WORK: My Roller Coaster Ride
About: This is a contribution to The Medium Writer’s Challenge and this is my story on ‘Work’ and what it means to me.
Work, for me, has always been a means of self-expression and a rational livelihood. Once a well defined goal is set, enjoying the work, the journey, has always been my way to fulfilment, discovery of purpose and meaning, and an unsharable, unique, personal joy.
While starting education in Boarding School, work meant grinding the basics well and diving deep into understanding, to ensure lifelong anchoring of knowledge in the ocean of life. I would not budge from a concept until it was broken down, fully digested, and tucked away into a dedicated compartment in my brain, for future recall. In this phase, I almost involuntarily developed an attitude that whatever I do, I must get completely drowned, lost, in it: be it study, sport, or hobbies. Such deep involvement opened new vistas and I found myself enjoying calligraphy, drawing, and reading. I remember, in those ‘zero’ computer days, I for ‘one’ wrote — copyediting and hand writing — the entire School Journal. And little did I know, this would shape things to come later in life.
Joining University to study Mechanical Engineering woke me up to real life skills to deploy in the work arena. I enjoyed working in the workshops, particularly welding and machining, and despised the physical strength demanded by smithy. While the school days were taught, the University days were guided ones and I struggled to find a direction, a work-flow to engage upon all my life.
I thought I liked automobiles and wanted to join an automobile manufacturing company, but all I got was two choices, one -steel making, and two-power plant construction & commissioning. The dislike for smithy drove me to choose power plants and over a period of twenty-five years I went on to becoming an erection engineer, commissioning engineer, operations and trouble-shooting engineer, and, rather late — a design engineer.
I graduated from Engineering College in the year 1984, grew rice, tapioca, and sugarcane; raised buffaloes, milked goats and cows, on my Dad’s Farm, before powering lignite at a lignite-based Power Plant Company, in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1986, where I joined as a Graduate Engineer Trainee and worked myself up the spiral ladder. After erecting and commissioning seven 210 MW (Mega Watt) steam turbines, I was bitten hard by the Entrepreneurship bug, gave it all up -the steam, and ‘blowed-down’ into Business, where I dug the good earth for granite, surveyed damaged vehicles for insurance- as an Insurance Surveyor; and sold sarees, stitched blouses — with and without windows. I helped my wife run a retail saree showroom-for four years, before a Power Plant Design Consulting Company discovered hidden plant startup & commissioning talent in me, in 1998, at Hyderabad. Plant Betterment was to be my domain of work, they said.
The failure of my Granite Business was due to a poor choice of mining quarries; and that of my Retail Business was due to lack of funds and cheap capital, and poor location: I borrowed from just about anybody, at atrocious rates of interest. I decided I had to step-back, return to a full-time job, re-coup my sagging spirits, and climb out of my financial distress.
I then traveled all over India, on the Power Consulting bandwagon, to start-up & commission power plants. I even made it to USA’s Puerto Rico, being on the start-up team for the 2x250 MW Power Plant built there for the first time.
Realising that the Consulting Company was paying me a pittance, I began looking for greener, powerful, pastures to increase the take-home money, and negotiated with an Energy Company, headquartered in Mumbai, India, to buy me into the Corporate Procurement Group. Over the next 15 months I entangled myself in haggling with contractors on prices, besides learning the heavens of contracts and the hell of taxes and duties. My head spun, in addition to the daily ‘body message’ on the commute by the Mumbai Electric Train from Kandivali — where I was living, to Santa Cruz — where I was working.
With the Energy Company constantly procuring my services only when office hours were over, without extra pay, and realising that Engineers with half my experience were being energized with double my pay, and hoping to escape the unreliable abrasive atmosphere, I decided to quit, and grabbed an irresistible offer from a Engineering Consulting Company, at Gurgaon, near New Delhi. The jump from Additional Manager to Deputy General Manager was electric and made enormous sense: I told myself, I deserved this high-voltage designation.
On a cold windy December 2002, I flew into Gurgaon, National Capital Region, India, and was thankfully transported to my new Office by a placard-bearing Driver of a waiting Taxi. I guess, designations work wonders.
Over the next year, I diligently worked in due-diligence of power plants, planting and helping clients digest Power Plant Tender Specifications, and throw-up offers: even made a one-week dash to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to get a Bid ready for submission.
Meanwhile, New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Terminal-2 was hopelessly congested and needed public-private partnership to turn itself into a modern Terminal. It was bursting at the seams and the weekends, which were the busiest, saw never-ending queues snaking from the outside to the inside check-in counters, without borders. I led the project management team that had to do some quick-flying modernization to make this happen within 18 months, else India might lose gold and silver in the upcoming Commonwealth Games. This was just in case the under-construction new Terminal-3 did not make the 100 metres sprint to the finishing line, even if it meant taking home the bronze.
We did it: and then I moved back to talking power plants, which took me to Thailand and China to discuss technicals, while I flew all over India from ‘my Airport’ to attend power-crazy meetings on electricity generation.
During this period my salary grew by leaps and bounds, sometimes increasing twice a year and I found myself in a transformation stage, from Deputy General Manager, through General Manager to Senior General Manager, Management Representative for obtaining ISO 9001: 2008 Quality Management Certification; and Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department.
While my Bank balance improved and broke-even with my past debts, my travel legs starting growing longer: tirelessly flying all across India, working on the power generation Projects I was leading as Project Manager.
