Jaikishen Gupta aka Jack (mostly addressed as such by his
manager Tony Bhadraluchi in appreciative emails) always believed he learnt his
lessons the hard way because most of his textbooks during school time were
hardbound and not paperback. At this moment his desktop had a Visio document
opened. He had immersed himself in the technical design it represented like a
helpless pilgrim who had given all hopes of being rescued after realizing he
was drowning in the mighty Ganges while trying to take a holy dip. Except in
his world he had the outlook desktop email alert and the cell phone ringtone.
Needless to say his untrammeled concentration was broken when an email alert
popped up. It read-
HR-Vending Machine in the cafeteria.
His eyes veneered the system tray of his workstation. The
clock in it registered 4:17 in the PM. It was exactly 13 minutes to his tea
time/snack time. Although there was no such time as per HR policy but most of
his coworkers would take a snack break at this time. They would go out to the
roadside vendors, smoke, drink tea with deep fried snacks (samosa, pakora, bhel
etc) and gossip among themselves. Talking to the roadside vendors provided them
the much needed local information in this era of globalization. While Jack avoided
(or at least pretended to) eating outside due to his increasing weight and
restrictive dietary regimen imposed by his wife, devouring the forbidden stuff
was like a guilty pleasure. He would seldom eat during this unofficial break as
he would go home and have tea with his wife in the evening but he would
definitely take part in the discussions. In his monotonous world of meeting
deadlines and long working hours it was like a life line that injected a dose
of much needed change that recharged his life cells. But today something was
different-he had not received the customary call from Abhik Goswami (fondly
called Otirikto by friends as a tribute to the word 'overweight' in Bengali
language). Although Otirikto's workstation was just in the adjacent bay, he
would always call Jack's extension and in his husky voice remind Jack of his
obligation towards snack time. Jack held the arms of his chair and gave slight
push so that he could have just the right elevation to see what was happening
in the adjacent bay. He saw Otirikto was sitting in his chair (crushing the chair
would be more realistic description) and reading some article in Wikipedia. He
leaped out of the position he was in leaving the chair to a squeak a bit in
recoil. He patted Otirikto on the shoulder.Without turning back Otirikto said-Do you have some soiled 10
Rupee bills.Before Jack could sink in the information Otirikto swiveled
his chair and got out of it like an expert ballet dancer. Now Otirikto's
desktop was in line of sight of Jack and on it was a block diagram of a vending
machine. Both of them started checking their wallets as if they were getting
mugged. Out came a 10 Rupee bill from Jack's wallet which exactly met
Otirikto's specification. On it Gandhi
had lost an arm of his iconic glasses and one of lions in the emblem had turned
red as it may have absorbed some red color. Jack sincerely felt he should have emptied
his pockets before the weekly washathon (yes he was the one doing weekend
laundry) or had he received it from the vegetable vendor last Friday. Anyways
they had got their candidate for testing and rushed to the cafeteria. Some of
his colleagues were already there inserting bills and punching the row and column
combination to their desired snack. The machine appeared like a transparent refrigerator
which had a number pad. The rows inside it were stacked with snack packs of
various makes. Jack and Otirikto had the same feel when they had seen the
Nintendo machine for the first time. They zeroed in on a snack and Otirikto
decoded its row column combination. Jack inserted the tip of his worn-out 10
Rupee bill so that the vending machine could swallow it. The machine swallowed
the bill but after making a churning sound coughed it back. It was not
accepting the bill. One of the colleagues said that the machine would only accept
good bills. They smiled. Like an expert magician showing his trick Jack caressed the bill again
inserted it. This time it accepted and he punched in the row and column
position of their desired snack-a Bombay bhel. The machine made a clunky sound
and from the matrix of products spitted out the Bombay bhel. Jack and Otirikto
ate that at the blink of an eye. Otirikto then brought out his worn out bill
which looked like coming straight out of a trauma center except it was cello
taped instead of stitched. This time they had Jhalmuri (a Kolkata version of
Bombay Bhel or is it the other way round?) They went back to their workstations
contended. Jack went back to his Visio document. He did not realize how much
time had passed until his cell phone rang a familiar ringtone. He picked up his
cell phone (a Smartphone) and saw the picture of his wife and a text right
below it that read-wife calling. With a swift motion he swiped his thumb first
over her picture and then on the telephone icon. Tony would always say that
apart from weekends the only time he is able to touch his girlfriend is on the touch
screen of his Smartphone. This brought a hint of smile to his face. He picked
up the call and his wife was sounding irate-
Where are you honey?
Where else? In the office-Jack replied.
Still in office? Its eight and I had prepared tea. If you
were going to be late you could have called.
Jack had not realized it was that
late. The ever eager enzymes of hunger had not interrupted his work as it would
do usually. He apologized and said he was held up due to an impending work that
needed to be finished on time. He sent an email to Tony and left for home.
*********************************************************************************
Near about six months has passed since the introduction of the
vending machine. In a special HR meeting held in the Company’s headquarters in
Silicon Valley and presided over by the HR Director, Jack’s regional HR Manager
presented a report on increase of employee productivity since the incorporation
of the vending machine. Among various other things it said that
· The concept of on premise vending machine was taken
from a study conducted by a German university which stated that eating outside decreases work performance
· Time spent by employee in productive work has gone up
by x percentage as employees do not out
of the office premises frequently
· Time spent on unproductive work like snacking and
socializing has almost diminished as snacks are available inside office
premises
· Tasks are completed on time and before time because
employees are going home late
The regional HR manager was
congratulated by the HR director in presence of all other regional HR managers.
The HR director said that this experiment would be considered a Kaizen and
gradually implemented across all regional offices.
*********************************************************************************Jack has completely stopped going outside the office
premises. He also does not go home early now for snacking with his wife.
Initially his wife nagged about it but now she has stopped complaining. He has
received numerous appreciation emails from Tony and most probably would be
promoted. He could not even make it to hospital when his wife went for her
first ultrasound. After that incident they do not talk much. Sometimes Jack
would stand in front of the vending machine and stare it for minutes and in a
fit of rage he would consider sabotaging the machine but the next minute he
would calm down. How he can do such a thing when the only goal in his life(as with other Indians) was to keep himself employable-so that he could keep paying his bills, repay his home
loan and try to secure a good future for the yet-to-arrive newest addition to his
household.
Otirikto has gained few more pounds. In the current appraisal cycle he asked for a
salary hike to the amount of 22 percent as he found most of his earned income
was being spent on food. This was done after he conducted an independent
investigation about his mounting food expense and found that he was being
charged Rs 100 per Kilo for potato(the main ingredient of his home diet) by the
grocery store as he had no knowledge about the actual market prices.
Tony broke up with his girlfriend. He came to India for an
official visit and went for a team dinner (drinks included). After a few pegs of
his favorite whisky he said that he finds the vending machine very mysterious. He
thinks it’s not about the snacks it stores but the way it is operated and snacks delivered that makes people keep coming back to it-even when the hunger has
subsided. He even thinks it can control mind.
As of now, HR has successfully installed the vending machine
in all locations.
