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Naina took Amit to the staircase right outside the office. Amit was surprised to discover this new secret staircase that he was totally unaware of. It faced out of the building and presented with an overview of another side of Central Delhi that he had not seen from such a vantage point. And the December fog instead of eclipsing the view completely was actually imparting a nice ethereal touch to it all.
“This is the best place in this building. I often come here with others for a little chit chat,” said Naina.
Amit looked at her in admiration.
“No one can hear what you say here. This is, therefore, the perfect place to vent out your spleen about whatever be bugging you, including your bosses. So where were we?” Naina said with a smile.
“You told your boss that you didn’t give a damn about his assignments. What happened next?” Amit asked.
“Oh yes. He threatened that he would escalate the matter,” said Naina.
“Did he?”
“No. I didn’t give him that opportunity. I escalated the matter before he could,” said Naina.
She took out a cigarette from her purse and lit up with her pistol lighter. This girl would get in trouble someday for carrying that idiotic pistol-shaped lighter in her purse, Amit thought.
But at that moment, it was the smoke which bothered him more.
“When will she quit smoking?” Amit swore under his breath.
He felt like snatching away that irritating cigarette from her lips and tossing it away. But that would have certainly caused an explosion that would have blown Amit away. Plus that would be interfering with Naina’s personal choices.
Amit knew that Naina was such a strong-willed person that she could quit smoking the day she wanted to. However, that desire had to come from within. There was nothing much Amit could do immediately about that problem.
Naina noticed Amit’s grimace but ignored that imperiously. She, however, couldn’t help seeing how Amit’s cheeks and nose were turning red due to the morning cold. Amit had a fair complexion from Indian standards, which could be termed tanned in Europe. In both continents, however, this was the kind of complexion men craved for.
“What did you then do?” asked Amit breaking Naina’s reverie.
“Huh? Oh, about that escalation? Yes, I immediately fixed up an appointment with the HR and the Managing Partner then and there,” Naina said gathering her thoughts.
Amit nodded his head.
“In the morning I came to office early and I printed out all the copies of e-mails that had been exchanged between Arshad and the client. He invariably marks me a copy so that I can keep a track of the deadlines. So I knew that the client deadline was a week later and NOT on that evening as Arshad had made it out to be,” Naina said.
“Wow, that sounds interesting,” Amit commented.
“I next took those print outs to both the HR and the Managing Partner and told them that Arshad was unnecessarily crying wolf only to harass me. He was imposing false deadlines on me just to show that he is my boss,” Naina said.
Amit kept listening.
“I highlighted many portions of the print outs such as the date and time of the e-mails and what was exactly said. I showed them that there was no real urgency and that the document he had asked me to proof read was not even the final version. This is because he wrote in his morning e-mail that day that he wanted me to print the FIRST draft of the agreement,” said Naina.
Amit’s eyes widened in admiration. Naina was quite a smart girl, he thought.
“Did the HR and the Managing Partner buy your story?” asked Amit.
“They asked me whether I had spoken to Arshad first. I told them that yes, I had and that I had made my position extremely clear to him.”
“Surprisingly, both readily agreed with me. In fact, they also told me that they had received many such complaints against Arshad. So they would investigate the matter and speak to him about his behaviour,” said Naina.
“Hey, where did you learn all this trick?” Amit couldn’t help asking.
“In my previous stint with Shah & Shah actually, where I learnt the importance of keeping the HR and my boss’ boss in the loop,” Naina replied nonchalantly.
“That was a very smart thing to do. But tell me, what was your experience like at Shah & Shah? I have heard some really bad and ugly things about them,” Amit was getting more and more curious.
Naina paused for a moment. He could see that she was taking her time to gather her thoughts. She looked hesitant to speak but after a while burst out:
“They destroyed me.”
“When I joined this firm a month back, I wasn’t my usual self. I was a happy girl earlier. I loved to laugh. They took all that away from me,” she said.
“How so?” Amit asked in a comforting tone.
“Working hours were terrible. I was spending nearly 14 to 15 hours in office day after day. I didn’t have any life outside that firm. And my boss...” Naina paused.
“What about your boss?” Amit asked.
“She was the most intimidating woman I had ever known. She would scold, bitch and nit-pick at me. She was extremely great at playing politics and shifting blame to her juniors,” Naina said.
Amit was listening.
“Shah & Shah was very different from Singhania & Co. They had much bigger clients. Almost all their clients were in India’s Fortune 500. Those clients behaved differently. They had tighter deadlines and made lawyers work like slaves. We were working for one such client and the document was not delivered on time. When the matter was enquired into, they found out that it was my boss who had goofed up. In her defence, my boss put all the blame on me whereas I had submitted the document to her on time. I had kept no proof, so I couldn’t defend myself,” said Naina.
“That is depressing,” Amit said.
“After that I became very particular about preserving a paper trail to protect yourself. I learnt it the hard way,” she said.
Amit nodded in agreement.
“Now, I don’t take any sh*t from anyone including bosses and their bosses. If your boss gives you sh*t, day in and day out and you keep taking it, your boss will think that you are used to taking sh*t and will give you even more of that,” said Naina.
Just then Amit’s mobile buzzed. It was Smriti, so he had to answer.
“Where the hell are you, Amit? I have been trying your extension for nearly half an hour?” said Smriti in a screeching voice.
“Ummm... I am here in office only...” said Amit. He wanted to say that he was in the toilet but just couldn’t lie.
“Anyway. I need you to do something. In the coming weeks, we have a very important meeting to prepare for. You have been involved in that IPO matter very closely and you had spotted a few issues. Now you need to make a list of all those issues in your notepad, so that we could bring up those in this meeting. So be ready. I don’t want any slip ups this time. Got it?” said Smriti.
“Understood,” said Amit.
“Good,” said Smriti and hung up.
“What’s the matter?” asked Naina sensing something was not right. She knew Smriti had called up. She had noticed Amit looking tense whenever his boss called up.
“Uh... Nothing ...I need to go and prepare for an upcoming meeting,” said Amit.
Naina nodded. She had finished smoking and dropped the butt on the stairs without a concern.
“Even I need to finish some pending work. I’ll speak to you tomorrow morning. I need to tell you something interesting about your boss,” she said with a smile.
Amit smiled back and both returned to their workstations.
