Mera Number aaya kya?

A good example for people madly in love with numbers was my ex-CEO. He will die to see numbers. Our normal conversations go like this:

: hey sriram.. are we closed for the month?

: hi boss. Today is only 12^th. If you are talking about last month, you already have the numbers. if you need this month’s you need to wait for another 20 days.

: ho.. it’s only 12^th? Can you send me an estimate for the month please?

: chief. You have an estimate sent already last week.

: oof.. is that so? can you then send me a comparison of estimates between last week and this week’s?

: the estimate remains the same.

: then can you send me an analysis on why it remains the same?

: you have it in your email this morning.

: ah. then can you send me a sensitivity analysis on what it will be if it is not the same?

: you mean a best-worst scenario? You already have it in the same mail.

: ha. Do you have an ideal scenario in that?

: yeah. the most ideal scenario will be either you take leave or grant me leave till the month end.

This CEO was a guy who actually was passionate about the numbers and looked at them too. But there are more weird animals I have seen in my career vis a vis the numbers –

My friend always says people vent their sexual frustration in different ways – one does it by buying a pink color car, another does it by researching in to unheralded areas like history of safety pin, one more does it by listening to off-beat listless tuneless collection of songs (one of the singers in the latest Hariyudan Naan reminded me of this class – he picked songs that were nowhere close to entertaining even himself but he had the guts to enjoy them thoroughly while the audience was left panting! ) and so on… in this category, I had a boss who showed this in numbers. Here he goes:

: can I see the monthly report?

: here sir..(you are seeing it for the 6^th time man)

: mmmm.. numbers don’t seem ok. Can you give me the break up for these line items?

: here sir.. (I cannot break them anymore man, they may vanish)

: oops. Can I have the last 3 months comparison for these?

: here sir.. (have you done anything to the business to make them look any different in the last 3 months or 30 months?)

: do you have the last year similar numbers?

: here sir..(can only look better than this year.. you may even feel elated now on achieving better numbers last year, knowing your caliber..)

: ah.. can you show these in a graph?

: here sir..(do you want it in a cartoon, I can do that too)

: how about changing the font?

: here sir..(here comes the path breaking business idea.. this will change the whole market..)

: can you insert some call-outs?

: here sir..(can someone insert you in to the trash bin?)

: tatatatt.. tatatt.. something is wrong. Let me meet the GM.

: (I know you are leaving to watch the cricket match you swine..)

The guy finally got sacked after 30 years of service in the org - but the org was such I was not surprised at the speed in which they found him to be incapable!