Would you like a pair of socks for Christmas, or better still, two pairs?
I know. Socks are boring, predictable, and usually unwelcome presents. But our company's products will change your mind. Apart from being so staggeringly expensive that the giver must think the world of you, you will feel that our socks are really different and worth the money paid for them.
Enough of the sales pitch. Once our socks hit the market we won't need to advertise them. Personal recommendation will sell them like hot cakes. We have projected sales of two million pairs by Christmas this year and twenty million by Easter. We may have underestimated the demand so get your order in now.
*****
Jill and I were relaxing in the boardroom of the Indian branch of our software company. We had just completed the meeting that accepted the buy-out by the Indian managers and employees. We and they were very satisfied by the deal. We had also achieved our short-term goal.
Jill and I had started a small company ten years ago developing games software for older platforms. We were successful, too successful for our personal good. We had grown to become Managing Directors of a large group of companies. Now we had more money than we knew how to spend, and on the way the fun had gone out of lives and our relationship.
*****
It all started in a South East Asian Hilton hotel about a year ago. We met in that Hilton as we passed through. She was flying Westwards, I was flying Eastwards. It was the first two consecutive nights together for what? A year? Maybe longer.
In bed with breakfast on the second morning Jill turned to me.
"Tom. We can't go on like this. We rarely meet and when we do we are strangers to each other. We are husband and wife as well as business partners. Why are we chasing each other around the world and rarely meeting?"
I looked at her. I really looked at her probably for the first time in several years. She was still the beautiful woman I had married but the strain of our hectic life style was showing in her sallow skin, her hair and her face. Her bills for beauty treatment we could easily afford but all the experts could only disguise the damage being done. I didn't need to look in a mirror to know that too many flights, too many long meetings and too much strain showed on me.
"I agree Jill. We have to stop. But how can we? So many people depend on us. We have hundreds of employees and many more in the sub-contractors who need our support. If there was a way to get out of this rat-race I'd love to take it."
"Yes, Tom, so would I. We can't just walk away, much as I'd like to. Treat it as a business problem. We solve enough of them each week. You start. Define the problem."
"OK. The problem is that we are not doing what we want to do. We started as developers of new games for kids who couldn't afford to upgrade their platforms. We used our imagination to make the best games possible within the limits of the hardware. We enjoyed our work and made just enough money to live frugally.
Then we caught the attention of the big players, moved with the hardware and trained others to do what we could do. We grew from the two of us in the back room of our flat to a company in a small office and now to this multinational group which we two control. On the way the fun was lost. We even employ our own full time legal department. Back then we hated lawyers.
So, what do we want to do? We aren't the sort to be international jet-setting playpeople. We want to go back to developing games software and to lose all the management strain we now have. The problem is how to do that without betraying the people who work for us."
"Yes, Tom. We need to stop. We must keep the company going for all those who have been loyal to us but we want out. How?"
Jill and I lay in bed thinking. Almost together we said:
"Why don't we..."
"After you Jill."
"Why don't we give the company to the staff?" she shouted.
"That's what I was going to say." I protested.
*****
That is what we did. It took a year even with help from the legal department. We couldn't "give" the companies away but we could "sell" them for low prices and a proportion of future profits. We were still major shareholders in each of the companies and unpaid non-executive directors but control of all the companies was now with the staff. The Indian company had been the last because our lawyers needed expert advice from the Indians. There had been some technicalities of Indian tax law that had delayed the transfer. Now it was done.
Jill and I were drinking the last of the champagne that had celebrated the transfer. We would stay a few days to sign a few papers and then we intended a second honeymoon touring the sights of India. In all the visits to India we had never had spare time to see even the Taj Mahal.
A sari covered head peered round the board room door.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Sahib and Memsahib, but Mr Singh has come. He insists that he must see you."
I looked at Jill. She nodded.
"Thank you" I said "We will be pleased to see Mr Singh. Ask him if he would like coffee or tea, please."
"Yes, Sahib. I will bring the special tea he likes."
The sari covered head withdrew.
"Tom. He's never 'insisted' that he must see us. Something important must have happened."
"I think so too. It is very unlike him. We have nothing else to do except write a few signatures. He and his son have been great assets to us."
Mr Singh and his son had developed an uncanny sense for unusual games. He tweaked the hardware, his son was the software expert. They were sub-contractors to the main London company. The Singhs had made millions for the company, but much of their money had gone to their remote home village. The Singhs had bought out most of the local landlords one by one and transferred the land to the village council. It hadn't made the villagers prosperous but had broken their financial slavery of perpetual debt. Gradually the village was improving itself but in keeping with their local traditional ways.
Singh and son were an unusual couple. Singh had become a father after a second marriage in his fifties. His son had recently married Shanta, a local girl who had been widowed in her early twenties. The marriage had caused problems with the village. Widows had no status at all in their culture. Singh junior was their richest and most eligible bachelor. The village couldn't have been more surprised than the Ugly Sisters when Prince Charming chose Cinderella. Like Cinderella, widows were expected to keep out of the way and avoid being noticed. The last news we had heard was that Shanta was pregnant.
The tea arrived just before Mr Singh entered pulling a heavy wheeled suitcase. We were shocked by the deterioration in him. He was dressed in mourning white.
We went through the usual formal ritual greetings that were essential with Mr Singh. He sipped his tea before giving us the news that we were dreading.
