Page 274 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

78. The culture at the new company

I joined the new company. The boss briefed me about the philosophy

of the company. He also indicated that the company wants to scale
up the operations. He assured me a lot of freedom to act towards
this goal.

Boss insisted on providing better flat to me
He advised me to shift my residence from the Housing Development
Board flat to a condominium where he was owning two additional flats.
One was rented out to a bank who had put up one of their managers
there. The other one was getting vacated in a few weeks. I knew that
the rental value of the condominium flat was much above SGD 2000 per
month whereas I was paying SGD 1000 rent for the current flat. I thought
if I take the new flat as part of my salary package, my savings will get
reduced up to Rs 30,000 per month. I expressed the same to my boss.
He insisted that I should shift to that new flat suiting to my status as a
CFO and re-assured me that I would enjoy the living in such a locality
and feel much better. I shifted there and really found a difference in the
environment, facilities, status and had a really good feeling while staying
there.

Functional Autonomy

The boss gave me a lot of freedom in functioning. For an example, I could
take rates for forex deals for any amount without consulting him. When
I first time asked him for his confirmation of exchange rate for USD
100,000 while on phone line with the dealer of a bank, he indicated to
me from his cabin to go ahead. Later he told me, "You had been a banker

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