Full time employment-Part I

Fulltime Employment – First One
Part-1
After attending my full time interview at M/s.Poysha Industrial Company, I went back to my house in Gandhi Nagar. I informed my uncle later in the day that I was selected and advised to join work as of 16-3-1970.

It was Monday, first day of the week, and 15 days to complete the financial year. (Financial Year in India is from FIRST of APRIL to 31st of the next year.

On the first day, I completed formalities related to my job and signed few documents after confirming all the previous submissions. The only document due then was my original appointment letter, which had gone for clearance from Regional General Manager located in New Delhi. This office was in the Nehru House close to Times of India Office and IBM HO.

I was taken thru’ various departments by my boss- Mr.R.C Shah- in-charge-Electrical Maintenance and production of two departments. His full name is ROHIT CHANDULAL SHAH.

My HINDI language proficiency was very poor as I was only familiar with TEXT BOOK HINDI, from exposure in school days. So, I interacted with everyone in English only, with a determination to learn the language to STREET level perfection.

To brief you of the factory set up, it was established in 1967 and was due for expansion. The business was MAKING METAL CANS AND CONTAINERS and the company was stiff competitor to Metal Box – an English company having a factory in Faridabad.

So, I was involved in the maintenance of related machinery / equipments such as – Metal Printing press, Slitters, Body makers, Eccentric presses, Seaming machines, full fledged Tool room and workshops. The expansion related electrical work was entrusted to me by the Management and there was a very good team of electricians employed for the same.

There was a general store, a fully stocked Printing Ink stores, and component stores besides a very large raw material (Tin coated metal sheets) stores.
Everything was set to operate under stringent legal conditions, and confined to strict local regulations, as well. This industry was under PRIORITY status as per the Rules of Central Government. Every document was stamped in RED on the envelope PRIORITY INDUSTRY by the Management.

I understood that this was necessary for easy clearance without abnormal delay by the local authorities concerned.

The team of electricians in the department was just enough to carry out all related jobs in the trade including electrical winding of motors. The Tool room catered for making DIES which was a very sensitive job with precision quality. The production departments needed very much the co-operation and skills contained in the Tool Room engineers and fitters.

There was a full fledged team of MECHANICAL maintenance engineers who were basically for looking after the Metal Printing machines and the industrial ovens under one HOD, while other mechanical maintenance jobs were carried out under my boss. There were other mechanics and fitters for taking care of jobs related to Eccentric Presses, Seamers, and locking machines.

There was another production line involving a long single machine, about 20 meters long – named LX-2 / LX-4 – as identified by the makers of these machines indicating the specification and size.

There was another machine where special cement was used to seal the joints. This was about 10 meters in length. Its name was RFBM – meaning Roll Form Body Maker.

I will explain the process which otherwise will make no sense of the foregoing narrations to strangers who have no exposure to CAN MAKING PROCESS.

Tin coated metal sheets were printed with the logo and descriptions of the item (that will be packed in them by their manufacturers), on outer side and lacquer on the inner side. The lacquer is a protective layer of preservative suitable for the content that will be packed in the container made by the sheet. The temperature for drying the lacquer was much higher and so this coating was given first and then the lithographic printing which required relatively low temperature for drying.

A special metal printing machine was used for lithographic work and a separate coating machine was used for lacquering. Both were in the same lines as the oven is common for drying the sheets with provision for temperature settings accordingly.

In another area, metal sheets were slit as per the size of the container to be made, without upsetting the printed information. Similarly, lids were punched out of metal strips. (Slit by special machines called slitters) Simultaneously; rings were made to suit the lids, and dried with sealants using separate ovens.

The seam machines were used in placing and seaming the ring with the lid. Here you should realize, that the container is already sealed on its top by the can manufacturer, while the user will fill the content from the actual bottom of the container and seal with a plain lid without ring.

The containers were also made of plain sheets with only food lacquer for packing juice by its producers. The sizes were set as per the volume of these containers. Apart from round cans, rectangular containers (1 liter and 5 liters) were also made for packing petroleum products.

The LX-2 and LX-4 machines are fully automated production lines where strips of printed sheets are fed which come out as finished containers at the end line. These machines have stages named; flexing, bending, edging, soldering, seaming and conveyers (on overhead and floor) which rolled them out.

The factory divisions were named by their activity / machinery involved. They were:

Automatic, Semi-automatic, Press, and Printing. Others were Tool room, dispatch and Production Planning Control departments. Purchase department was separate along with stores and accounts. The maintenance departments operated under separate HODs.

All these were under direct control of Works Manager who was stationed within the factory, while the Branch Manager, Controlled everything from New Delhi office. The Delhi office consisted of a fully fledged sales and marketing division and accounts department.

The climate was into summer or receding winter (I joined in March) and I learned the practical side of my engineering qualification.
Within few days, it was Holi – festival of colors. Fortunately, I was not tortured with colors. Over the next years, I noticed that not a single Holi festival ends in peace as there were disputes due to sprinkling of items other than safe color powder which were hard to be removed from the face and body.

The climate played a very important role on performance of equipment. Winter season was free of major breakdowns while
Summer made every one to sweat in maintaining the frequently failing machinery. I opted to work for any number of hours as I have to learn a lot about maintaining the electrical side of all those sophisticated machines. About 80% of the equipment was imported – from USA and Europe. The collaboration was with American Can Company.

There were three Forklifts – one number 2 Ton, operated with diesel while the other two were 1 Ton each operated by traction batteries.
In many areas of work, I was given training in the area of their maintenance which included these Electric fork lifts as well.

