Till my college days and even in the first few years of my professional life, I have been an extreme introvert. Me always in a closed shell and never coming out of that. But I enjoyed my days in that closed shell. Some psychomatic tests that I took in those days also confirmed that I am an introvert. But after around 2 years of professional experience, I have slowly started becoming an extrovert. It may be because of me shifting to the metro-city and working in an industry which requires a lot of communication and interaction with colleagues and foreign nationals. My 2 profession related trips to the United States of America added fuel to it. As time rolled by, I found that I was able to open a conversation easily with anyone and in any occation, when required, and sometimes when not required too ;-) ...
But this change in nature of mine has been a nuisance for some people with embarassing moments for them. One such incident happened recently in an oreintation session in the company that I have joined recently. As in all companies, here too, they conducted orientation sessions for the new joinees, where we have to assemble in a hall like the training hall or an assembly hall and the big shots and critical people from various departments in the company will come and introduce about themselves and about the functions of the departments, so that we get to know about the company.
On the second day there was one such session, where a person from a department - the department which I hate to the core with all my heart, mind and soul - came and presented about his department and how it helps in delivering the product with utmost quality to the customer. Already I am known as a session spoiler (or enricher to some), who just throws numerous questions to the presenter that mostly end up in controversial situation. I do this just to learn about everything in this industry and for a big personal gain in the long run.
Some questions made him un-comforable; some made him angry; and what not. Let me give an example of a conversation that happened in the session:
"Forget about all these technical stuff", said the presenter, "lets take a day-to-day example - preparing a sambar", and he smiled at us. "How many of you know cooking?" he threw this question to us.
A few of us raised our hands and to my surprise, that hydrabad girl - the only lady participant and the star among the new joinees - didnt raise her hand. Let the Almighty save this world and the guy whom she is going is marry (or) the guy whom she has married. By the way still I couldnt find out whether she is married or not. For her age she should have been married, but no sign of that. Nowadays its not possible or atleast very difficult to find out whether a working woment is married or not. Anyway, why should I worry about that :-).
"Good," said the instructor and asked "Who among you is an expert in making sambar".
For this question I and another guy raised our hands.
"How do you say that you are an expert in making sambar" he enquired.
The other guy said "My friends have tasted it and said that its good."
"Fine." The instructer turned to me and I said "I know that the sambar I cook tastes extremely good."
"But there should be someone who tastes(tests???) it and confirms it"
"Thats not required. I have tasted sambar prepared by various people both in my family and among my friends from that I came to the conclusion that the sambar I prepare tastes good and better than all those." I stood firm in my statement.
"No, we cant say like that..." he said and went on "Anyway, how to you confirm that in each and every step, you are indeed preparing sambar that will be good at the end?"
We all just blinked.
He added "I mean, how do you make sure that each unit you prepare is good... something like unit testing..."
I got his point and said "A sambar cannot be tested in its intermediate stages... only the end product can be tested, by tasting it... its not advisable to taste it in its intermediate stages..."
But I think he is an expert in this sambar example and I can confirm it from what he said next "Though you cant taste it, you can confirm from the color, odor, and other qualities of it during preparation"
"I agree" I said and I didnt participate in that conversation after that.
In the afternoon session he was explaining a mechanism which the organisation has where the employee can suggest anything to the top management about anything which we feel will bring in some improvement to the organization and he was with full of enthu to describe one improvement that he suggested and was implemented:
"Quite often I go to other branches to give similar sessions and whenever I go from Chennai airport to the other branch, in-variably my stomach gets upset... the flight journey time is so small that they wont allow us to get up from the seat... and so I have to control till I reach our office there..."
"You should not eat our canteen food before travelling... " said I to myself...
He continued after a pause "One such time when I reached our office, the staff from training department took me to the training room, but I told him 'show me the toilet, my stomach is upset'... He showed me the toilet and I went in... Normally I have the habit of flushing the toilet before using it..."
"Hope he flushes it after use too, otherwise the next person also have to follow his habit of flushing it before use"
He went on "But to my surprise I couldnt find any handle or anything which I can turn or press to flush it... I looked around for sometime, and finally considering the emergency of the situation I have to give up my cleanliness habit and went ahead and used it... "
He gave a pause and continued "I finished my work and again started searching for the knob or handle... I found one small knob- hardly visible- to the left of me on the wall, but it was not reachable though I stretched my hand to the farthest possible while being seated on the commode..."
"Then I have to stand and pressed the konb and do you know what happend next???" he threw the question to the audience at an in-appropriate time...
I couldnt resist anymore immediately shouted "What... The door opened???"
The whole hall bursted into laughter and it took 2 minutes to calm down. He was just embarassed and gave a pathetic look to me and then to others.
I realized that I should not have said so. Also that I am talking too much these days and I should reduce my talkativeness.
He said "No no... it flushed... and after that I straight took the isse to the top management and asked them to stuck a sticker near that knob saying 'flush here'..."
He didnt talk much after that and wrapped up the session quickly and left.
I was sure that he will not quote that flushing experience ever in his sessions.
Two weeks later I met a guy who had joined that week. I met him over the canteen.
I asked him "Did you attend that session on org excellence?"
"Yes"
"What example he gave for process improvement?"
"He didnt give any example, he just said what is meant by process improvement and moved on to the next topic.."
Hmmm.... I knew that.... :-)...
- spgr.
