Money, Status, Power

He called in last week regarding his case. Actually it was the manager who didn't know how to deal with the request who pushed the phone call in a beep via receiver that pushed his story to me.

The request? To transfer his brother's customers (who was a former terminated sales person) to his name.

He walked in - short, aging, dark skinned 50+ Chinese man with big spectacles.

"Very busy ar? Sorry to come in this time but my case very urgent"

Well, I know your case is very urgent, isn't everybody's own case very urgent?

"You don't know my story -let me tell you ar..."

I stopped him there. I knew exactly what his story was after checking various sources from other departments. Apparently he came in once before a few months ago to plead his case - he did not qualify for the requirements to have the assignation. The manager in charge then tried to help him but they couldn't transfer the cases due to the system limitations (in-built rule in the mainframe) After being explained to, he still wasn't satisfied and was coming in again now to 'try his luck. So I let him talk.

"I am a member of the Union, I know the people there. I will put this in writing and it's only a matter of time before I put in a formal complaint. I'm not happy with the way the management run things. They're always hiding things from us which is not transparent.If you want me to talk to your boss I will.. " yada yada yada

I've heard these lines many times - over and over again. Like a broken record. Don't these people know that their song have been sung by others before? To the same tune?

Then I wondered what it would be like in his shoes. He must be really desperate for money to take over old customers of a terminated sales man. Also, to bear the humiliation of going from one person to another just to get a few pittance in commission. Now he has to deal with a young upstart like me to get his case through.Money - no; Status -no; Power -no. The most pathetic thing is that he tried to use name dropping and co-ersion to get people's attention to his case. And I wonder if at the age of 56 how long and how far would I go to get a few sen in my pocket....God forbid.