My boss – Mr. Shah gave me full freedom in learning and executing my work without any hindrance. Like every new employee I too was exposed to workplace politics at the hands of rank and file staff and at times of HODs.
But, the whole scene changed as I learned more and more of my work and I was everywhere in my job. The biggest privilege was accessing the office of Managers (I mean the Works Manager and Branch Manager) without even knocking the door.

Of few incidents, I have to mention some here, for the sake of its fun and importance. Within few days of joining I was handling all the department activities over seen by Mr.Shah.

I had an electrician by name Singh. (I’m not mentioning his full name for the sake of protection) He was a regular late comer to work. I warned him twice. Every action I represented was promptly conveyed to both my HOD and Administrative Manager, for their information.

Again he came late by a longer delay. I did not allow him to attend work and directed him to personnel department. Simultaneously, I informed by boss as well. My boss came to the department and asked Mr.Singh to leave immediately



You know what happened, he removed all his dress and stood naked for a while, shouting at us in Hindi. The security officer also came running to apprehend Singh, but quickly Singh picked up his boiler suit and ran away jumping through the window there. I never saw until after six months when he came apologizing for all his unholy acts and begged us to reinstate him at work. He was politely shown the Exit. The exit of Singh, created a vacancy for a trainee technician.

Once again, it was me again, to recruit a suitable replacement, so that work does not suffer. By this time, my Hindi language proficiency was improved to more than the street level and I was fully prepared to find a suitable person.

As I mentioned, my electrical technicians were of the best in the trade and very reliable in their jobs. One of them – G.D.Sharma recommended a person by name Rajender Diwakar for the position of Trainee Technician.

I made myself clear to all that indiscipline and incompetence will not be tolerated under any circumstances. I reiterated that assistance and support in doing all jobs will be provided more than necessary but one has to learn with maximum effort.

So, after a long chat and tour of the factory, I decided to recruit this young man – RAJENDER DIWAKAR to fill the position of Trainee technician. R.D is son of a tube well operator in Ghaziabad. He learned the tricks of the trade from his father and neighborhood wiremen. G.D.Sharma’s father was also a line man and a friend of R.D’s father.

I had resistance from the union leader( named NCP) who objected to the recruitment of R.D, and wanted me to take some one recommended by him (the union leader) I flatly refused and told him that I’m responsible for the work done in my department and hence will choose accordingly. Finally, the union leader departed with a smile and became very friendly in the later years (till he was shot dead on 4-1-1981 by some unidentified person)

I loved my job, and stayed at work place for prolonged hours and everyone knew of my nature and working knowledge. There was no one till the last of work who complained of me to any one. I learned a lot in my work place by indulging in all maintenance jobs – irrespective of its nature- electrical, mechanical or both. I worked with technicians to learn my new jobs and they liked my participation. I was always the first one to arrive in my place of work and last one to leave. The head watchman at times asked me if I was staying in the factory guest house as he was seeing me almost at all times. In fact I stayed in the guest house on one occasion.

When I joined Poysha Industrial Company, there were only one each of metal printing press and LX-4.

A second machine – LX-4 was on order to arrive in summer of 1970, from West Germany. The machine arrived but its control panel was soaked in sea water and was beyond any use. The supplier M/s.Krupp Industries West Germany- agreed to air-lift a brand new panel immediately, as the damage was covered under insurance.

By the time the panel arrived, my boss went on his annual leave. The Works Manager- Mr.P.V.Shah- called me for a meeting along with the production Manager. It was decided to go ahead with the installation and commissioning of this new LX-4 machine immediately. I felt very happy as I had the experience of installing transformers and other machines in the previous year though for a short duration.

Please note that Mr.P.V.Shah is a man of extraordinary exposure to CAN INDUSTRY and was a very decent and approachable person for all. He always came to work – 7A.M, from Defence colony in Delhi to factory in Ghaziabad. He assured me and my team of every support in carrying out our job being done for the first time.

I was entrusted with calculation for cables – size and quantity- needed for installing this machine without any difficulty. The purchase Manager- Mr.Madan Lal was very helpful in getting all necessary material for this tough job without delay. For example, it was difficult to get some cable glands initially. Cable was from Siemens. We all worked day in and day out.

The machine was commissioned, just on the day my boss resumed duty after vacation and, he was very pleased of my performance. He said, he was worried if everything will be done properly as we (me and my team) never installed a machine like this. As practiced, the machine was inaugurated / commissioned by one Pooran Singh – token no.1- (meaning the first employee who joined the factory in 1967). Small pooja with breaking of coconuts was performed and we celebrated the occasion. Sweet – in the form of laddu was shared by all.


The following staff was working in the company at the time of my joining duty.

M/s.
T.S.Bhat Branch Manager – worked from NewDelhi
P.V.Shah Works Manager
U.P Nayak HOD – Automatic- Body Makers
Govindan HOD- Semi-Automatic
B.C.Das HOD - PPC
K.M.Das HOD- Admin and Personnel
Lasrado HOD -Tool Room and Press
A.K.Sood HOD - Printing
R.C.Shah HOD - Electrical Maintenance / Production
K.C.Mandal HOD - Printing Maintenance
Mannan HOD – All Stores
Madan Lal HOD - Purchase
Capt.B.Das Chief of Security



I will write more about my employment, with M/s.Poysha Industrial Company in Ghaziabad, in the next part.


V.Sivasubramaniam
09-09-09