Business Ethics

a representative from 'The Hindu' (a very prestigeous tabloid of great stature in india) goes home to home asking as to whether they subscribe for the hindu ...

a senior citizen who I revere for his uprightness, pragmatism and stands as an Idol just finished his morning recitals of ramayan n takes a break with some seasoned refreshments ... the young boy (frump proly for his economics) after some hicups mustered the words in english with lotsa deliberation ... his voice showed the earnestness with which he approached ...

to my great surprise the Sr. citizen retorts ... "yenna pa veenum" ... then he goes about asking as to what news paper is being subscribed at the house ... the young boy definitely expected a candid reply from this man who appeared to be the head of the family ... n so did I ...

much to my disappointment the old man with a grunt voice lied ... he subscribes for indian express (tho he has access to 'The Hindu' which is his fav ... from neighbours ... an agreement among appartment folks) ...

the boy with great scruple notes down the name and that we subscribe for it and leaves to the next door ... proly believing it ...

briefly following this I asked the old man ... the guy says he works for 'The Hindu' and maybe they are taking some survey .. so y did u lie ... n my voice was careful enuf not to be head by the guy upstars ... the old man was surprised @ my question n a shirk with a display of shame as well ... I was glad there was a iota of shame for having done it @ the very least ...

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some time back there was a post here rambling about lack of business ethics ... for which, one dear sriman whet about to explain that there are no ethics in the business world ... I realized it ... but what are the repucussions ... what we saw above ... negligence and derision towards people who still try to make a this world a better place ...

reason? ... sales people who thrust products onto customers ... one day I was buzy @ office when a dame calls up urging me to take loan and a credit card ... my obstinateness drove her to the extent of beeseching n she finally gave up ... now thats what drives people away from even the earnest of salesmen ... likewise with mailing list which has profligated into spam mails ... some offers of relevance to me would simple get lost among the spam ...

no harm in being quixotic ... so just for a thought lets say that I toil to provide the best possible product/service to a band of customers ... my very purpose would be their satisfaction, contentment and smile if not appreciation ... now just as in above case if customers shoo me because he got irate by the other gadflies in the market ... I would loose my impetous to deliver quality stuff and resort to the ways of the world ... coz success in market is key to sustanence ...

there was a retrospection meeting at our organization ... I was reluctant to voice my opinion but after someone's incitement I put it up ... 15 or so points ... highest in number ... and I was earnest in my intensions when I put up each word of it ... there were at least 5 of em that I remember which were deemed as good observations (at the macro level) ... after reading em out it seemed that even though the institution brashed to achieve them ... even after bringing it up to their notice they just did not have any clue as to what to do about these ... this was the reason I was reluctant in the 1st place to voice ... it makes no difference ... but there was still little hope lurking in me ...

this is no different from the above incident ... for the attitude of the participants is just the same ... comming back to the practical aspect of things ...

the western world and better than them the once decrepit countries in asia which have flourished past this country which brags of being the largest mind power ... I'm sure such negligence was not entertained there ... definitely not prominent

amoung many people I'v met, I have seen most of em loose principles, and blaming the rut in which they live as the cause ... ending up with a simple life ... "a job gud enough to feed the libido in me ... get married to some gud luk'n damsel ... then deliver puppies ... n just live out a life ... I dun care bout the society that surrounds me ... " ... not a bit worried about the society in which we live in ... every individual owes a lot to the society which has provided them so much ... yet they decline from reciprocating their debt ... "naa pannaradhu nallai onnum maareeda poradhu illai" or "pannravan'a indha ulagam muttal akkidum" ...

what is a society - it is the morals, ethics and world bestowed to us by our previous generation ... ablution from all this saying there are no ethics ... now is this good ethics? dont we need gud ethics?

my first place of work ... TVS Electronics was headed by Gopal Srinivasan ... a 6 and half footer ... n very industrious ... very evident in his strident walk ... (compared that to the sloths that most s/w professional are ... even a walk to a cafeteria is a saunter ... disgusting entities) ... it was the only aspect of the company that I looked up to coz the lower ends of it didn't quite live up ... GS would go to any extent to take care of his valued employees ... not because he expected anything back from them (quite often the employees did not reciprocate it) ... but because he had good ethics ... he was principled

"If my manager is going to go berserk about me not getting the work done in time and not bother if I skipped to ensure the quality of the product and the process it is to pass through ... then I'd rather risk the quality and make my manager happy" ...

this is how much of work happens here ... and I dont want to generalize ... coz I believe and I know that there are plenty of places where this is not the case ...

prominence (mind my words I am not mentioning monopoly) of ethics would have given that survey chap with true information ... so much for the world we live in ...