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Real Stories on Salesman Challenges
Do you know when fishermen go to the sea for fishing, they return after a week or fortnight? They break the Sankha and wipe out the Sindoor (see connotation at the bottom) of their wives which is supposed to be a ritual when their husbands die. They do it before they start their journey because there is no certainty they may come back after overcoming sudden typhoons, big waves, shark attacks etc. There was no accurate weather forecasting system in past, even not today which can predict the weather a fortnight before, especially in the dynamic conditions of the deep sea. As well as they go far away from where it may take days to return against any sudden climatic change. It is not a story but I experienced it long back when travelling in a fishing village near a famous beach called Digha. Also, the same events are described in a series of four sad songs, created by melodious Salil Choudhury and sung by melody queen Lata Mangeshkar.
What is the relation of this with salesmen? Yes, there was a time, not long back but today’s senior managers were working as front line. When many salesmen were living with a fisherman’s pain. Inspite of such hardship they were happy with the feeling that work is worship, As well as they were getting good returns for their hard work, living a better life and maintaining a good work-life balance. Contrary to this, today, many companies are spending additional money for hiring motivational trainers believing that they can wash the mind with great talk on engagement and dedication but in vain.
I usually do not talk about Bill Gets or Elen Mosk as their life story really can not help a common man like us to learn much other than an hour of motivation. The reason being, whatever you try you can not achieve success like them is the reality. (Not discouraging to read those also, reading always yields a productive outcome.) The only reason is success does not have an absolute relation with talent or hard work but with the eco-system. The US ecosystem supports it. What our ecosystem supports, we can do that in one generation, except for exceptional people. However, the two stories below are not even success stories. Gives an idea of how challenging was the life of a salesman and how much different today.
When you read the two stories, you can resemble those with the above narration. There was no mobile. Not even a telephone in our houses or locality. So when we were going for a ten-fifteen days long trip to the north-east or Nepal, Bhutan etc remote places, our families only knew when we were supposed to return. Either return or lost kind of situation. Later many of us got landline phones in our houses but we had to stand in a queue after 10 PM to call and talk a few minutes to our parents, wife or children to take advantage of reasonable call charges as otherwise STD was beyond our financial capacity. Besides this, hiring a car for safety was beyond our imagination and had to travel by public transport. You may be thinking that I was in a poor job. Not at all but on top layer, working as a service engineer in the most reputed Indian company and later in top MNCs (Sico which had 90% market share in the Scientific Instrument field in India and a better work culture than any MNC as well as later in BD which was also a true MNC two decades before.) So, what I am talking about is the best of the standards companies were following at that time. Think what could be the situations of the employees of humdrum companies.
As I am describing my experience I shall write in the first person with a lot of ‘I’. Please do not feel I am bragging.
Story-1
My Love To My ……
I can recall I took a night bus from Kolkata and after 15 hours of overnight travel, I reached Phuntsholing around 2 pm. Phuntsholing is the door of Bhutan from India. The purpose was the installation of one instrument in the factory of Bhutan Board Product Limited in an extremely remote place uphill which was again around 5 hours travel from Phuntsholing. BBPL executives were supposed to take me to the factory in their car. I called the person using a local telephone booth to inform them that I reached. He said he would pick me up after one to two hours.
They came when the sun just disappeared behind the mountain peak. They mean, a Bengali guy Subir, who was in touch with me for arranging the travel plan. I and Sabir took the back seat of a big car. The owner of BBPL also in the same car took the front seat beside the driver. I can not recall but it was a very expensive sedan.
You must be thinking travelling to a remote hill station in abandoned beauty in a big car must be very exciting. Indeed, but my mind was stuck on my small daughter, wife, and mother at home and how fast I could return after completing my journey. The reason being we were travelling through the road which was known as Naxalist area at that time. At least not a pleasant journey, taking life at hand, you can realise.
I asked Subir, is it right that travelling on this road is a bit risky? Expected a reply which could give me some confidence. We were talking in our colloquial language so that the owner and the driver were unable to understand. Subir replied, ‘Yes’. With a pause he said, ‘Last week they blew a car which was carrying a businessman who was known as a top five businessman and close to the king family. The car fell a few hundred meters down from this narrow hill road and everyone in that car died. Sometimes they roll out big stones from the top targeting a car to smash it.’
‘OMG’, I took a deep breath and murmured, ‘we are lucky as we are not travelling with such high-profile person so can be attacked’. Subir bent his head and whispered in my ear, ‘The person in the front seat is not only top five but number one’. Rest three hours I could feel shivers down my spine. By that time it was a pitch-dark evening. At every turn, I had a feeling that a bomb of a big stone flying from the hill.
