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During my employment at the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India, way back in the year 2000, I was nominated and sent for a three-week training course at the National Insurance Academy (NIA) Pune. From 22-05-2000 to 10-06-2000 (both days inclusive). I do not know what came over me, but I wrote a detailed account of the training titled “Training for Young Executives”. As a dedicated professional, I had submitted this dairy/feedback report to the Regional Manager (P&IR), Zonal office, Hyderabad. Like all other reports, this too may have been thrown in the dustbin. 25 years / a quarter century later, I found this report in my library among the discarded papers. Thank God, I did not throw away those papers. The same report, I am now publishing as series in my website. I was young inexperienced and unqualified and hence excuse me for some disturbing comments in the dairy. But this training has laid such a strong foundation that immediately after the training I quit LIC and went abroad to pursue my eventful destiny in the world of Insurance. |
SECRET DIARY OF A YOUNG EXECUTIVE – Barely an hour back, an unknown beautiful mechanized female voice from the Railways has assured me over phone that I am not assured of a berth but a seat in the second-class A/C compartment. It was indeed good news — an oasis in the Sahara.
The climate was humid, and the perspiration was unbearable. With my shirt sticking to my fragile body due to sweat, I commanded the never hurrying auto driver to take me to the station faster. Reached the station barely with minutes to spare. To my dismay, the Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) confirmed my berth. Now, I can also sleep in the train – as I usually do in the office, deliberately ignoring the dissatisfied glare of the customers!
I was jolted back to reality, when my next seat bearded co-passenger helplessly said to his visually tired friend — “These agents and development officers will never learn”.
Had I known the fact that they were Branch Managers (BMs)from Karimnagar Division proceeding to NIA Pune for the same training, I would not have ventured to strike a conversation with them even in my dream. They were the faithful managers of LIC, who will only think of the fortnightly figures in their deep slumber, rather than the passionate appeal from their better halves to return home early in their waking state.
I was thoroughly tortured by these terrifying managers who fired salvo after salvo about LIC in my direction, rather than getting to know me. It was then, I remembered vaguely, a black cat crossing the street when I was about to start to Railway Station.
I will write about these two young BMs later. With difficulty, I have excused myself (or escaped from their clutches) and retired to bed only to have disturbed sleep wondering what was in store for me at the NIA.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
