Tuesday, January 1, 2019

An Unhappy New Year

  1. I am amused to recall what happened to me and a colleague more than a quarter of a century ago.

Those days at small places, no automatic dialing facility was available and even the local numbers had to be called through a  manual exchange.
Once in office on a New Year Day, ,very enthusiastically I put through a call to my immediate superior, a well meaning officer, though younger to me in age to offer New Year greetings.He thanked me for that  but quite apologetically informed me that the super boss had asked him not to disburse the salary to ' both of you' , the other being my deputy in the office. I put  him at ease saying ' no problem, sir' and bade him bye.
It was a shock not so much for the money part but for the fact that I in particular, was only three months old at that station and done no such thing as could have offended him. Me and my deputy enjoyed good reputation among the public. In all probability, we both were pitted against a capricious, whimsical superior, who for no valid reason was behaving in a sadistical manner.
I had a discussion with my deputy and both of us decided that come what may, we would not make any request for disbursement of salary and in case something in black and white was received would be appropriately answered. Nothing of the sort happened and in less than a week we got our salary. I don't know what had transpired . Had the immediate superior made a request on our behalf or some good sense had prevailed upon the super boss, we did not know.But no greater harm was done.
In due course both me and my deputy got promoted to the next rank and were again together at a new place. We used to recall this incident quite amusingly .
Unfortunately , my former colleague , more than a decade older than me is no more !

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