After Anandakumari left I stayed back to pack up my things. Which is when, fuck it all, I decided to leave a voicemail for Yetch and Rajni to tell them what bastards they were. The idea was that I would be there first thing next morning to see their faces when they heard it.

As you can imagine, Diary, I was quite, quite drunk.

I went to Jerry’s cabin, threw up in his dustbin, and gathered my thoughts. Then I picked up his phone, accessed the Dufresne internal voicemail system and punched in the numbers for Yetch’s and Rajni’s mailboxes. And then I let it rip …

First I told them how they had no idea what was wrong with Lederman. The bank had serious issues with lending profiles. Especially the stupid way in which the fuckers had screwed up the consumer business and added on flab into their company for absolutely no reason. Did Yetch and Rajni know that contrary to common sense, and the shit that Dufresne tells clients, Lederman had to get the fuck out of China RIGHT NOW! What idiot would take a diversified banking company into China in the state that Lederman was in! And what the hell was Lederman’s board thinking when they made Lederman’s new compensation system? Who in the world ever got good people to work for them when they paid them crap? Total crap. You don’t run a bank like a goddamn fast-food restaurant!

And this was just the beginning of the long list of problems with Lederman that those two screwballs knew nothing about. Basically, I said, Lederman had to get the bullshit out of its balance sheet. But, of course, nobody in Dufresne gave a crap about this because all Dufresne cared for was profits, projects and stupid clients who gave projects that made profits. I really, really gave it to them. I told them how half the partners at Dufresne were a bunch of fools who knew nothing and had got where they are as a result of the stupid promotion policy, how consulting should be about solving problems and not about licking ass and stabbing colleagues in the back for one’s own promotion.

And then … I don’t remember.

Seriously, I need to get medical help for this drinking-passing out problem.

Apparently, the security guy who locks up the offices found me on the floor of Jerry’s office, redialled the last called numbers on my mobile and woke up Gouri. Gouri took me home, washed me up and tucked me into bed. I love that woman.

Which, in itself, would have made for a pretty embarrassing story. But, alas, I made a slight, very human, mistake when recording my voicemail. I pressed an extra zero at the end. Which automatically cc’s a copy of the email to everyone in that user’s address book. And because I was using Jerry’s phone, and Jerry was a partner, that meant EVERY DUFRESNE EMPLOYEE IN THE FREAKING WORLD.

And as Dufresne offices began to open shop across the world each one of them began to listen to my voicemail. And send me congratulatory messages.