Eric

I was retrenched from the company in July 2007. I was with the company for almost 6 years. This company was a cesspool of office politics.

In this story, the main characters are Jenny the Sales & Marketing Manager, Eric the Sales Manager, Johnny Boy the locally appointed director and Hokkien Peng the Uncle salesman.

This is a `fictional` story hor.

I had a chance meeting with Eric at the mechanic`s workshop. It was then that I found my new job. Before I started work for the company, a close associate warned me never ever step on Jenny`s tail.

Jenny was overall in charge of our department and Eric was supposed to report to her. Both of them had a love-hate relationship. Unfortunately, we the soldiers were always used as pawns in their office politicking. Jenny would always paint a picture of herself as the persecuted one by Eric.

I really think that Eric was a very insecure person. He is a compulsive liar and anyone who did not know him well enough will definitely be victimised by him as I was. His strategy was to make his victims feel very bad and inadequate about themselves and he would portray himself as God. At least that was what Hokkien Peng told me.

In my first few months with the company, he started to work on me. He told me that he got feedback from other colleagues that they did not like me and said that I was a free loader, always going around to ask for treats from others. When it came to my confirmation, he said that he was trying very hard to convince Johnny Boy to confirm me. He said that he even quarrelled with Johnny Boy to give me a $150 increment upon confirmation. I did get my confirmation with a $50 increment. Eric told me that me that he tried his best.

In my first year alone, Eric actually threatened to sack me 3 times. Hence, I decided to take a company sponsored diploma course. This meant that upon successful completion of the course, I would be bonded to the company for an additional 1 year. Upon completion of my diploma in Sales & Marketing Management, I presented my diploma to Johnny Boy. That was it. No increment whatsoever.

One day, Eric had gone too far in running me down and I confronted him about it. I told him the reason I took the company sponsored course was because he threatened to sack me 3 times. Stunned, he denied that he ever did that and that maybe I heard him wrongly.

Because of Eric`s poor written English, he `delegated` the job of writing reports to me. I was also asked to churn up various types of reports for analysis. Obviously, Hokkien Peng doesn`t know how to do it. So apart from bringing in high paying clients, I had to do reports as well.

Eric was closely associated with one particular client, a freight forwarder, which Hokkien Peng also knew. In the shipping industry, we have freight forwarders and direct manufacturers as our clients. Direct manufacturers would go to freight forwarders because manufacturers can get credit terms from them and not from shipping lines. Eric`s client always gets the lowest rates for obvious reasons. Firstly, it does not make sense for a freight forwarder to book with another freight forwarder. But I noticed that Eric`s client was taking bookings from the company`s list of clients. I wonder why?? I brought this issue up to Eric`s attention but his genius marketing brain explained to me that it`s because his client has the volume to justify getting low rates and that this is how they get their volume. How to beat such reasoning?

I also noticed that within one month of my getting a new client for the company, my client would book with Eric`s client. Gee, I wonder how Eric`s client got that info??

Eric only allowed me to sell at high rates. Rates that are way higher than our competitors. Each time I proposed a lower rate for my client, Eric would run me down, commenting on my inability. What can you say to that?

Personally, I have no problems with people who do such things. Let`s be candid, corruption exists everywhere no matter how developed a country is. The problem was, Eric went beyond the boundaries by running down his staff.

One day, an incident led to Eric`s `resignation`.

We had a trader as our client but Eric forwarded me an e-mail and asked me to apply for special rates from the head office for another client of his. The e-mail originated from his client and Eric just forwarded it to me without keeping Jenny in copy. The e-mail contained the trader`s details. So I just did what I was told. Then, I forwarded the e-mail to Jenny.

Then I got that fateful call from Jenny. She asked me about the e-mail that I sent. She could no longer deny what was going on about Eric. I threw the idea to her that if she is going to allow Eric to go on like this, then there would be no point for me to acquire new clients because it would just disappear to Eric`s client. I urged her to talk to Johnny Boy about it since she was in management. She act ignorant and asked me how she should go about doing it. I gave her some pointers and I gave her my word of honour that I will back her up all the way and that I will testify to Johnny Boy if it was necessarry. I also asked her if I could trust her. She too gave me her worthless word.

A couple of weeks later, Eric `resigned`.