A boss called Gupta

Through many occasions, I have often heard friends shared with me about their bosses. Some of them find their relationship with their managers are easy, but some find it quite challenging. I personally believe a well-managed relationship with your boss will ease your working life and help your professional and personal development. Yes, you and your boss have that "power" to make it happen. If not, change your job…..or your boss, if you can :)

I'm writing this as suddenly I kindda miss working with my former boss, who has resigned from the company approx. 8 months ago after 3 years of service.

I feel truly blessed to have the opportunity to work with (not 'for') my former boss, Gupta Sitorus. He is just the same age with me so forget about the formal salutation like "Bapak" or "Mas" or "Mister", just call him by his name "Gupta", he insisted. He is indeed a communication expert whose experience spanned over various playgrounds, making him the expert in this area. I think as an individual, he was also born with good inter-personal communications skills.




Gupta - the pan man

Guess what he was dong....

Employee Day 2013

Working with Gupta was such a joy ride (well, sometimes it could be a tiring hilly trip, when workloads were piling, but again it's because of work, not him), and it was more than worth taking, it was a life-changing experience. Despite his imperfection as human being, I'm thankful to have the opportunity to learn a lot from him, professionally and personally.

I know by heart that Gupta is a kind person. Why is this important? Because you deal with human. Because you are working together as a team to accomplish same goal and you have to build trust and respect. For me, these can't be built only based on your competencies (since it is about working relationship), but also your personal integrity. I need to trust and respect the people I'm working with, and happy to find these qualities in Gupta.

Gupta brought with him a great enthusiasm and refreshed spirit to the work, and these two can be contagious things. He has the passion about what he was doing and believed in what he was trying to accomplish. He added fun and excitement doing it. He made me (and perhaps some other people too) wanted to join the ride.

The other side of him

Just like anyone else, there were times that I also made some silly mistakes in performing my work. They sometimes caused inconvenience to the people, to the company and to him as my boss, but never had he thrown me under the bus. He stood right in front of the bus, but in the other hand he also coached me to keep things from recurring.

I didn't get the fear to work but kept alert and clear mind on whatever works I was working on. To him, everything has to have a solid reason why certain decision or choice was made, then we could argue.

Me with Gupta and my beautiful colleague, Vanesha

Gupta is who he is, all the time. I didn't think I have ever caught him lying to cover up his mistakes, nor making false promises. Yes, he often forgot things, probably it’s because of age factor (oops!). I didn’t remember I have ever spent extra energy to figure out what is his hidden agenda (if any), or guessed what would be his next move. I simply believed that he only wanted to give his best to work, encouraged his team to perform at their best.

One of the many stories I can remember is when we were working on an event, back in 2013. It was an outdoor factory groundbreaking ceremony in Tangerang. Every bits and pieces of the preparation had been done and we were so confident things would go as planned, except that it was raining heavily, just 30 minutes before we started! Guests, BoD, journalists, customers, colleagues already came down to the factory office (The center stage of the event was mainly outdoor). The rain was so heavy that it completely demolished our backdrop, turned the ground into a small pond, and poured the seating area with nothing, but water. Everything wet, everything collapsed!! I looked down from office window completely dumbfounded. When I looked at him, he was as cheerful as nothing bad happened. He simply said "Gila ya, trid ujannya gede banget!", while I almost screamed in my head "Mateeekk...gimana iniii??!!##$@. Calmly, Gupta asked the office boys and factory technicians to clean the area when the rain stopped, and do whatever it was still possible to erect the backdrop, banners and other elements. And we ran the event successfully. There was also another funny story: "Dapat salam dari microwave"

Ah, it was so fun working with him.

Before he left the company, "Trid, my last word of advice for you personally is that you should never ever undermine yourself. You are smart, Trid. You have all it takes to work in this communications field. I'm really really sorry for not being able to stay longer”.

So Gup, here is for you (raise a goblet of beras kencur for a toast). Thank you for the enchanting and fulfilling three years. I wish you all the very best (and luck!) :)