Agni Sharman has different view on Teachers Day
extract from Happy Teacher’s Day, dear mentors by YourStory.com
“If the teacher’s day is celebrated only for school and college teachers, I rather not celebrate it. My clients were my best teachers. Ever since I started Sharman’s Cab Company. From my bedroom in our Virugambakkam flat in the mid of 2007. I am taught how to run my business mostly by my customers. I was completely new to this industry and never did a study before I got into it. There were good and bad customers. All of them equally contributed in taking pain to teach my how to run my business.
THE NEGATIVE ONES WHO TAUGHT ME POSITIVE LESSONS
A very famous theatre personality from Mylapore hired a cab form us for an airport transfer in 2008. Taught me how and why I must put my hiring terms in black and white. He helped me by demonstrating how the terms can be misused, if not clearly written.
A large gaming company and a Telecom company taught me how it is easy for large companies to cheat us. Especiallly on TDS deductions. Made us go learn more about TDS and Service Tax.
Another Chennai based corporate taught me to walk out of them, when . Their junior level staff demanded bribe to clear payments. (Despite meeting the CEO and explaining him what was happening, he was helpless). Helped us learn that there are lots of other straight forward companies. Work with them and must ignore the corrupt ones.
THE POSITIVE ONES WHO HELPED US IMPROVE FURTHER
A large software company in USA helped us by awarding shuttle service contract, when we had no prior experience. Helped us to see our own strengths. World Bank always trusted us when it comes to providing quality services to its auditors coming from Washington. Initially we did mess up, but they identified that we will improve our QoS if given a chance. They still work with us. Showed us the way to keep an eye on QoS. Be open to continuous improvements by taking feedback for each trip.
Manikandan Saravanan helped us build a robust ERP on cloud. We helped him launch his company UnderBlu Technologies. At the local office of TiE Chennai in the presence of some special people. He was a client who hired car from us regularly for more than 3 years. Showed me that we can be of help to each other, if we wanted to.
These and many more teachers I celebrate this day for… Many other organizations which am part of or was, were absolutely useless to me. Ssince most of them would only encourage IT related start-ups and technology entrepreneurship. But however I did learn a few things in directly and so it is more of a Dronacharya – Eklayva relationship.”