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.
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