Note: This is not a work of fiction. It is based on a true incident and all the characters used in this story are real. The names of the characters have not been changed to preserve the originality and more importantly to give due credit to the deserved.
It was an otherwise normal Friday. Nikhil(me) and Rajavardhan were seated in front of the computer (in the office) discussing something that doesn’t categorize either as trivial or as path-breaking. Sandeep, then suggested that we go for a movie. He was keen on watching the junior NTR starrer YAMADONGA. The girls rejected the offer outright without even considering. Rakesh accepted the offer thankfully. Rajavardhan had to go to his relatives place and so he was not willing to come. Nikhil was not able to decide what to do. He was not really sure as there were a million things running in his mind. They were running out of time. They had to book tickets really early if they intended to go. Sandeep was on a computer with the website already opened to reserve the tickets. No one except Rakesh was sure. Sandeep asked the other two a few more times but they could not decide and gave him the same answer “give us some more time”. Sandeep then booked the tickets. Yes he did without being sure which one of them would go to the movie. He had booked 4 tickets. He did it very cleverly. He would not compel anyone of them to come and yet if any number of them dropped, there would be no loss of money and the ones who wanted to go could go without any problem. You might be wondering how this is humanly possible. But, he did it. This is how and what he did. He booked 2 tickets under one transaction and 2 more each in a different transaction. There were a total of 3 transactions in which 4 tickets were booked. Let me explain how the reservation works. It’s simple. You book tickets online and you are given a transaction number for each transaction. You go to nearest delivery point in some fixed duration mentioned and collect the tickets stating the transaction number and paying the money. In case, you don’t turn up at the delivery point in the specified duration your transaction is rolled back and no fee is collected. If all the 4 go to the movie everything works normally. Now, assume 1 of the 4 decides against coming then one transaction of 1 ticket is neglected and the other 3 are collected. If only 2 agree to go then both the single ticket transactions can be neglected. Now, if only 1 decides to go then only one single ticket transaction is claimed. This is how and what Sandeep, the hero had planned. This is what I call ‘real planning’. The perfect plan , the FOOL-PROOF plan which would work even when everything fails.
This is a really inspiring story or more aptly an inspiring anecdote. Hats off to you Sandeep!!! I (We) hope to make such perfect come-what-may-will-surely-work plans in the future. I (We) have learnt a lot from this simple, effortless yet immaculate plan. This is what I call ‘Superb Management in Simple living’.
2 comments:
dude you could have added a line which you said in victoria cafe'... a perfect planning is one which works in any case even if the worst occurs. or one that works when every alternative considered is not working...
Your post reminds me second way of pursuing people and a effective one too. The first one as you are well aware of is bluffing the numbers which in the heart of hearts I knew was not going to work out but still sometimes it did.
Incidents like these makes one thing clear ...management is not in studies but in practise...
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