Mylapore Mamies and MNC Negotiations (Chithra, Please Forgive Me)

Dear Aishwarya,

I am really happy and proud to see an IT professional who is careful about her money. That's a good trait Aishu and will stand you in good stead in good times as well as bad.

We accountants have this trait naturally. I have never lived a flashy life and have a policy that my life style should reflect approximately 50% of my income. Being in private practice I've gone through bad times as well. My accountant-life style saw me through them

I dragged MMs in to discussion because many executives naively think that negotiations are those that happen within the four walls of the corporate world. The basic principles of negotiation are the same whether you negotiate for a 100-milion dollar hostile takeover or a Rs.10 per kg brinjals. That way the corporates have to learn from MMs.

You are not a miser, ie. kanjapisnari. But you are a much wiser person than your IT colleagues.
thanks for the fb.

regards,

 

Dear Aruna,
It could be a computer glitch or a database glitch. It had happened to me earlier. A few years back I was writing a thriller in IL - The Haunted House. The story had scenes in which things would move on their own.
And I posted the 7th episode in the morning. When I looked up for it in the evening it was gone. I was aghast. I thought that what I wrote in the story was happening to me. I wrote to Malathy, who also could not unravel the mystery.

Then I posted the episode for the second time and fortunately it stayed. It is there even today.I think I wrote about this incident in that serial thread.

Don't worry I'll make your fb stay by quoting it in my reply. The probability of both of our posts going together is minimal.

When it comes to MMs, I'll have to admit, with the years of their experience, their exposure and their adaptability and the range of "portable skills" they have, this poor mofussil accountant does not stand a chance.
Thanks for the fb, Aruna.
Please visit this forum tomorrow again to see if your fb stands.
regards,

 

Dear, dear Sowparnika,

I am very very happy that I could make you so happy with this post. And happier still to know that you are a MM yourself. My regards for MMs already at a high level has now considerably increased after knowing that you are one.

And if you are a MM then the haggling skills will be second nature. They are like fingers on one's hand. You need not have to grow them. It'll be there for you.

I also do the cost-sheet mentally before buying anything of course except medicines, postage stamps and petrol. When I wanted to buy a new mobile a few days back, I dragged my wife to the heart of the town where I got a better deal. The difference was just Rs.200 on a Rs. 7000 plus set. But still it did matter. I will have to say that now my wife is accustomed to being an accountant's wife. She did not mind the trouble of driving down a few more kilometres to get a better deal.

So Sowpar, we share the same native place - Isabels. I was born aeons ago.
There is another class to which I can apply the words once a MM always a MM. Yes, that class is accountants. Once an accountant always an accountant. Even when I went to the US I haggled with half a dozen airlines and got the best deal. The inspiration again was MM. I just imagined how a MM would buy brinjals. And applied the same strategy to get a roundtrip ticket to the <st1:country-region><st1lace>US</st1lace></st1:country-region>. People would laugh, “air ticket enna katthirikkai vyaaparama”. Yes it is. Thanks for the beautiful fb, Sowpar.
Love,

 

Dear Mythreyi,
By your very short fb you have given a ton of food for thought. Well if only Enron CEO were a MM? He’d have first a sense of values. Second he’d have been wise enough to know that he cannot be perpetrating lies for ever. Sooner or later he’d be found out and would have spoken the truth. He would not have built up that kind of stress that untimely led to his death.
The idea you have suggested is a topic for discussion, why it is a subject on which doctoral students can do their dissertation. Thanks for the fb.
love,

 

Dear Kamla,
All those MBA students from hi-funda institutions like IIM or XLRI always take MNCs for their case study. They would rather discuss how Ford brought down the prices of its latest models to fight off competition.
I have been a mofussil accountant all my life and I know there are far better examples and more interesting cases in India.
If I had been there in their Board of Studies, I'd prescribe the cases of Mylapore Mamis, Malligai Coffee bar in Madurai, the meticulous accounting process practised in Sivakasi, the working capital management of a trader in Virudhunagar.... Being a mofussil accountant all my life these cases impress me.(I know only these cases is a different story, which I wont reveal here in the public forum)

If you ILites form a club to give MMs a good run for their money, let me know. I don't want to miss any piece of action there.

Psychologists say that women's brains are hardwired for bargaining. They can bargain without buying. But if they buy without bargaining, sooner or later, some kind of depression sets in. It's a good habit to haggle every now and then to preserve one's mental health.

I know extreme hagglers too. Long back when I was travelling from Coimbatore to Pollachi by bus, a family of seven stopped the bus. The conductor was happy that there was crowd, as the bus was otherwise practically empty.
Probably the head of the family also knew this. So he did the unthinkable. Bargaining for fare in a Govt. bus in Tamilnadu. The tickets at that time was Rs.2.40. The man said, "If all of us get in, will you give us a concession, let's say Rs. 2 per ticket?"
The conductor was furious and drove him away.
Now we do the same thing with the international airlines. That man appeared as a forerunner for the system of bargain-fares, apex fares etc. Now if you see the Madurai-Chennai flight which has about a hundred passengers, each would have paid a different price.

I know a few MMs who have settled in the US. They are the best bargain hunters. But the down side is that their attics are full with things, from utensils to gadgets, from toys to stationery, and the pity is that in most of the cases they have not even opened the box to see what they have got.

Thanks for the fb, Kamla.
love,

 

Dear Vidya,
thanks.

First things first. You tell Arun that the hero of my next serial is named Arun.. Somehow my wife and I were fascinated by the name Arun and in 1985 we had decided to name our child Arun, if he was a boy. We had a girl and named her Preethi.

I am impressed by SF's simplicity. That would give a pretty long mileage to the company. Companies down South here in India used to be very simple. In 1986 I was taken to a large textile mill for some consultancy work. As our car was approaching the mill gate, I saw an old man coming in a cycle. The Finance Manager sitting next to me wished him with undue reference.
I was surprised and asked him why. He told me that the old man was the CEO's father, one of the founders of the mill. He still sticks to his old ways of commuting in a cycle. And he said that the old man was an ace businessman, who had several crores even in those days.

But today we are mindlessly apeing the US and have become more and more showy.

From MMs to NMs. Nanganallur Mamis. Interesting to know about your grandmother. We owe our life, especially our sense of values and our living in moderation only to them. One day or other I am planning to write an ode to the elderly women of those days. Many of them got married quite young, some of them became widows in their 20s, but lived a great life and brought up their children very well.
Yes, you are right. When it comes to food management, those people are the best. You know Vidya in the 60s, we in India faced food shortage. There was a restriction on the number of guests you can invite to a marriage. In many houses rice was used only two days in the week. So naturally we avoided wasting food.
An elderly lady known to me used to say, that if you waste food then in your next life you will be born as those who wait outside the marriage halls to eat the leftovers. She said that it is poetic justice. You wasted food and now you are made to eat what has been wasted.

You are right. I wish somebody from the MNCs read this and tell them.
Thanks, Vidya.
regards,