Last Tuesday the October 26th, I was busying in buttoning up my staff meeting speech in my office, my desk phone rang, I glanced at the shown caller-id, it was from my boss's boss, and I picked up the phone.
“Hey, big guy, please come to see me.” His voice sounded unusually soft.
“Now ? “ I asked hesitantly as I looked at the lower corner of my screen, it was 7:32 AM
“Yes, please.” He answered without a tinge of annoyance.
When I entered his corner office, he stood up, closing the door and smiling at me “It is not official yet, but congratulations. He pulsed and tiled his face a little and looked at me for my response “ You are being promoted to the position of …, we will send out "please-join-me-to-congratulate" email tomorrow, you know, that kind of bs stuff.”
“Really ? That is really great, Sir ” I thanked him, pretending to be excited. Actually, deep down underneath, I didn't feel much at all; no, I, in fact, felt weird.
Here goes a thing, each time, I break up with some girl who I had serious relationship, then pretty soon after. I would be promoted to a higher position at work. It is like some kind of sick joke that some higher authority keeps playing on me repeatedly. I am not kidding, three times on the roll already. It's not that I don't like more power or more dough, it's just I felt I am rewarded with a wrong/foul reason. Besides, the law of diminishing returns also applies as well.
Sensed my silence, he patted my back to signal me to sit down , “You did a great job here , and people like your skill sets and working ethics. I 'm sure you can manage those hooligans, right ?
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely!” I answered with a dull smile on my face.
We chatted a little about the office politics. As I was trying to excuse myself to leave. He said to me “I saw your office light were still on after I came back from dinner a couple times. Please don't get burn-out , and you know what, in your age, you should take some time off to bang some hot chicks, though. He laughed out loud.
My boss's boss , a 25 years plus veteran of the Street, is savvy, shrewed, and vulgar-mouth guy; many people in the company have kind of love-fear view towards him. For those who approve him, he is regarded as a genius whose competency, insight and accuracy on market sentiments have earned his name of a legend in this greed-driven business. For his foes, he is a ruthless, take-no-prisoner and blood-thirsty predator who can smell the weakness of a prey miles away. He has married three times, and in his words, still counting.
As a marketeer, even from our clients' point of view, I admire him for what he does the best. Maybe, he is not the most adorable moralist on the street, but he seems knowing the next big thing. Let me use an analogy, if any of you are graveyard sick, would you pick a doctor who is the most competent one in the field but had a fair with his nurse once or you would choose a doc who may clean as a whistle all his life but incompetent at his skills? The answer is a no-brainer one, I assume.
Back to my office, I made an attempt to quell my stirred mind by forming my “game-plan”; how to play cool to sit next my current boss at the meeting, pretending I haven't heard a thing about this and how to tame those two groups I am about to head. At lunch time, I thought I should stimulate my numbed emotion by doing something special to remember the event. So I went a website and bought a pair of Marrakesh cuff links as a reward to myself for this unexpected promotion.
People often use an ancient proverb “ like father like son” to describe a trait that different generations present same behavior whether it's a forte or a flaw. If there is one thing runs in my family that can be summed up , that is, for some strange reason, my grandpa, my father and I are all like to dress in well-tailored cotton shirts with cufflinks. It is kind of strange though to just think about it: three generations grew up in awfully deferent environments and received different eduction and have vast different philological, psychosocial and political views end up to appreciate little fine thing in men's life.
To be continued.
