With each tick of
the clock time unfolds and brings in a new moment into our lives. Some of these
moments bring hope and optimism that give us the power to rise above any obstacle
and face any situation and come out a winner. These moments of hope and
optimism come to us every now and then but we are at times too busy to notice
them and turn them into spring boards that would propel us to new heights of success
and achievement. I write these lines drawn from my experience and reflect upon
an incident that happened many years ago that not only gave me hope for the
future but changed the lives of so many people around me.
I was fresh out of
college and into my first job as a trained engineer. Life was hunky dory and
there was not much to complain. On the professional front our company had got a
big order and to fulfill it the owner took a heavy loan to buy the raw material.
Then suddenly due to a financial crunch the company defaulted on its loan installment
repayment as a result the lending agency gave our company a time limit of 60
days to repay the loan or the office premises that was hypothecated would be impounded.
The financial situation became so grave that the company had no money even to
pay the wages to the workers.
My boss left the
job and I found myself as the head of a business unit that seemed destined to
be doomed. Overnight the lives of a few hundred workers had gone topsy turvy.
This was the toughest situation of my life. Having no other option and with no
money to pay the workers the management decided to lay off all the workers and
close down the business unit. The task of breaking this bad news to the workers
was deligated to me. That evening I had a lengthy discussion with the leader of
the workers union who showed his dismay at the proposed shut down and lay off
of the workers. The toughes job would be to break the news as so many people
would lose their jobs and livelihood. Then it started raining and I offered the
union leader a ride on my bike to his home. When we reached his house his four
year old daughter came running towards us and
smiled at me disarmingly. She playfully held my hand and pulled me
inside their home and asked her mother as to who I was.
The mother told her
that I was her father’s friend friend from the factory and it was due to me
that the child’s father could get her all the nice clothes ,toys and eatbles.
Looking at the
trustful look on the innocent face of the young child disarmed me and the trust
that her mother showed for me gave me a strange feeling of responsibility
towards them. That night I could not sleep instead I kept thinking if I could
do anything to help change what was about to befall.
I worked up a plan
and took the union leader into confidence and had a meeting with the management.
I presented a plan to the management in which the workers would work with the
raw material and complete the order. As the management did not have the money
to pay the workers they would share a part of the profit with the workers and
pay the wages after completion of the order. For the workers it would mean that
they would not be shunted out of work and could gain monetarily upon completion
of the order. The management would not lose face due to lack of fulfilment of
commitment.
It would be a
win-win situation for both the workers and the management. After a long
discussion both sides agreed. The innocent faith of a young child and the faith
of her mother had propelled and instigated me to come up with this plan of hope
and optimism that in the next sixty day would transform the fortunes and the
destiny of so many household.
The entire
workforce worked 24X7 as a cohesive unit .The men worked at the factory and the
women set up a community kitchen that took care that no mouth remained unfed.
Needless to say the
order got completed on time and in the span of 60 days the seed of hope and
optimism that had been sown in me had grown, bloomed and blossomed into a full
grown tree that sheltered and protected so many lives.
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