Anyway, we reached the heavenly place, a big factory surrounded by snow-filled mountain peaks, under extremely bright moon and stars. I put my luggage in the adjacent small guest house. It was too cold to take a bath. Washed my hands and feet, changed my dresses and went to attend dinner with them. I realised the factory was open. Subir said that the production runs 24 four hours in three shifts. I requested, ‘In that case can I install the machine overnight and can you drop me in Phuntsholing tomorrow morning?’ He replied, ‘You can but you must be tired after 24 hour road trip. You should take rest, have a good sleep and start tomorrow morning.’ I replied, ‘No issue, let me complete the work first’. I repeated, ‘Can you arrange a drop for me tomorrow morning for Phuntsholing?’ ‘We can but you have to go with a small truck. Many trucks start in the early morning loaded with particle -boards (FYI, BBPL is an innovator of rasin-based particle boards which I learnt during my visit) and I shall arrange a comfortable seat for you in the driver cabin’, he assured. I agreed joyfully. Subir also jokes that it is safer to go by track than a big car as Naxals do not attack the common man.
I finished my work and rushed to Phuntsholing taking a front seat in one of the trucks. From there I took a bus and reached home at midnight. No sleep for almost 50 hours, no proper food. I could add narratives in this story like Engagement, efficiency, and dedication etc. Is that the motivation behind such hectic travel and hard work? Not truly, the only motivation which made me run pillar to post for decades and return fastest to my headquarters was my love for my FAMILY.
Connotation:
Sindoor – traditional vermilion red cosmetic powder from the Indian subcontinent, usually worn by married women along the part of their hairline.
Sankha – White bangles made out of large Sea shells which Bengali married Women Wear
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Story-2
Terror Attack
One of the challenging jobs was to provide technical support to HIV-related instruments. This is not because of the fear of infection but the insensible demands of AIDs patients. If the machine is down even for a day, which can be a natural phenomenon anyone can understand, especially when a machine is used with its highest efficiency and improper room condition of small hospitals or health centres, the union of AIDS patients starts agitating in the hospital, test centres and our visit was risky crossing them. I was handling such dozens of machines, mostly in remote health centres in north-eastern regions. So, had to face many such challenges which were sometimes life threatening.
However, the worst one was when I was working at Care Foundation in Manipur. By the bye, all workers at the care foundation are primarily AIDS patients which I came to know from one of them later. One day I was working in their lab, and suddenly I found some loud noises outside and some blast sounds. We came near the laboratory door and found people running for a safe shelter here and there. Many were trying to close the door and it was half broken from the outside. I could realise that it was a terror attack. Some people called the police station besides protecting the goons from entering inside. A true moment between life and death. Who knows what will happen next moment. A bullet can puncture the heart or a knife can rapture the abdomen. After around 15 minutes police came and the goons disappeared.
Later I came to know that they came to loot the drugs which the health centre distributes to registered AIDS patients who trying to come out of drug addiction (one of the main sources of HIV is the use of the same syringe for taking narcotic drugs.) HIV centres were distributing low-level oral doses to AIDS patients to minimise their withdrawal effect. So the local terrorist group people try to loot the drags for their own consumption and sell to other drug addicts. They are really brutal when someone tries to protect them.
Now it looks simple but think about that moment when you are locked in a house under a terrorist attack, at any moment you can die.
When we are unhappy with little discomfort, like not having a good quality hotel room, uncomfortable flight/ train booking or a long wait in a customer’s place, these stories can turn your agony into happiness that at least no one to kill you, need not to spend 50 hours without sleep and food.
There are many such unpleasant events in my memory. These memories please me (and maybe you also), what a comfortable world we work and live in now, with hours of free-of-cost video calls with family, and apps to get food, tickets or hotel. Like, went inside the abandoned ‘Chasnala’ coal mine. Heard horrible stories from the family members of the people who died. The disaster was caused by an explosion that weakened the wall between the mine pit and another abandoned mine above it that was full of water of around 110 million imperial gallons. The miners were killed by debris and drowning. By the time bodies could be recovered after weeks, they were typically identifiable only by the number on their lamp helmets. In totality, 375 mine workers died in that accident. The movie Kalia of BigB was made based on this incident.
Crossed deep forest by walking to inspect (high voltage) fencing and faced chasing of wild elephant, python and tiger.
Had to work 20 metres down the seawater to install systems in navy ships. I Fell in between a crossfire in Lalchak at Srinager when terrorists attacked the army, two terrorists were gunned down by the Army and some casualties of Army men in front of me.
I hope I shall capture some of those in future as some of you surely like such articles related to a sales/ Service profession. And purpose is, feel good, you have challenges but at least you and your families are safe.
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