In the Winter of 2012, things got cold in my head — the Delhi Winter did me in, and I wanted a change, in the heat of being denied a promotion — and more rewarding responsibilities, despite doing outstanding work the previous year. A few quick attempts at jobs within the New Delhi region found me short of experience in handling a project of above Rs 1000 crores as a Head, and stood in the way of reaching the next higher level. Nevertheless, I persisted and got a job down in South India as Assistant Vice-President (AVP) Project Management, in an Engineering Procurement & Construction (EPC) Company. In hindsight it was to turn out to be a fatal mistake which sent my career nose-diving to the grave.
On the very first day in my new Office, my immediate boss — President, Project Management comes over and drops a bag of gold coins on my table: with which I was to introduce myself to our Client in Mumbai, whose project I would be handling as Head-Office In-charge. The project was delayed by almost two years, and I was confident of delivering it to completion. I had never done ‘gold mining’ before and was stunned by the suddenness of the act. Luckily, the Boss accompanied me during the actual visit and did the sliding of the coins into golden hands. Over the next 16 months I saw the sleaze of corruption, which I hadn’t seen in the past 25 years of my career. Every bill generated, of the hard work we did, required ‘Vitamin-M’ (Money) — bribe money to pass into the hands of the giver and there was always a negotiation. I put my heart and soul into the work at hand, quickly bringing the over Rs 2000 crore, project to completion, but the Owners had a mind of their own.
One sultry Chennai evening, I was called by the Head of Human Resources and asked to forthwith resign — without a valid reason. If I wanted a reason, the President of HR said he could find one to suit the occasion.
Whatever, my AVP days were over: I cleaned up my desk within fifteen minutes, handed over my Laptop and walked out after wishing my team a tearful goodbye. It was perhaps the heaviest walk of my life — to the car park, and the longest drive home, over a very short distance. I never returned to the place again. All my settlements and ‘incentives for good performance’ was diligently paid within a week and my Bank Account swelled reasonably to manage the winter months of a job loss — assuming it would be a short Winter.
I was lucky to get a new job, within a period of two months, as Director — Project Management in a Power Plant Valve Manufacturing Company: I was supposed to apply project management techniques in the manufacture of Power Plant Valves. The ultra-modern manufacturing plant was situated in SriCity, in the State of Andhra Pradesh, just across the Tamil Nadu border, and I had to drive a total of 150 kilometres up and down, every day.
It was early October 2014, and I had to work to a frenzy in the new Company to get into the skin of the job. Endless hours were spent in meetings and tele-conversations, but it was the visit to the spanking clean Shop-Floor that I liked best. Despite throwing myself fully into the job and getting hooked on to the Company, the work seemed never-ending, with all kinds of spread-sheet reports required to be made every other day, and within endless minutes.
On another hot, humid, November evening in the same year, in Chennai, I was called by my Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and told, “I think we should part ways. You are so different from the rest of us. Thanks Kumar, it was a pleasure working with you”. I had to immediately write a resignation letter, hand over the company laptop, new iPhone, just-arrived corporate credit cards, et-all, and leave the Office. I knew the end had come to a roller-coaster work career. No comebacks! Time to move on and build on my Entrepreneurship dreams.
In the year 2015 at the age of 53, we-my wife and I-started a Woman’s Apparel Design & Manufacturing Company (I am keeping the hard technicals) — a Boutique — in my wife’s Hometown, underpinning it on her natural skills in fashion design. She graduated from Home-maker to Co-Founder and Chief Designer. I called myself Co-Founder and CEO. While my wife did the measuring-up, I did the back-end works of sourcing, inventory, and book-keeping. And suddenly, I found time to get back to reading and writing, and furiously worked to polish those skills, which have always been a passion, lurking on the sidelines. I remember during my company-working-days-colleagues coming over and telling me that they still keep the e-mails I had sent them on various subjects over the years, because they were so well written.
Having discovered I badly wanted to become a Writer, I began a process of sharpening the knife. And ways to monetise my writing. In the initial days of my venture into social media, I took to Facebook, then Twitter, and LinkedIn to make various posts on diverse topics — all from the heart and with focus on the content. I enjoyed punning on Twitter and writing in ‘long English’ within the allowed characters. I then started a Blog on Word Press and Medium where I made posts as often as possible on all kinds of topics. To ensure a continuous steam of writing, I started a Weekly Blog called, ‘World Inthavaaram (means, this week — in my native Tamil)’ writing on the news of the World in my own style, with a stylish doodle calligraphy. Then I discovered Ulysses writing software and have been using it for almost a year now, to do all my writing. It’s a writing beauty that lives with me.
Before I wind down, I must mention my first success at monetising my writing. At one point we were designing and supplying School Uniforms to a School in the Temple Town of Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India, on an annual basis. The School was growing big and they were moving to a brilliant new campus, out of Town. The Owner approached me for writing the school prospectus and a call-to-action to Parents on why they must put their children in the School. I did it successfully — and many Parents were convinced-I earned my first income from writing.
I’m now almost 60 years old, and it has taken me this long to realise where my skills and passions lie. Of course, the signs were there to read: the School Journal, the many blog posts I’ve made in various online sites, the many other kinds of writing that I did so naturally and casually that I hardly noticed. If there is anything I want to do and can do endlessly it is writing …and reading, to dust off the cobwebs to make the writing come clear.
I quote from Steven Pinker’s, The Sense of Style, ‘To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life’s greatest pleasures’. That sums up my work.
I’m now working myself to become a full-time writer, maybe a columnist, or a content writer, and hope to publish a novel in the coming years.
Finally… I’ve come Home.
