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The boss is not always right

MY boss often raised his eyebrows on my praising my successor for his performance as Deputy Commissioner, saying, ‘You are the only one I have met who praises his successor, otherwise predecessors and successors are meant to be bashed for your own glorification.’

The boss is not always right


Surinderjit Singh Sandhu

MY boss often raised his eyebrows on my praising my successor for his performance as Deputy Commissioner, saying, ‘You are the only one I have met who praises his successor, otherwise predecessors and successors are meant to be bashed for your own glorification.’ Each time, I would start enumerating a long list of extraordinary deeds of my versatile successor. He would agree, but would not reconcile to my praises of him, reasoning that it was not done so in officialdom.

I got posted in a corporation, whose head worked day and night for two years to bring it out from the red zone and turn it into a profit-making organisation. He seldom blamed anyone for the plight of the corporation he had inherited. My boss was enlisted for long-term foreign training and left without any officer replacing him. His successor came after a week of his leaving the charge. The new boss kept the office in turmoil from morning till late night. He would often say that he wondered if the office had ever got an efficient head. ‘Bhattha baithaya hoya a’. Over a year passed in the same fashion of predecessor bashing and finding faults with everything — even walls and tables. 

After returning from the foreign training, my former boss got posted as Special Secretary, CMO. The CM once called a meeting to review the working of the corporation. I was accompanying my boss and before the meeting, we went to the office of my previous boss. After courtesies were extended, my boss started narrating his achievements: ‘I have terminated 10 employees. There was a lot of indiscipline in the office. No audit para had been attended to. There were 151 court cases in which reply had not been filed.’ My former boss looked at me as the other officer went on uninterrupted. 

Soon, it was announced that the CM had arrived. After the meeting, thinking perhaps that he had not sufficiently impressed the Special Secretary, he again went to his office. I wanted to be excused, but he insisted that I accompany him. He again started recounting his achievements. He seemed as a man possessed. ‘I don’t know how my predecessor got into the IAS, he had completely ruined the corporation. It was suffering huge losses. He did not have control over the staff. I have made it a profitable corporation and the best in the country.’ 

It appeared my ex-boss was enjoying his humiliation. ‘What are the parameters to adjudge the corporation as the best in India?’ My boss fumbled: ‘I have collected the profit figures of all offices.’ 

My former boss suddenly stood up and came behind my present boss, laughing all the way. Embracing him from behind, he said, ‘My dear, I am your culprit. I was your predecessor and have ruined your corporation. Any punishment, Sir?’ Flabbergasted, my boss desperately looked around for an alibi to fix the faux pas. He gave me a roguish look, to terrify me as the devil responsible for all of it. 

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