Sampati's Observations

Thanks to The Lion King song, I had always pictured the phrase “Circle of Life” in a particular way. But then there was this call on my mobile that changed that visual forever.

Now, every time I sit down with my daughter to watch The Lion King, my reflex is to press the forward button the moment the song starts.

My daughter of course, does not appreciate my impatience, and protests vehemently.

One day, as her protests grew louder, my wife caught me in the act. She rushed in from the kitchen, trying to make sense of the commotion. Our little one wasted no time in explaining the root cause of her frustration.

“Why do you keep doing that?” my wife asked, irritated at my action.

One thing led to another… and soon turned into a full-blown argument.

Eventually, she gave up, sighed in exasperation, and stormed back to the kitchen, muttering something under her breath. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

***

We had a quiet dinner. I guess sensing the tension between her mother and me, our little one was unusually quick to finish her dinner. It seemed like she had already moved on but her mother had not.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to break the ice.   

In response, I got nothing but the munching sounds of her eating.

I realized I had to come clean. I needed to explain myself.

“It was a call from Maango that gave me this phobia.,” I said.

“Phobia? Phobia of what?” Finally she broke her silence.

“Circles!” I said.

“Circles? What are you talking about?” She frowned.

I’m quite familiar with that expression. Letting the suspense linger any further would have only undesirable consequences for me.

I was compelled to cut to the chase and narrate the whole incident.

***

About a month ago, Maango called. He sounded distressed—I could hear his heavy breathing over the phone.

“What happened? Please, calm down and tell me,” I urged, trying to steady him.

“Nothing happened yet… but soon… I will end up doing something  very very bad,” his voice was choked.

“No, no… please, don’t do anything rash. You have a family to think about. Don’t do this,” I pleaded.

“You don’t understand. I have to do this—for my family.” He sounded desperate.

My heart was in my mouth. Had something already happened to his family?

“What are you saying? Is someone holding your family for ransom? Are they forcing you to rob or… or worse?” A bunch of scary possibilities flashed through my mind.

“Yes, in a way. I’ve been ordered to lay off a third of my team members— the directive came straight from the top,” he was sounding breathless.

“Lay off? Why?” I asked.

I knew they had transferred him to this market (in Southeast Asia), luring him with a carrot of ‘Rapid Growth’ – tiny but rapid growth.

“In their flagship markets, they are stagnating. They need to cut costs,” he said. Frustration was evident in his voice.

“Why you then…” My simple logic says one cuts costs in the area where the problem is.

I started to visualize Maango as the sacrificial goat.

“I had the same ‘Why’ for my boss…” he paused.

“…And?” I pressed, growing restless for an answer.

“I was told I should simply follow the mandate, or my name would be marked with the Red Circle.” His frustration had turned to nervousness.

“The Red Circle?” I asked. I recalled the famous red spot on Jupiter. Experts say that it is nothing but an enormous storm. But a ‘Red Circle’… now that was entirely new to me.

“Oh, your company doesn’t use that term?” Maango replied, clearly surprised by my ignorance.

“In our MNC, everything is measured by Green, Yellow, and Red circles,” he began explaining.

 “The Big Boys despise the Yellow circle. It signals that it’s time for them to do their duty as enablers. But it also means a lot of work outside of responding to emails, marking their attendance in meaningless meetings, and lecturing others. Most importantly they have to confront people and make difficult decisions, taking them far out of their comfort zone,” he exhaled.

“Wow!” I exclaimed in my mind. I always knew Yellow was a hot color, but I never imagined a Yellow circle could generate so much heat for the Big Boys.

“Green and Red, they love!” he said sarcastically.

“Green is all good. They just send their EAs over for our input. It ends up on their victory declaration slides, the ones they proudly present to their bosses. And then comes Red in order of their preference…” He paused again, perhaps gathering his thoughts. But the suspense was testing my patience.

“Red—they love it too. Red signifies major issues. It gives them free license to blame Middle Managers like us, and wash their hands off the problem,” he sighed… “The implications for us could be anything between lower pay to termination.”

Finally, I understood why Maango was so stressed. I tried hard to find words of help, but nothing came out. We held our phones in silence for another five minutes—he was terrified, and I was utterly speechless.

***

My wife listened to my narration in pin-drop silence. Before getting up, she simply looked at me and said, “Poor Maango.”

After that, I never got to know what side discussion took place between her and our daughter – we never watched The Lion King together again.

What do you think about this? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below—I’d love to hear from you!

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