A few days back, our Sales officer from Udupi quit within two weeks of joining because working 8 hours a day was not feasible for him. Today, I met Mr. Mahalingeshwara Bhat, Area Sales Manager at Jyothy Labs Ltd., in the Mangaluru market. He narrated his story, which inspired me to write this post. We met for hardly five minutes, but his experience gave me a lot of wisdom.
He is now 55, past his company’s retirement age. He has maintained his fitness levels to work in the market after travelling for an hour from Puttur. Working in the market, walking, and talking are physically demanding.

Jyothy Labs may be a blue-chip company with billion-dollar revenue now, but it was a small company when he joined in 1990. He is financially well off now, but his salary was 1,000 per month at the time of joining. His father was a small-time cook. He and his company stuck to each other and grew together.
He worked for 32+ years and carried the brand he worked for wherever he went. His friends used to call him Ujala Bhatru. He feels proud about it. Nowadays, employees feel ashamed to wear work uniforms outside work and don’t like to associate them with the company/brand outside work.

He was responsible for setting up the market in Gujarat in early 2000, recruiting and training sales staff, and appointing super stockists and distributors. It is far from his native place, and he hardly gets to travel back and meet family. He didn’t even see his newly born son for a couple of months. Still, he is happy about the opportunity and responsibility the company has given him. It took him figuratively and literally to places. These days, employees consider travelling beyond their office beyond their scope.
During the 2002 Gujarat riots, he was locked in a lodging for three days without food, and then the lodging owner provided food prepared at his home. He didn’t get angry with the company for the situation he was in. He understood that it was an external situation beyond his or the company’s control.

He has grown slowly and steadily within the company and its content. Being content with what we have is the actual recipe for happiness. He must have seen people much younger than him, with Engineering or MBA degrees from premier institutes, get into higher positions or draw higher salaries. He must have seen colleagues jump across companies and get short-term growth. He must have seen various types of bosses during his long career.
He still feels grateful to the company for providing his daily bread and for all the progress he has made in his life. He is very right to think that he got his bread for the effort he has put into the company’s business.
Though we cannot expect the present generation of employees to work like the earlier generation, observing how it was earlier is worthwhile.

Disclosure –
Murali M, Operations Head, is his wife’s younger brother.
Tharanatha S, ASM, reported to him 10 years back while working at Jyothy.