My narrative isn’t fictional. It’s very real. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to wish this on anyone.
A few years ago a friend of mine, from another country decided to host his CEO from India. Now this was the first visit for the CEO to that country and naturally my friend was excited and charged.
Office formalities over, my friend wanted to give his CEO a “once in a lifetime” experience. Options were weighed in and nixed. He finally decided, being the athlete he was, that he would get his CEO and official entourage a visit to the mountains for an exciting afternoon of zip lining.
Now zip lining as you know isn’t for the faint hearted. And this particular one was unique because it was from one of the highest peaks in the world. Anyways, the teams piled into a van and general bonhomie prevailed. The excited CEO got out at various points, bought varieties of exciting eateries that were being sold along the way and soaked in entirely in the country hospitality. My friend on the other hand was eager, it was his day to show off!
The peak point reached everyone got into their gears and started practicing. The first two rounds went well, but on the third base it was a mind blowing 3k meter drop to the valley floor. All zipped and excited the CEO set out first followed by her team.
Now adrenalin can sometimes cause the mind to panic and what happened was the CEO panicked and full slammed the brakes! Now when you slam the brakes entirely on the zip line, the passenger comes to a complete halt and has to be rescued by the event company. There was the now hyperventilating CEO, dangling alone in the rainforest mountain and growing redder by the minute. Alone at 3000 feet above the ground!
Our friend now in full panic was unable to help and paced around like a nervous beaver. To make the matters worse, the rest of the entourage was zipping down the same line in full speed! Any moment disaster was imminent!
Oh my god! This is how I kill my CEO!!!
Thought our friend, his life and career flashing past his eyes!
The rescue team came and sorted the situation, but not before several other panicked zip liners from the entourage also had to slam their brakes midair and be rescued in the same fashion as the chief guest! No harm done though!
Needless to add the return journey was silent as the palpitating hearts recalled their near death experience! Of course my friend knew no one would have died of an accident on that zip line, but he was ribbed all the way back to the city on how he almost bumped off the CEO. Of course by now the CEO fully rested joined in the revelry and all was back to normal.
Every time I hear the story I roll out laughing because I see in my friend’s eye the fear and panic he went through unable to help his boss dangling thousands of feet above the rain forest! And another addition to my satirical fiction “a million ways to do away with your boss” becomes even more real :-)!
Many times we put our colleagues and friends in situations they may be ill equipped to handle.sometime our own ineptitude, sometimes the fault may rest elsewhere…
My own enthusiasm for instance on many occasions have backfired because in my eagerness, I sometimes omit to check the details.And resulted in disastrously funny episodes!
Like the last time I gave directions to my husband and forgot my right side was my husband’s left and almost drove him into a 5 feet deep ditch!
Needless to add, I am not allowed to give road directions to anyone in my house…Ever…
