Life of a Salesman

"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.