A Promise : To You For You

Chapter 27

An hour later, employees who were part of the hospital project gathered in meeting room on last second floor of the building. Everybody looked a bit worried because the meeting was called on a very short notice.When Rhee entered in room all of them went silent.

Taking his seat in the head chair of the round table Rhee commenced meeting. He started by explaining current situation of the company regarding project that how our partners were planning to back out from the partnership due to their sudden lack of trust in our company which could cause company its whole fortune. His expressions showed clearly how unhappy and disappointed he was from this entire situation. However, he kept his composure before other people in the room.

A round of murmurs started in room telling us outcome of this situation which we had already known. A few of employees also raised questions regarding the reason for sudden lack of trust.

It was my question too. Though I had an idea through what Nikhil had said about some rival but I couldn't guess who was that rival. It was surely that rival's doing. He must have convinced our project partners to rethink about this partnership after that meeting incident. The question here was, who was he?

Rhee didn't answer those questions. He dismissed them by saying 'I don't know' in his gruff tone, delivering a silent message that he wasn't interested in answering. Of course, after that no one dared to bring that topic up. After all they loved their job.

When questions were put to an end, a thorough discussion started. Rhee said that he wanted to present a new idea to the clients who were arriving India ten days later from London. The current idea, we were working on, had reached almost to its completion stage which was best in my opinion. Other employees also agreed to it.

To it Rhee replied that he wanted clients to accept our proposal no matter what. For that to happen our idea, our presentation, our concept, our everything had to be flawless. So he needed a new idea which should even be best from the current one.

Meeting went on as discussion continued. Many suggestions were made about 'what to do' and 'how to do'. For the first time I noticed that employees were not afraid to speak their mind freely, to Rhee. In fact they were participating in discussion with great eagerness and determination like they were never tongue tied before this man whom they called their boss.

On the other hand, Rhee was listening to their ideas with an utmost interest and patience, commenting once in a while. He would point out pros and cons of the given idea, at times, which needed to be considered and gave reasons why a particular idea could not be taken into consideration.

During all that time, there wasn't a single moment when he sounded rude, sassy, bossy, arrogant or intimidating. He was a leader in those hours of meeting who respected opinions of his teammates which included me also. Keeping our strength and weaknesses in mind, he would guide us through our mistakes, that too in a polite manner. Well not literally polite. The Rhee version of politeness which, I guess, was much better than his usual behaviour.

Every other day he would show a new side of him, leaving me bewildered. He would make me doubt if I had ever known this person, for once. Then again the person I had known was a teenage boy whereas the person I knew now was a man. A man rather with a dominating personality who did not appreciate if someone questions his decisions, no matter whoever the person was.

The morning incident was an example itself when he thought that manager was questioning his decision of terminating Shree and I. When in actual he was trying to tell him about Shree's resignation. Rhee didn't let him explain himself what he had to say, hence ended up taking wrong decision.

This flaw of not letting others speak what they had to say could cost him in future. I wished I could tell him but at present I was in no place to do that.