Image Courtesy: jgmurphy
❝ I was posted at Air Force station Jodhpur and there was this guy who came to clean my room and mop the floor. I asked him how he felt. He was frustrated with his job, but had a big dream. He was helpless and disgusted with the humiliation he was getting in his job.
I asked him- “What are the things you can do?”
He said – “I love electronics, I can solder well and repair electrical machines.”
I started giving him small tasks and asked him to keep improving his skills.
A few months later, I quit IAF and joined a nascent start up at New Delhi. It was a hardware + software integration company, and we were looking for a really good electrician to connect sensors, cameras, illumination systems. A highly skilled guy at a low cost was difficult to find.
I told the CEO that I knew somebody talented. He asked me – “What qualifications does he have?
I said – “None! He is not even a matriculate”.
He said- “No! We can’t hire less than a graduate.”
I insisted that we give him a chance and get his quality of work verified. He agreed and routed us to their parent group where two of the brightest electronics engineers (All India Rank <200) from IIT Delhi were working.
I asked them to evaluate his skills by giving him a soldering assignment. They gave tough components to solder. He spent 30 minutes and submitted the job. I asked the engineers how the quality of his task was. They said it was very good, and that they hadn’t seen this quality of soldering. Only a gifted guy could really do it with quality. They gave strong recommendation and the guy was hired.
Within a month his work with terrific zeal in soldering, managing circuits of cameras, IR sensors, proximity sensors, LED lights made the systems work very reliably. He also drove the vehicles used to test our machine.
One day when I reached office, I saw him too engrossed in preparing a circuit. In a span of a few months, the boy had transformed himself from a sweeper to a technician. One year into the job, he traveled to Tanzania to install machines and then traveled to Germany. He has now become the maintenance head of that company for Southern India. ❞
Submitted By – Arun Purohit
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