Brand Ego

Brand ego: What employees often are afflicted with when they cannot distinguish between themselves as the people they are and the brand they represent.
It is interesting to note how this disease comes with people who feel an extreme, often bloated sense of importance especially when dealing with people outside the company. Its usual symptoms are talking down to the person across the table, coming ill-prepared for a meeting, being callous about remembering names and details of earlier interactions among others. This leads to a spread of an epidemic. These behavioural aberrations are contagious and lead to a reciprocal callousness from the other side. So the meeting leads to discussion of data that was anyway earlier exchanged on mail. In an advanced case, it leads to the afflicted talking and asking for services very different from what was earlier communicated. The outside, service provider by now is pretty clueless about where the meeting is leading to. He obviously wants the business and cannot afford to offend this critical loop in the business chain so he continues to agree with whatever is being said, irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. The meeting rambles on and on. Then it ends when the afflicted has to head for another similar meeting. The deliverer of services promises to put all the thoughts down on a mail and send it "ASAP". He will now step out of the office, curse a bit and then start to wonder what to say so that some business comes his way because he has invested half a day to get through this meeting. But he knows deep inside his heart: this sort of a meeting never leads to anywhere. It is merely a downward spiral that will finally disappear. He will send a mail, he will receive one back after a week that says nothing that is a continuation of the previous one and it will go on till either he tires or the afflicted leaves the company and proceeds to greener pastures (or better known brands) after a "very successful stint".