This is a Prologue to my ebook, I will be publishing a chapter in medium and then the whole book would be made available on Amazon.
I had fallen off the corporate train in the year 2006 after a wonderful and whirlwind run of almost eleven years. Graduating with a family-pleasing degree in Electrical Engineering that had caused no significant damage to my erstwhile non-technical brain, I had boarded a plane from Texas to Pakistan with a landed job in Philips Pakistan. Got promoted within a year and got the title of Manager and that too with a team to manage as well; sent to Dubai for training and got mooched by an ex-Philips GM to come and join him to the absolute dismay of my managers at home, but heck, one had to do what one had to do.
The job in Dubai was like playing snakes and ladders and I was bitten at box 99 my friend and went all the way back to START. Eighteen months of pure agony working for a company that seemed more like a prison with every cell holding a serial killer; interactions in this company were like a Bruce Lee movie where one had to duck every time a manager or a colleague would pass by. Everyone wanted someone else’s blood and the new boy from the old town had been a great target. And then the gentlemen who had convinced me to leave Philips Pakistan got convinced that he was working for a hell hole and made a dash leaving me vulnerable to the cruelty of the local Dracula’s. I could hear the howls of wild wolves, screeching nails on a wooden board, and whatever else you can imagine to be the absolute torture antics designed for a lone lamb whose shepherd had just jumped ship.
Anyway, in an ideal cosmic accident, I got to meet someone at a trade fair where I had been placed to answer technical questions about a product I had no idea about and where one of the passing comments by an attendee had been, “Man I don’t think you know anything you are talking about”. Before getting into my galactic venture let me relate another story, this same company in Dubai that I wouldn’t name for reasons that include the longevity of my stay in this country, had sent me to an oil installation as an expert in the field of explosion-proof cameras and controllers. I still need a spell check to describe the product, and I was simply thrown to go and fix the problem. Gentlemen, I had walked on top of cranes without a harness, checked installations in areas that were dump sites for hundreds of tons of Sulphur, and survived; eventually fixing the problem after almost sixteen hours, assuring the mega oil company that I was no expert at all; but I did fix it, Bravo to me.
And then it had been all rosy for the next many years, the accidental meeting at the trade fair resulted in a job at Siemens AG, a company that I loved and adored for its leadership, work environment, flexibility, the culture of learning, and growth. Ten years of pure bliss, travel, good money, press conferences, and no glass ceiling. I broke all personal goals and meeting targets and ended up as the VP for the Middle East and Africa two years later than I had originally planned, I was 37 years old and then I guess I flew too close to the sun. The long-serving CEO of Siemens AG decided to call it a day and brought in an energetic German- American gladiator who had a great itch against Telecommunications Technology for some reason, maybe his mommy didn’t let him use the phone when he was young or he had been stuck in a phone box in a flash flood but whatever the reason, the guy detested Telecoms and decided to offload everything which was telecom from the company. He folded Siemens Mobile, where I worked, and gave it in an envelope to BenQ to use as toilet paper together with all staff, head office, and the factories. This CEO dude got kicked out of his job in six months for his deeds; the average tenure for creatures at this position ran into decades so he did manage to make an entry to the “Loser in Charge” category in the Guinness Book of Records if anything like this existed. But the damage had been done and BenQ couldn’t bear the weight of a Top-Heavy organization and ended up becoming a salami sandwich and hence discarding the brand and the baggage, that’s us.
And here starts my story where coffee had walked up to me to get smelled and I have been experiencing its aroma for the past fifteen years.
I am writing this book as a testament that I am still breathing, the world is going in circles, sun and moon have the same cycles but what I have experienced outside the “Corporate World” had been, has been and God forbid would be constant-permanent-super glue-like learning forever until I turn into a tree or whatever. I have never pushed a grandmother towards oncoming traffic, never set fire to a puppy or stolen candy from a supermarket and I didn’t cut the Apple tree with my hatchet, I swear didn’t; so, if this is some punishment for my deeds then I would like to apologize in advance for anything that I might have done to anyone known or unknown. I even apologize for the extinction of dinosaurs, the pacific garbage patch, and even global warming. This mega learning that I have had, working with the Seths (Merchants) has been a daily learning experience. It’s a permanent enrolment in a university that is devoid of a graduating timeline.
I am not aware of the happenings when one sells his soul to the devil, but I can assure you that it would be pretty close to working with a Seth, a single-owner company.
This is not a “Whining for Dummies” book. Ninety percent of the working population works for the rest of the ten percent, we like it or not, we hate it to the core, but this is a fact. Some people have been created to be merchants and then there are the other 90% like myself to toil for the greatness of these creatures. Like it or hate it but this is how it goes, and the purpose of this book is for me to introduce you to this thriving organism that feeds off you, but his skills are necessary to let the world of commerce do what it does. If we were so good, then we would have been in his place, but we are where we are, and he is where he thrives so let’s take the chill pill.
I have spent the last fifteen years working for several Seths, in many roles, some with fancy titles, others without any visible form, they belonged to different nationalities, different business verticals, and even beliefs but one thing has been common among them, like an invisible electrical wire running and connecting them with each other, and that is the absolute love and adoration for wealth.
Corporate employees work in fancy offices, work with policies and HR manuals and rules but the real world is managed by Seth, Merchant. He is the man of the market where the product reaches the consumer, without him, no multinational goliath can survive, he is the lifeline of every conglomerate that wraps the globe with its ruthless clutches. He is the one who takes and distributes the merchandise or sells it to the corners where the “Big Company Guys” won’t even tread. His place of work is even offensive to the spoiled caviar eating sophisticated brats of “Blue Chip / Green Chip or even no Chip companies” but his good humor enthralls all he touches as this person, with all his unsophisticated charms pays their salaries and these college boys know this all too well.
Join me
I hear the hum of this song every time I see a Seth because every Seth also wants to rule the world.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Welcome to your life
There’s no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
Everybody wants to rule the world
It’s my own design
It’s my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
There’s a room where the light won’t find you
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down
When they do I’ll be right behind you
So glad we’ve almost made it
So sad they had to fade it
Everybody wants to rule the world
Everybody wants to rule the world
Everybody wants to rule the world
