Jai Revankar had come in and was seated. He had been introduced to the three panel members by the general manager (HR). At the very mention of the name Revankar, I found Mr Prabhu's expression change suddenly. For the next ten minutes he said nothing. He allowed the conversation to move on between Revankar and the two of us. And as we were talking about Revankar's work experience and the scope of his responsibilities in his previous two jobs, Prabhu suddenly interjected to ask Revankar where his father had worked. It was a disjointed question and on a different track. Revankar told him that his father had been the finance director of Swift Corporation and had now retired and was living in Pune.

Prabhu quickly connected the threads. Prabhu had also worked at Swift Corporation for 5 years. Revankar Sr had been his boss. He had never got on with Revankar Sr. He had been bypassed for promotion twice in the five-year period. His appraisals by Revankar, just about got him through for a normal increment. There was absolutely nothing wrong. It was just the wrong chemistry. Prabhu had finally quit in disgust, with regrets of having wasted five years of his youth with little to show for this period. Prabhu had then joined the Slow Flow company where he made rapid progress and was now the financial director.

Once Prabhu had established that this young lad was Revankar's son, Jai could not do anything right. Prabhu just took over the interview. He grilled Jai on virtually every conceivable subject from production to politics, finance to HR concepts.

Prabhu went out of his way to prove how little Jai knew. He made no attempt to find out how much Jai did know. At the end of the interview, Jai had been shown in such poor light that the panel could only reject his candidature.I came to know about the Prabhu-Revankar connection many months later. At the time of the interview, I knew that something was remiss, but I could not put my finger on it. And perhaps Jai will never know why he did not make it at the interview at Swift Corporation!

Organisational culture
Sandeep was young, intelligent, a double Ph.D in behavioural sciences and had been a very popular lecturer at a leading college in Delhi. After 6 years of teaching he decided to move into industry and joined a very large company in Mumbai as manager (training). This company was a leader in its field and one of the key stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. They were also well known for their long and successful record in development and training of staff and hence the training head position was an important one.

Sandeep was happy in his new assignment, After the settling-in period, he began to innovate and put his stamp on new directions in training which would help to take the company into the 21st century. Everything seemed to be going well for Sandeep for the 18 months that he had been at the Windy Corporation.

One morning Rao, the personnel director of Windy rang up Sandeep and requested him to move his office for two months to the conference room, since Ms Beale, a consultant from Europe was scheduled to spend two months at Windy, India, and required an office. Was it possible to do this by the day after?

Sandeep thought this to be very strange. Just because someone on a temporary visit was going to use the conference room, Sandeep was required to remove all his stuff from the shelves and drawers within two days. And to be told this over the telephone gave him an awkward feeling.

But the worst was yet to be. The following day Rao telephoned Sandeep again. There seemed to be a problem with the cars. Sandeep's car was the newest car in the department. Could Sandeep release the car for Ms Beale? Rao's secretary would arrange for another car for Sandeep's use during Ms Beales visit.

Sandeep was furious. There seemed to be not even a `by your leave'. He was just being taken for granted and pushed around. He had obviously joined the `wrong company'. If this is the culture of the organisation, he certainly would not like to spend the rest of his life here. He decided to quit.With Sandeep's background and experience, it was not difficult to find another job, and in this case he got a better one. He moved on as vice president of a slightly smaller company, but with much higher emoluments.

``Why are you leaving?'' Rao asked Sandeep in surprise and disbelief. ``Because I've got a much better assignment'' Sandeep told him. ``But this is among the top ten companies in the country and you are doing so well. There is a great future for you here. Even after just 18 months you were considered one of our fast track executives with potential for the international pool.''

Sandeep remained silent and smiled. He did not want to venture into explanations and reasons. And even now Rao or the other directors do not know why Sandeep quit. They are tempted to explain it away with ``He went for more money. But he will regret this decision later.''

Inane comments
Mohan and Shalini were entering the already crowded hall to attend a Diwali party being hosted by their friend, Shah, a prominent industrialist. As he entered, he over-heard the loud comment of a friend, Chari, whom he had known since high school. Chari had retired after working as chief accountant for a medium-sized engineering company. Mohan was now an internationally known management guru who was being paid (in the words of another guru, Tom Peters) ``Obscene sums of money'' as lecture fees.

Chari's loud comment, which could be heard right across the floor was ``Here comes Mohan who bluffs his way on the lecture circuit and still makes pots of money''. It was certainly not in good taste. In any case the inane comment got quickly drowned in the hum of conversation. Chari had said this in good humour, at least in his own perception. And he himself quickly forgot about it.

Mohan was cold and casual with Chari that evening. He turned down two invitations to Chari's house in the next eight months. Chari never quite understood why Mohan had become so cold and distant to him when for three decades they had been `warm though at arms distance friends'. Perhaps Chari will never know why.

And this is true for all of us. There are some things we will never know and some situations we will never be able to explain because most people will be reluctant to be brutally frank or reveal the naked truth. Therefore, we too will never know why certain jobs never came our way or why people have suddenly turned cold, or why things meant to happen in a particular way never quite did turn out that way.

(Walter Vieira is president, Marketing Advisory Services, Mumbai)