CHAPTER 44 - First Signs of the Satyam Apocalypse - II

In 1999, after Savitha’s ‘Big Hand’ departure from the scene, the Goblin GG Howdy quit shaving his scraggly face loaded with a reddish-tinged beard and drank lesser and lesser espresso coffee that he had from the Nescafe coffee dispenser parked in the green-marbled hallway. Why did he quit shaving? That is the question.

Well, apparently, GG was dejected due to his perceived wronged fate that he thought has befallen him or some such whim that came about in the wake of Savitha’s escaping so quickly. Who knows, he may have plainly misjudged his cruel knack for oppressiveness index thanks to Savitha Tandavi’s determined exodus from Satyam. Frankly, he wanted all of us at roaming division nicely churned in the latent risk of constant career insecurity and confusion. And to a major extent, sadly, he was brazenly successful in all his ways.

Naturally, we folks found ourselves – all throughout the year when Savitha made her escape – pondering over this somewhat dismal turn of things with GG Howdy and his ways of crude conduct. He looked as if he was dejected for life. Thanks or no thanks to Savitha’s AWOL, GG still got no better than he always was in his whimsical, Godless best. Was it something to do with Savitha’s permanent exit from Satyam? Was it Balzie Gigamorthy’s sending out feelers to leave roaming division for good? Or was it about Revanthi Rakani’s and Raufia Begum’s preference for other vistas/projects? No, it wasn’t so. We were sure GG had other manipulative ideas, and it was nothing to do with Savitha’s departure more than two years ago. It was, in fact, the unmistakable whiff of cash and guaranteed newfound administrative power that was killing him so well!

A Cash-Sniffing Appropriation

It was fairly distressing – or is it? – for GG Howdy to swallow the fact that the entire roaming division was ready to be moved out of Satyam Computers to one of the new companies incorporated elsewhere. GG showed as if he was fairly upset about the new development that is taking place, but in reality, he never was. We saw clean through his fake/fabricated sentiment he had proffered, then, to mean well amongst us folks as if he had nothing to do with it…. If he thought his mocking concern worked, sorry to say it didn’t; we could read through all his connivance loud and clear.

Nope, not even that. Arinvan, Manpreet, Sexy Devee, TD Suraj have all suspected that it was part of GG’s making – a sickening fact that worked in his favour and his director friend of Cow-Labs. It was a high-stakes cash-sniffing business acquisition that happened in the wake of his friend’s hostile exit from one of Satyam’s directorship positions. Yes, that is all there ever was to it. Not a penny more not a penny less.

Good Riddance!

At the roaming division, we were really excited to hear that GG Howdy has resigned from Satyam Computers. We thought: finally, good days are here.

TD Suraj came running to us to announce it. Hearing the ‘good news’ Dilnawaz Khan smiled purposely. His “universal” toothy grin revealed all. Shiv Charan ‘Joey’ Prachad remained inert and unaffected; at first, he did not react to the alleged “good news” but we could hear him when he was angrily muttering to himself: “Good riddance! It’s about time the monster buzzed off…like forever!” But like every good piece of ‘office news,’ especially in big corporate offices like ours, sometimes has a dark side to it and it explodes like no less than a nasty surprise soon after, leaving everybody gobsmacked in the process. And oh yes, like I was saying, this ‘good news’ too had one such unpleasant miasma attached to it and as a consequence of this unwelcome scenario, we were all compelled to succumb to its detrimental aftereffects.

GG was leaving Satyam no doubt, but not without the entire business operation of roaming division with him in tow! The heartless devil made sure that he not only had left a trail of destruction in the wake of his leaving the company, but also young IT professionals like us orphaned. He didn’t care two hoots about it.

As it happened, just within a few years, our much-loved, much-visited, much-revered roaming division is going to hang its boots and no longer will be a part of one of the associative businesses of Satyam Computers’ Strategic Business Unit. It was unbearably painful for us to deal with this wicked development because we saw it as morally wrong. Satyam’s roaming division would entirely cease to exist as a revenue-earning business model and no longer be located in the gleaming offices of Satyam at Tesser Towers on Raj Bhavan Road…. with a future DISASTER written all over it!

