In the Indian
industry of the 80’s, we had three categories of people in an organisation –
workers, officers and foremen. I am not sure if you have had the fortune of coming across this
particular breed in your career. They were a class apart – one that, I suspect,
possibly evolved with the Industrial Revolution. My experience with them is
confined to the construction and allied industries – I never had the fortune of
meeting the factory variety.
Anyone who had put in
a good twenty – twenty-five years in a company, was reasonably good at his work
and could write or sign his name in English without tearing up the paper, was
eligible to become a foreman. Background education was either absent or
limited, or in most cases, suspect. But that was never a hindrance for them to
propound theories on everything in life from astronomy to multi-vitamins.
There were some
aberrations to this rule, of course – some who could not even write their own
names, but good at their work, and survived with the help of a symbiotic
relationship with the nearest manager.
They came in three
flavors – dumb, not-so-dumb and smart.
The dumb ones slogged
it out at work, spent the better part of their lives trying to be the perfect
“yes-man” to whoever was the boss at the time, only to get promoted to the
junior management grade –– which, if you ask me, was not a very good place to
be in the first place, but something they learnt when it was too late. These
foremen, very soon, found themselves doing the same jobs once again, but with
an enhanced designation and reduced income. They then either retired, or died
out of sheer boredom.
The not-so-dumb ones
were essentially good speakers and had reasonably good analytical skills. The
fact that they used those skills for all the wrong reasons is a different
matter. They knew their job well, and knew how to advertise it better. Most of
them were trade union leaders, and screwed up their own happiness regularly at
three-year intervals, when the trade agreement negotiations came up.
These
foremen-cum-union leaders, poor fellows, had to rough it out for three months,
once every three years, to obtain a raise of, say, 15 to 30 paise per hour for
the general masses and then claim a great victory, with celebration marches and
all the works. When the new wage settlements were signed and sealed, sanity
returned, and everyone could now goof off in peace, with all the work reserved
for the overtime hours.
The smart ones were
the lot on whose shoulders the company actually rested. Engineers came and
went, like sparrows in search of food on a summer morning, but they remained –
their years with the organisation (and not the work they did) adding to their
personal value.
Back in those days
there was a big gap between the “worker” class and the “management”, at least
in concept and social perspective, if not in reality. These people straddled
the divide like a colossus and enjoyed the best of both worlds. They had
naturally higher salaries than most workers (and many engineers, too) and
therefore their overtime earnings were like a small fortune each month. Then,
they enjoyed all the little perks that junior managers had – the occasional car
trip, access to telephone, and similar things. Some even had a small cabin
erected at site for them. They never fell for that
“promotion-to-the-management-grade” rubbish. The management, at
the working level, relied on these men to deliver the day-to-day jobs and the
general workers aspired to be like them at some point in future.
Most of them were
“specialists” in something or the other and their “special skills” had almost a
cult following. People wondered how they had acquired those skills without
providential interference. They too, in turn, kept their “knowledge” a closely
guarded secret and passed their expertise on to only one or two “carefully
chosen” followers. Their skill areas were well-known, revered and respected and
no one even dared to infiltrate the territories. No two foremen had the same
territory or domain, either.
Remember, these were
times l-o-n-g before insta-knowledge and expertise had been made so redundantly
available by the Internet, Google and bullets on MS Powerpoint slides.
In many ways, they
were the original “God’s Gift to Mankind” – an epithet that was later usurped by
the software programmers of the IT era.
I shall talk about
one such famous foreman.
***
This guy, a
bespectacled Jurassic geezer with a toothy grin, was THE EXPERT at aligning
electric motors and gear boxes set on a frame. If he was at site, he was the
ONLY ONE (chosen by Providence
He always moved
around with two helper-cum-shishyas (almost everybody else had one) who carried
his bags of special tools, and one welder / cutter with his own set of
equipment (“shishya” – student). From
him I learnt about the intricate, soul-stirring technologies known as the
“Thou” and “Haoa Maar” (“Haoa” – air; “Maar” – hit or shot).
In case you are
wondering, a “thou” is supposed to be one-thousandth of an inch. He took great
pains to explain to me that my engineering degree was not worth the paper on
which it was printed, if I did not understand the relevance of “The Thou” in
industry. He was right. I did not. I did come across the word some time in
college, but no, I never realised it was one of the pillars of civilisation.
That abject surrender apparently endeared me to him and I was promptly adopted
as the “third shishya” – never mind the fact that I was his “manager”.
He opened his bag of
tricks and showed me little plates of varying thickness and explained how
packing had to be used as a first step towards getting The Perfect Alignment
for a motor-gearbox coupling. He even gifted me a “thou – gauge”. I was visibly
impressed, but what I have never understood is how he managed to get his
“thou-specific” alignments with packing plates that were several hundred
“thous” thick.
After the motor and
gear-box were placed on the frame and packing plates of different “thous”
placed all around, the Master shook his head in disdain. The work was
half-done. The Perfect Alignment could only be achieved through the intricate
workings of the “Haoa Maar”.
This consisted of
picking up a five or ten-pound hammer (“hamma” in his parlance) and swinging it
in well-coordinated motion to hit a point a few feet away from the frame
holding the offending motor-gearbox couple. The resulting vibrations Alone,
could provide the Perfect Alignment. That is the concept of the “Haoa Mar”.
There were “Ek Haoa
Maar”, “Do Haoa Maar” and many other subtle variations to the exercise. And you
had to give a respectful time gap between each “maar”, to let all the vibrations
die down. A difficult technology to master by any yardstick. That is what he
told me. I agreed then and have remained in total agreement ever since.
Shishya no. 1 was
ordered to start off with the haoa maar. He took a five-pounder and banged the
steel structure a few feet away. “Arey-re-re !! Zyada ho gia !!! Ulta baju maar !! Pyar se !! Ek haoa, bas !!! (“Hey !! Too much !! Hit the other side !!
With love !! Only one haoa – that’s all !!”)
A soft plonk ensued.
“Ek aur !!.... “Nahi !! Abhi ulta baju do haoa de !!!..... (“One more !! No !! Now hit the other side with two haoa !!”)
And so the circus continued
for a significant period of time.
All that rattling of
the steel structures attracted a small crowd of onlookers to watch the great
Master at work. They could only watch in total silence. No one was allowed to
even whisper. (As a shishya, I, of course, had the privilege to ask questions).
A few hours and some
twenty or thirty “haoa mars” of different intensities later, the motor and
gear-box set were transformed into a work of art – the Perfectly Aligned
Couple.
How it came about
remains a mystery to me to this day. No one could define the exact moment this
was achieved, that is no one, except Him. Apparently those vibrations caused
infinitesimal movements that Only He, with a million dioptres sitting on his
nose, could gauge.
Putting the couplings
on and bolting them up were jobs reserved for lesser mortals like his shishyas.
After powering up, the smooth whine of the thingamabob was supposed to be the
reward of a job well done.
Thus worked The
Master, to the utter astonishment of the onlookers. And woes betide anyone who
did the job any other way.
Long Live the Foreman
!!!!!
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment