I was at a factory in North India for training during the
end of 1983. I met an Engineer there who had just returned from USA. He had a
Master’s Degree from USA and had worked there for 8 years. He was a helpful
person. Since I was new there, he introduced me to some restaurants. He invited
me home for Christmas and told me that he understands the importance of the day
since he had spent many years in USA. One day, he told me that a person can
succeed by hard work in USA but in India hard work alone would not be
enough. He said that in India one would need to be cunning too.
On Saturday, the Production Manager assigned him some work
to be completed by Monday. He forgot about it. When the Production Manager
asked him about it on Monday, he looked at me and asked me whether I had
completed the work. He was pretending that he had assigned the work to me, in
order to evade the blame. The Production Manager looked at me and left without
saying anything. He knew it was not work assigned to me. Later, when the
Engineer was sitting next to me, I noticed that he looked disturbed. I think he
was feeling guilty for trying to put the blame on me for his mistake. He looked at
me and said ‘Monday Madness’.
