My Father’s Legacy

I stared down at the keys in my hand. It had been a long time since I had come in early enough to open the office. I had not planned it that way, but it had just happened. It was 40 years to the day since I had walked in through those doors as an employee. An employee not a director. In spite of my education, in spite of being more qualified than anyone else in the organisation, in spite of my experience, he brought me back to my hometown and gave me a job at a fraction of what I was worth in the market. My father did not believe in making me Director. He did not believe in a big salary or perks. In fact, he did not believe in a lot of things. But that comes later.

Why did I join? Why did I agree? Perhaps it was because he was my father. To someone reading this, it might seem naïve or immature, but try as I might to find another reason, I simply cannot. My father asked me and as his eldest son, I agreed. It was the way we did things in my hometown. Being a son was quite a responsibility, being the eldest was even more so. It was not about being sexist or about differentiating with the daughters. My sisters were all brought up to be fiercely independent women. But things were quite different when it came to sons. There were no written rules, no real dos or don’ts, but there was a code – an honour code or a moral code – call it what you will.

I remember that first day in the office. I did not fit anywhere – no one wanted to talk to me – I was the boss’s son. And my father…? He never spoke to me at work. I muddled along at work, trying to make a difference, trying to put my education to good use. I still don’t quite know if I was effective. There was no one to tell me. Anything I did was met with bland smiles, anything I questioned was met with a shocked expression and I was told in reverential terms that that was the way the Director did things. It was one thing I could never quite come to terms with over the years. The quasi devotional attitude to a boss at work. It was a part of a dying ethos. I am still not sure if it was a good thing or not. All I knew was that any ideas I suggested or any changes I initiated were resisted like some kind of religious crusade and I was regarded as the renegade who dared question the Director.

It all changed in the blink of an eye. My father – big made, confident and autocratic always seemed so invincible. Even to me, his son, there was a sense of someone larger than life, someone to look up to as mentor and guide. People see and sense that kind of character in a person, but often our own bodies let us down. And that’s what happened with my father. He died. Just like that. There was no prolonged illness, no agonising visits to doctors, no medicines and tests. He just died. The doctors told us he had a heart attack. The reasons simply did not matter. My father died. Even after all these years I wonder why I always thought of him as my Father. Never Dad, or Daddy, or Appa. I called him all those names no doubt, but in my thoughts, he was always my Father.

After 13 days of mind numbing rituals, l returned to the office. It was my first time after he was gone.  Even as I entered, I sensed a change. I was no longer an outsider. I was the Director. It annoyed me for many days. I dismissed people as being fickle and self-serving. It took a long time for it to dawn on me. It was their way of putting their careers and lives in my hands. So different from the work culture of today. These were people who had worked with the organisation for years and expected to retire with us. These were people who for better or worse had tied their personal fortunes to those of the organisation. These were people who trusted us to take care of them. It was an onerous responsibility. And it was not just about their salaries or their jobs, it was their honour, prestige and self-worth. Suddenly I found myself responsible for the lives of so many people.

Suddenly every decision was fraught with tension. If I chose to shut down a failing division, the old grey-haired technician who had worked with us for over 25 years and who had a special child might be out of a job. If I chose to computerize the accounts, the wheezy, pot bellied accountant would lose face because he was terrified of computers and would not even touch one. If I questioned the expenditure in the office, my administrator who had a harridan for a mother-in-law would see a loss in confidence and would not be able to hold her head up high.

I had worked before in large companies and had come to be known as a whiz at turning around failing businesses. But they were faceless corporations where people were just numbers and board room decisions were like a game of Monopoly. This little family firm with 80 employees all gazing at me like the Second Coming had me baffled. How on earth would I handle this? To add to my woes my Father had neglected to take me into confidence about the state of affairs in the company. It was terrible. Business was down, clients were not paying, and our records were in disarray.

On a good day I would picture the sales head go home and tell his little son a story about this magical office he worked in each day. On a bad day I would imagine the finance head portraying me as a demon as he coaxed and threatened his daughter to finish a meal. It was a long and arduous effort. My learning in college, my experiences in other jobs… none of them helped me. I was on my own and it was sink or swim. Slowly, using my conscience as my barometer, my logic as stepping stones and my intelligence as a prop I negotiated this perilous journey of turning an organisation around while retaining the old stalwarts and ensuring I did not compromise their honour, self-worth or jobs.

It was a hard battle for they resisted every change and made it so difficult for me to manoeuvre. But slowly as they saw me work, their trust increased, and they started to work with me rather than against me. It took years but over time the organisation grew and flourished. It was not much and when I looked at my peers heading billion-dollar organisations I would be assailed by doubts about my decision.

But there were days when everything seemed just right the way it was. The day when the grey-haired technician proudly invited us to watch his special child perform on her school day. The day the wheezy pot-bellied accountant came driving to office in his own car and carried his laptop up to his cabin. The day my administrator brought her mother-in-law to an office get-together. The day when the children of employees walked into our office eyes round with wonder at seeing this mysterious place where their parent worked. These were days that seemed extra special.

I stared down at the keys in my hand. There were times over the years that I had questioned my blind obedience to my father, I had fumed at the way he had left things, I had despaired at the responsibility on my shoulders. But that day, staring down at the keys in my hand, I knew in my heart of hearts that things were just right. Sure, there would be more problems, more issues and more questions. But to me it was no longer just about jobs and profits. It was about the people, and their lives and about how they saw themselves when they came to work. I had built up the organization, turned it around, made it successful. But it was more. Much more. It was my Father’s Legacy.