11:18 PM: Another cigarette. 2 in a row.
The smoke rises up and mixes with the white cabin lights. The top floor of the commercial tower in front of me hadn’t switched off their lights yet. The white smoke from my cigarette dissolved perfectly with the white office lights. The rest of the lights in the building were all switched off.
I work US time. Eastern to be specific.
“You guys continue with the plan, I will stay back. There’s a scheduled client call.” – waiving at the team packed in 2 cars going out for dinner I came upstairs to my chair.
At this time, the office which can seat 150+ individuals only had the client facing team to suffice. We could literally sit in one chair every hour and even then we wouldn’t be able to finish sitting at every desk.
9/10 times we choose the desks that are closest to the office exit door, neatly, near the canteen and the just an aisle away from the washroom.
We are a remote team. I will explain later why we ended up meeting at the office for a week.
An email comes in. 10% increment. What? This time, I was supposedly a ‘valuable resource’. 10%? I was furious.
“Take a round on the 390 adventure at higher than normal speed, get my adrenaline out of my system. Its gushing out the ears, nose, head.”, was my immediate reaction. My body felt it has risen in temperature by a couple of degrees. There’s considerable amount of heating up near the ears. I could feel that.
But today, I was constrained. I did not have my motorcycle. I was in a different city.
I still remember that night vividly. Ahmedabad. April strategic meet. From evening itself, folks at the office were pretty eager to know what their increment would turn out to be. The increment letter and mail came in, that too at 12:30am at night. I was about to for a client meeting. To demo a newly launched product on which I have been assigned as the Outbound Customer Success individual for the GTM motion for this new product launch.
Glancing at the increment PDF, I was shocked, taken aback. How is this possible? My manager had promised I was a ‘valuable employee’, I was slated to get a salary correction. Correction? forget about that. I was seeing an increase of just 10% of my overall salary.
My salary initially had started with a very low number. Since I was coming from a background of doing business for 10 years which resulted I did not have any salary certificate to show.
All of this had resulted in me starting my job at a pretty low base. 4 years in and after 1 promotion, I was showed by my manager that I should be ready for becoming a Principal Customer Success Manager with one person reporting to me. I had already understood back in January, the company has stopped all hiring. So someone reporting to me was out of the question. I did not even have any hope for that. But what I am immense hope, that for sure my salary would be revised.
Upon receiving the email (which was bland AF, talk about personalization) I was numb for a couple of minutes. Still finding it difficult to fathom. How come my manager didn’t fight even when he knew very well what the %increment was decided.
I started walking aimlessly on the wide roads of Pralhadnagar. Nighttime at this busy office area is surprisingly walkable. The wide roads illuminated by bright white LED lights. The canopy of the trees above, few bikes and cars wizzing by at higher than city speed limits.
My mind was wandering around. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Cigarette after cigarette. I went on a walk. I was in Ahmedabad for a week. Onsite conference. The office calls it strategic meet.
Every year 2 times. 1 in Ahmedabad, the other in Bangalore. 3 days of non-stop presentations, discussions, meet-ups.
It is in one of these strategic meetings that I delivered my first talk. Looking at operational challenges from the lens of a photographer. Elephants vs Cheetahs.
Happy days, happy days indeed.
But tonight was not. I aimlessly walked around the wide roads. Going from one intersection to the other. There weren’t that many people out there. These places are busy market and IT office spaces. At this time of the day (night) the streets were empty. Municipal corporation vehicles utilizing this down traffic time to clean up the streets, cut of tree leaves that have overgrown.
I stopped for sometime. I admire the hard work that is being put in by these local municipal workers.
1 more cigarette and I started walking back to the office.
As i was walking back I kept looking back at each passing car. may be the team mates have finished their dinner and be on their way back. I need to keep a straight face. Me being disappointed cannot be shown, or else everyone else in the team who are having a great time will suffer and falter. I cannot let that happen.
Thankfully even after many ‘lookbacks’ I had reached the main gate of the office complex. Glancing at the parked cars I figured they would have come back. My dinner must be waiting in the canteen.
I went in, straight faced. “hey guys, how was dinner?”
There were smiling faces all around, each wanting to share their own stories. K pointing towards the cafeteria, “DB your dinner we’ve kept on the table. It should still be hot. It is wrapped in aluminum foil.”
I started chatting with K who was accompanying me while I was having my dinner. From that day till today, I have tried keeping a straight face and go on with work.
Thanks
DB
22nd May 2026