Creative Writing: 4 lessons you can live without

Michael Martin, the British Speaker had to resign for his handling of the “The Expense Report” scam. There is a lesson for all of us in this. First is it does not pay to be a British Speaker. It does not pay to be an Indian Speaker too. I have been one along with billion plus of my compatriots and have not been YET paid for speaking. On the other hand Bill Clinton gets paid millions of dollars for speaking. I guess it is the Universe’s way of balancing things. I do not also have smart interns working for me which also underscores the fact.

The second lesson is that Expense and Tour Reports creates more divisions in an organization than the CEO had originally intended. All the sales folks have their pet peeve against the accounts department. These are the people who will go to great lengths to prove that taking the space shuttle to go out of town is actually cheaper than taking the bus. “Otherwise, we would have missed the deal” is the common refrain. If countered with “We did not win the deal, anyway” would bring the rejoinder “We would miss the deal, more now”

The third lesson was taught to me in my management school. My professor Deven Dhanak used to say Expense account leads to extreme self confidence. To quote him “Every corporate executive reaches his peak level of confidence when flagging a taxi on an expense account”

There is a legend which goes like this (not mine, wish it was though)

Boss: What is this large amount on your expense account?
Sales Person: It is the taxi bill
Boss: Ok, I will allow it this time, but do not buy any more taxis in the future.

The fourth lesson is that writing tour reports is the ultimate exercise in creativity. I strongly recommend folks to write one in case you want to become a writer. If you are lucky you will write many. All I can say then is do not forget to bring photographs taken from space for your accounts manager kid's science project.