individual investors, let alone housewives, in the first place. Of course, they never
complained when the commission kept coming in. but now five customers had
closed their accounts and one customer had sent a letter all the way to the CEO
of Citibank in New York.
At my weekly sales meeting, I told my sales reps not to sell Chennai customers
anything apart from fixed deposits, gold and saris.
‘Sir, we don’t sell saris,’ one of my reps clarified.
‘Sorry, I was trying to be funny. We don’t sell gold either, right?’
‘We do. Gold-linked deposit, sir,’ she said.
Yes, I didn’t even know my group’s products. Actually, I didn’t even know why
I was doing this job. I nodded and smiled. In customer service, you need to smile
more than a toothpaste model.
‘Is it true that Ms Sreenivas lost ten lakh?’ another of my lady customers
walked into the bank. She chuckled, and sat close to the sales rep to get the full
lowdown. Too bad we couldn’t give her the details due to confidentiality reasons.
We couldn’t offer returns, but at least we could have given gossip. Maybe that
would lure customers.
‘Krish, come here,’ Bala came to me like a petrified puppy at seven in the
evening.
I had packed my ‘Citi never sleeps’ bag to go back home and sleep. We had
our bosses coming in two days. I had spent the last two nights making
presentations for them. It was the crappiest, most thankless job in Tamil Nadu.
No matter how wonderful I made my slides, the numbers were so bad, we’d be
screamed at anyway. Last night I had reached home at three and then woke up
again at five to reach brother-in –law dearest. I didn’t want Bala, I wanted a pillow.
‘Bala, I ...’ I stopped mid-sentence as he had already turned towards his cabin,
expecting me to follow him.
I went into Bala’s office. He shut the door softly as possible. He drew the
blinds and put the phone off the hook. Either he wants to fire me or molest me, I
though.