Comedy byte : My first official outstation trip

Just signing off the second quarter of 2018 on a lighter vein. My first official outstation trip, 25 years ago, was an unforgettable one. I joined a reputed engineering giant as a graduate engineer trainee in Bengaluru, South India. I was doing my orientation in Tool Engineering department, when my Senior manager asked me to design a dish washing system for our company’s canteen. It was a proud moment for me, as a fresh engineer to listen to the requirements of the system, which was supposed to have different stations, for spraying detergents, hot water, cold water, etc. & wash thousands of plates, everyday. I felt honoured to stand in front of the drawing board and start drafting the scaled technical views of the whole system, alongside experienced draughtsmen.

A couple of weeks into this project, the Head of Tool Engineering division and the Senior manager were quite satisfied with the progress. They hinted that I needed to visit a factory, wherein I could see an automatic dish washing system in operation. They quickly contacted our HR department and arranged a visit to an Automatic watch factory, who were supposedly having an automatic washing system in their canteen. The factory was located in a place called Hosur, around 50 kms. from Bengaluru. Everything was set for my official outstation trip.

I was really thrilled to be travelling with the senior professionals that day. In all, we were five of us, including the Head of Tool Engineering division. While on the way, all of them were talking lot of technical stuff non stop, which was very interesting for me, as a novice. We reached the watch factory and the HR manager ushered us into the plant. He slowly explained to us about their canteen facilities. Our Head of Tool Engineering division was getting impatient and politely reminded our host about the main purpose of the visit.

Our host quietly added that they had a “Manual” washing system in place. We were taken aback by his explanation. He took us to the rear side of the canteen where three old ladies were scrubbing all the plates diligently and washing them manually. They were really surprised to see 5 official techies coming to see them at work. I found it very tough to contain my laughter, watching the Head of Tool Engineering division, become red with fury. But, he wanted to show off that it was after all a technical visit and started shooting off questions related to the boilers, steam generation capacity, hardness of water, scale deposits, types of insulation, etc. just to divert our attention in this embarrassing situation.

The return journey was a very quiet one, with few words exchanged between us. Later on, I gathered some details as to how this incident could have happened. Our HR person had a peculiar accent while speaking. What he referred to as “Automatic wash” must have been understood by that company’s host as “Automatic watch”. Our host must have gladly agreed to this visit, since anyway there were manufacturing “Automatic watches”.