Abomination, Subordination

Regrettably, GG wasn’t a man of easy-going nature; he was someone who’s not only hot-headed but also gives out an impression that doing things in a complex way was his innate specialty!  We believe that this disposition of his originates from his constant distrust of people that work under him. Naturally, one doesn’t expect such a man to logically think about the fact why people have perceived him to be an awful supervisor. His newfound glory of removing roaming division out of Satyam appeared, at least to us, some sort of a trump card to win a great trick or something!

Forget the board member partners-in-crime of his; they wouldn't consider to even consider leaving roaming division to Satyam’s SBU. If the roaming division has to go then it has to go to someone who brought the business in the first place. So the deal was struck and off it went the way they thought is most preferable. After all, the man who brought this business entity into Satyam’s largely software portfolio is the one who can, it seems, legitimately reclaim it, one way or the other. And how was GG Howdy placed in this business fortune-sharing frivolities? GG was a mere pawn in a high-stakes game of ‘business sharing’ wherein he advantageously got himself picked up (by the neck) from Satyam and placed (with a thud!) in the marauding Cow-Labs, with a reprimand thrown in good measure: “exert yourself here!”

Anirvan wasn’t hallucinating on the possibility of anything like this is going to happen, but of course, everybody from his group knew that no higher-up would favour what a just-another-employee needed to say in this matter of grave consequence. It seems that the employees merely as subordinates, don’t really figure in the so-called make-or-break decision-making process of the higher administration. However flawed it may seem to you - strategically or managerially or even culturally and emotionally - they have made sure to demonstrate that they don’t care the slightest bit about it. Employees are mere hires/contracts, not proprietors. Period.

Profitable business entities don’t play to the gallery of personal emotions of subordinates/employees who care. Such businesses need to be milked, cashed, and cashed very well and what have you. Just who are these small cogs (read employees) in the large wheel trying to emphasize their importance? Employees? Well, chuck them! To these business wranglers, subordinates are mere hires, a kind of biological species who will tail you everywhere and raise their hands, not legs at least, in perfect Namaste to be able to sniff out a job or two and work according to your requirements and compensations are paid accordingly! Staff members’ understanding of the organization's issues doesn’t get counted. So guys like you should better shape up or ship out! That’s how the subordinates’ ilk is known to have fraternized; don’t you know this, mate? Perhaps, a fitting response to that would be, “Smell ice, can you? Bleedin’ Christ!” Arinvan had heard that somewhere. And then disasters of Titanic proportions unveil!

A precursor to the Satyam Apocalypse!

We couldn’t believe that something like this would befall us. It was an incredible misfortune for us to put up with! The taking of roaming division was a precursor to the great Satyam disaster of 2008!

To Manpreet Singh, Arinvan Maliek, Devee ‘Sexy’ Prashad, and TD Suraj the original top-brass of the roaming division, GG’s wrong standpoint was viewed as an unpardonable exploit/adventure. But that was quickly forgotten given the fact that the roaming division was small fry and GG was a mere Consultant. After almost 3 fantastic years of toiling hard work and unrivalled revenue-earning service that had made everyone happy, we were made to go through emotional distress at the taking away of roaming division, and all this for absolutely no fault of ours. We remained mute spectators, blind to the goings-on. On top of that, the managers-that-be (including GG) – may God don’t bless those cutthroat unemotional souls – never gave a decent enough thought to consult us or consider our views or wave a quiet goodbye at the very least.

GG Howdy never cared. We knew he never will. Neither did his director friend in cahoots with the obnoxious idea of scurrying away with the roaming division. The gang moved in for the kill and then moved out quickly to the cash-enriched Cow-Labs before delivering a death blow. That was not the sort of supposed professionalism Satyam was known by. Surely then this has got to be the First Signs of the Satyam Apocalypse that was to come a little more than 7 years later. Who knew the organization itself will eventually have become something like asatyam? Darn it! This is not done!

This was a flat-out betrayal of trust; professional hara-kiri; awful business perfidy on a gigantic scale that had the capacity to wipe out humanity!

END OF PART II OF "CHAPTER 44 - First Signs of the Satyam Apocalypse - II".

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Click here to read Part I of the story.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. All incidences, places, and characters portrayed in the story are fictional and entirely imaginary. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.