeper was my biggest business opportunity in the town while the salesman
was only a week old and easily replaceable. I knew I had to pacify the
shopkeeper if not return his money but could not bring myself to rob a man of
his livelihood on mere suspicion. It was then that my Boss uttered those words and
freed me of my guilt. On hindsight, it did not really implicate the salesman
but at that point I was more than happy to relieve myself of the burden of my
guilt.
I did wonder about the salesman for a couple of days. But
his memory, like everything in life, too subsided. It was yesterday when I
received a call from a colleague while in the market. The act of calling is not
unusual in our fraternity as we develop a strong bon homie with our colleagues
and also like to keep ourselves abreast with the goings on in their territory.
It was, but, the situation and the content of the conversation that utterly
shocked me. After the usual greetings and inquiries he asked me if I could
refer a salesman for he is one short. While he was telling me how he had to
fire one on suspicion of stealing when the Boss came visiting, I saw my Boss
chatting up a shopkeeper, while she inconspicuously slipped a men's perfume in
to her purse.
