STORY

It was the festival of Diwali. My father was Manager-in-Charge of the Honda Motor Vehicles Showroom in Jind, Haryana. Now Diwali is the one festival during which Indians go mad over shopping. And companies are more than willing to slash prices on all their products, making this holiday festival a shoppers paradise.

At the showroom, orders from the upper management required us to cut prices on various car models, bringing in quite a large crowd. Most transactions were handled by the showroom staff, but on that particular day, two of the staff members were unable to reach the office that day and my father had to go visit a couple of our relatives, leaving me in charge of the showroom. I saw this as my chance. A chance to show my skills and techniques and prove to my father that I was an independent adult, fully capable of utilizing all the assets to ensure that the work is completed regardless of the situation or environment.

The day was going well. The customer service was satisfactory, the staff was working well together and the overall management was acceptable. Until I saw it. That one discrepancy. It was during the evening when I was reading the transactions throughout the day that I realized that we had sold 16 cars that day. But the showroom lot had only 15 vacant spots. Thinking it was a mistake on the part of the staff members, I initially let it go. But something kept nagging me. A gut feeling. Something was telling me that there was more to the story than I thought. So I cooked the books and that's when I realised that someone had embezzled from us. The only people who could have done this were the four staff members.

This was a huge shock for me. I had no idea what to do or how to go about doing it ? I tried calling my father, but the call did not go through. That's when I decided to calm down and go through all my options. I knew I had to eliminate some of the suspects. The first thing I did was check the cameras.  I knew that Megha, one of the employees had told me that she had checked the books earlier. So whatever tampering occurred would have only after Megha left or if she herself was the culprit.

Going into the security room, I booted up the system and ran the video feed. The tapes confirmed my suspicions. Megha was the culprit. Now, I had to confront her before she left the showroom. But how would I go about doing it ? I decided to talk to her about the matter and see where it went from there. I set up a microphone and called her into the office. She was flustered when I started talking about the issue and then trapped her using her own words. By the time my father came back, I had her confession on tape and my father was impressed. It was at that moment I realised that with the right presence of mind and the determination to go with your decision, anything is possible.