Netcore was a sponsor at an event organised for marketers and founders of eCommerce companies. As a sponsor, we were entitled to speak for 2 minutes. I had written up the speech, had it approved by the organisers, and practised to make sure I finished it within the stipulated time. When my turn came, I went up, paper in hand, and spoke. There was a countdown timer visible from the stage. With 13 seconds and 10 words left to speak, the anchor interrupted me and ended my promotional speech. I was taken aback, but quietly walked away. When I returned to my seat, I was seething with anger. What had happened was not right, but there was no way I could show my displeasure at that time. I was upset because I had done nothing wrong and the audience (to whom we wanted to sell) would have got the impression that I had gone overtime, reflecting poorly on Netcore and me.
I don’t get angry easily, but for the few minutes after I went off-stage, I was. The event was continuing, and so I could not afford to visibly demonstrate my feelings. I opened my spiral notebook and wrote out my thoughts. This calmed me down. What was in my mind was now in my book. I decided to put the incident behind me and move on. I thought about it from the anchor’s perspective – maybe he thought I was going overboard on pushing Netcore, had no clue how long I would speak, and did not notice the timer. Yes, it should not have happened, but I could not undo it now that it had. If I kept the anger going within me, I would not make the best use of the next two hours at the event. I still had marketers to interact with and persuade.
After the event, I made my displeasure known to the organisers, and they offered a formal apology with their version. It didn’t matter much, but I wanted to let them know that I had done no wrong.
There was a second incident on the US trip which also made me angry. A meeting with a potential investor abruptly ended before the scheduled time when the investor just got up signalling it was over, even as I was speaking. I got the message. I had mistakenly assumed that just because a calendar slot had been blocked, I had that much time. After coming out, I again wrote out my feelings in my notebook.
Bad things do happen, and it is at times like these that it is important to keep one’s anger under control. I did exactly what I had written in an earlier post on anger management: “It is not that I keep my anger bottled up inside me. I use my notebook to write down my feelings and get closure. I find that writing out my thoughts helps clear the mind; it is almost like talking to someone else. The writing forces me to reflect and that helps dissipate the momentary anger.”
