There was a time when diaries,
calendars and fountain pens made for great corporate gifts. As kids, we eagerly looked forward to our
father to bring them home at the beginning of the year. Sometimes there was such
a surfeit of stuff that the diaries were used for practising school composition
and hand writing, and every room in the house had a calendar for decoration. The
pens were kept in safe custody and handed out on special occasions such as
exams or an essay writing contest in school.
Those were the times when the
compliments, as we fondly called them, were innocuous gestures that acknowledged
good will between business associates. They were just part of corporate
camaraderie, and to some extent a promotional tool for the brand, that was
accepted and reciprocated, almost like exchanging sweets on Diwali, Eid or
Christmas.
But things have changed and how! We are some weeks into the New Year and I don’t have a calendar on my walls yet. Since I have no major use for diaries and pens, thanks to the superfluity of gadgets around here, I don’t rue their absence. But I miss the calendars. It is not that compliments have become an outdated concept, it just that they are not anymore what they used to be – simple gestures of business good will. Corporate gifts have now gone high tech with tabs, smart phones and the like going out to clients and customers, making the giveaways look more inductive and influential than appreciative.
The methods of complimenting these
days are so lofty that it makes one suspect the purpose. Is it more to entice
than to encourage? Does it play on the agenda of buying people out than paying
tribute to their association? For securing prospective deals than to build
relationships? No matter how covert the agenda, it is hard to ignore it. Let us
accept it - showing carrot is not a new human tendency. It is just that we have
discovered discreet ways of doing it. Cynical as it may sound, yet much of what
we give is for winning favours in return than out of a generous spirit. It is a
deeply entrenched habit in us, which we have now converted into a tradition. We
promise our children presents if they will excel in the exams, we buy people
gifts so that we stay in their good books, we tip the cleaner at the carwash so
that we get more than the customary service...why, we even turn the cartoon
channel on to induce our toddlers into eating or allow an extra hour of PS3 to
our boys and a day out for our girls if they do our bidding.
Knowingly or not, we have cultivated
a character that looks for easy routes to achieving goals. We have now found
better backhand strategies for clinching deals and seeking favour. When it is
open and naive, we call it a compliment. When it is clandestine and devious, we
call it a bribe. When we do it in our private circles, we call it a token. When
it is done in the public domain, we call it kickbacks. And when the proportions
are big and scope is infinite, we just brand it as corruption.
The concept of giving and taking is
too complex to understand. It is tough to define what is fair and what is
unscrupulous, for there is a huge grey area in between. What probably determines
its moral standards is the intention that drives the act. Often the intention
is less than complimentary and charitable. Just as bitter is the truth that
there are no friendships without self interest, there are probably no giveaways
without an agenda. It would be foolhardy to imagine that it is all out of love
and kindness, for believe me, there truly are no free lunches in this world!
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