A Day I'd Rather Forget

I was working in one of the largest business conglomerates in Indonesia. It was about 11 years ago and I was a new employee eager to make a difference to the company. I felt that the employee benefits programme was not up to standard, and took it upon myself to change it without giving much thought to how different the Indonesian bureaucracy worked. I toiled hard to change the company's health and hospitalisation programme in a bid to provide more substantial benefits.

One Saturday morning, the company was conducting an employee communication session and I received a message from my boss informing me that the health benefits programme I had introduced was not approved! This was somewhat surprising because I had all the approval needed by the member directors, and it took me a while before I figured out that it was my boss himself who did not approve of the programme. This was partly because it would stretch the budget significantly.

This was the only incident that nearly made me weep just thinking about it. Yet, I did not give up even though it meant that I had to go against the owners of the group and my boss, who is the chairman of the board of directors. I believe in moving fast. In no time, the programme was up and running (though it was no easy feat).