The Sting Circus

2005 would be best remembered as the year of the sting. It made Hindi movie plots come alive on your small screen. It made public the best guarded open secrets of Bollywood, politics and crime, the hottest newsmakers iof this country. With catchy taglines like Shakti ki aurat bhakti, Aman ka ujda chaman, politicians ke poll khol and IG ki ayyaashi , news channels had a ball going anywhere with secret cameras and shooting anything worth half an eyeball. Sadly tsunamis and petrol pilferage were not hot enough. Sting was the new fling of popular culture.

Now stings are approaching reality. There is already the case of a person catching his seniors taking a bribe because they did not pass on a cut to him. I am predicting that stings will be a regular feature in the Indian corporate world. Certain examples could be

Sales Strategy Summit : or the Scapegoat Screwing Session

In the first hour devoted to official work in the 2 day drunken revelry (3 S for tax purposes) , the CEO asks his Sales Head why are sales slowing down. In the boring corporate Powerpoint presentation with a mash of graphs no one understands or wants to know, the Sales Head manages to show it was not his fault but the wrong category strategy that the CEO ordered. But the CEO feigns complete ignorance(corporate amnesia at its best). The Sales Head unveils his sting video...

Cut 1 the CEO is shouting ' I think this category will grow. I dont care if you think otherwise. My belief is your command.Go do it'...

Cut 2 CEO at a page 3 party extoling virtues of the competitors products.

Cut 3 CEO at a shopping mall where he admonishes his wife buying his company's products.

Result: In the drunken merry making that follows, Sales Head gets double his bonus for managing growth in a dying category.

HR interviews

'As you know Mr.Alec Smart , our company is paying you the CTC benchmarked to the top quartile of the compensation survey conducted by Screwit and Co. Plus our company offers a great environment and has policies designed to motivate and take very good care of the individual'... Ms. HR Hingorani completes her spiel to the confused MBA with more jobs than his fingers can hold. After joining he realizes that the new VP has shrunk his role, Finance has decided to make employees bear FBT (fringe benefit tax) to show a higher EPS and the only employee motivation was coffee and bitchy conversations. As HR launches a 3P(Productive People for Profits) program for impressing the CEO , Alec Smart does a video on HR Hingorani.

Cut 1:on how she actually recruits outstation candidates to help fuel her hubby's real estate broking business .

Cut 2:on how she rates 30% on productivity since she spends 4 hours a day discussing nail enamel, lip gloss, restaurants and clothes with her staff who look upto her as the diva of corporate dressing

Cut 3: On how she sleazily tries to seduce the CEO.

But Alec Smart eventually gets fired . HR Hingorani has the last laugh as she removes him for sexually harassing an intern with a morphed video.

No Lights, camera , action . Playing at an office near you. The Sting circus. Beware...