“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. Remember the famous saying by Maya Angelou? Well, that is what my life is! I do not know my purpose, but that does not mean I have to stop living my life.”

Sikha thought to herself as she held her laptop in her hands and prepared to rush to her conference room with the excel sheet showing all numbers and pie charts.

“Mondays are terrible. Isn’t it?” Someone whispered in her ears.

Nikhil joined her with his coffee mug as they crossed the hallway to the conference room of their new swanky-looking office. Sikha did not bother to answer him.

Nikhil had joined the office last year in the office and had within a few months become the favorite of the boss and all the top executives of the firm. And it was for all the wrong reasons that infuriated Sikha.

“I can still tolerate Mondays but not this lizard-like face.” With these thoughts in mind, Sikha kept her lips pursed. It felt difficult.

 “Sikha, you are late again. Come over and get on with your presentation.”

Sikha nodded her head to her boss & clumsily kept her laptop on the conference table. Then she plugged the cable into her laptop as the projector threw the data onto the screen.

“Good Morning team. So, I will just quickly run you all through the first few slides which are self-explanatory! Ahhh yes, this is where I wanted to draw your attention. Sikha said after taking the team through a few slides. This is the pie chart that we all need to focus on.

We are spending and majorly giving support to metro markets but as you can see that the percentage growth that we have received from tier-two cities is phenomenal as compared to that in metros.  Even the demand in tier-three cities has been rising consistently.  Hence the product placement needs alteration from the marketing team. We can not just pitch it as something aspirational henceforth. We have to change it to make the customer believe that it is available wherever they want it, whenever they want it.

So, the supply chain must be strengthened, the stock allocation must be revamped, and the marketing efforts now need to be channelized towards the smaller towns where the demand is growing. Simultaneously the higher-end model must be launched by the third quarter of this financial year and only then can we phase out the previous models without facing many issues. So, we need support on all these fronts.”

As she completed her speech, She dropped her own phone on the ground, and in a second she picked it up too!

Sikha might have been well known for her clumsiness in her entire circle, but whenever she took on the stage, no one could beat her confidence!

She grinned at the end of the presentation waiting to get some reaction. But all she could find were eyes staring at her bust. She wore a cream satin shirt and paired it with green formal trousers. She had even put a safety pin and closed the gap between two buttons on the top.

“Damn it, I should have worn my blazer suit today! Why can’t this man look at my eyes when I am talking?”

A little puzzled, she pretended a little fake cough.

“Mr. Kumar?” She asked.

“Ahhh … Yes …Yes. This seems interesting! Because we thought this model is only popular in the metros. But your figures have changed our perception. We need to think over this proposal. And my office will give you a call in a week.

*******

A week later, Shikha was called into her boss’s cabin.

I had told you from the beginning to play safe with Mr. Kumar. What was the need to propose the revamping of the model? You could have just said that the model is doing great, and metros are the only market for it! See, now it is almost a week and we have not yet received any call from them. If we lose this time to our competitor, Sikha, I am telling you, you should look for a new job. You know me! I want…”

“Yes, Sir… I know… you always want just numbers.” Sikha abruptly said this unable to handle any more humiliation from her indifferent & pot-bellied boss, Mr. Rajat.

 Triiinnnggg Triiinnng …just then the phone rang!

And Sikha felt a sudden rush of adrenaline in her body!

PS: To be continued.

This blog post is written for #BlogchatterA2Z2023