You can’t do it. He said

When I took charge in the Coal Mines, everything looked to be difficult and dangerous. Surprising, everyone felt that South Indian are intelligent but they cannot face challenges.

I was in charge of the Coal mines having 3000 work force with one year of my professional experience. The time office in charge was an old experienced man and was a strong supporter of one of the political party and the Superintendent attached to the Head of Mines was supporter of another party. To my surprise, when we introduced computerization, every month there were plenty of complaints and both time office in charge and superintendent will blame each other. I was totally confused how to handle this, because each one thought he is right and for me everything was new. I was really disturbed, sometimes I felt that they were enjoying fighting in front of me. Looking at me, as if the leader does not know anything and he is blank.

After debating this issue, I took a strong decision that I cannot succumb to such situation, started my job by early morning shift around 6.00 A.M. sitting in the attendance cabin and handling attendance system personally to understand the cause, this I did in all the 3 shifts. They were not happy, why this Officer is coming and sitting in the attendance cabin. This continued for a week and when the month end came the attendance process to start, I temporarily shifted myself to time office till complete attendance process was done and I checked each and every attendance personally. They were showing their unhappiness and also blamed me by telling Sir you don’t believe us. I told them, I fully believe you I just want to learn the process. Honestly by this on site intervention, doing the job myself the complaint of wrong booking and wrong salary which used to come more than 300 to 400 came down to 10 or so. Management was very happy and gave me appreciation, but one thing I understood that in life if you want to be successful and One up not Two down then, “Do it yourself” Frankly from that day onwards no one can misguide and make me to get confused.

Life is an experiential learning. Leadership is owning by involving. Respect is through achievement and be an example by doing it yourself. I enjoyed the above and still continuing to enjoy.

Who said I am Retiring?

GS Ramesh

                                                  

        I am going to be in Layam till God permits and my vision is clear for next 10 years. Layam must touch its pinnacle, so that people should look at this Institution with Awe and naturally with burning eyes which I cannot avoid it. I always respect and admire my competitors and I always Pray my competitors should push me to achieve more and more. Well I am not trying to be arrogant and egoistic, but God and my Well wishers are with me and God has given me good health and appearance, that’s why people say I don’t look 60 but still I thank God for his blessings.

I must announce my son and daughter in law, after completing their engineering and management from France are undergoing apprenticeship programme under me and in due course of time, with a strong team and Advisory Board with leading Intellectuals and the who is who of the industry, this company is going to march forward.

Last week has been full of excitement and surprises. 1^st April was very eventful day, because I was fortunate to remarry my better half, who has been the moral strength of my life. I would like to give full credit to my wife for tolerating and managing me so efficiently for the last 34 years. Hats off to her. I am very fortunate that I am blessed with my wife, son, daughter in law (daughter) and grandchild. I prayed to my Guru Sri Sai (Shirdi Sai) to continue to give me strength and happiness.

One thing I would like to share that whenever I go to temple I never asked from God anything except to make everyone happy (Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavantu) and guide me and forgive me if I have committed any sin or hurt anyone in life. This is the only Prayer I do everytime and I thank Almighty for guiding me till date.

Let me come back to the reaction of Ganesh. He started crying and he said till date nobody had ever bother to find out the reason behind his drinking habit. He began by telling me that his wife was more qualified than him. He was an ordinary worker in the mine whereas she was a post graduate. His wife was very friendly towards a neighbor who was also a postgraduate like her. Together, they used to ridicule Ganesh and insult him everyday. On hearing this, I asked ganesh to take me to the house of the teacher. The teacher who was oblivious of what was in store for him was relaxing at home with a cup of coffee in his hand. I pulled him out of the house and admonished him for his despicable behavior.

Being the Personnel Office, the school in that town was under my control. I enquired about the teacher and suspended him immediately. Next, I made Ganesh’s wife apologize to him.  From the very next day, Ganesh was a new person. He had kicked his drinking habit for good and was a very happy man. He continues to live a contended life to this very day with his wife, children and grand children.

I think Ganesh used to drink and shout abuses probably because it was his way of drawing people’s attention to him. Unfortunately, nobody pays heed to a drunken man’s banter nor bother to find out the reason for the same. Most of you may feel that my method of dealing with a situation like this may be bullish and daring. Nevertheless the end result has been satisfying. I tried to get close to a drunken man with the sole aim of reducing his misery to a little extent. Many people warned me against taking such a risk. Don’t you think without having taken a few risks our lives become meaningless? In this particular case, if I had not taken the risk, Ganesh’s life would probably remain worthless and faded into oblivion forever!

As HR Professional I felt that the secret of my success are :

1.       Be proactive to understand the reason of such behavior of the employee

2.       Be empathetic

3.       Be proactive to resolve the matter.

I slapped him

GS Ramesh

Is somebody else’s life so trivial that we can put an end to it with a gun shot? No remorse, no regrets? The bullet incident did change my thinking about life. It made me adhere to the principle – Live and Let Live. This has held me in good stead for the past few decades.

I turn 60 years on April 1(my birthday according to the Hindu calendar). April 1 is a significant day in my life as I started my career on this day way back in 1977. As I usher in retirement age tomorrow, departure from work is certainly not on my agenda but I know there are a few surprises planned for me by son and Daughter in Law (Daughter). Having said that, it ceases to remain a surprise anymore! Forgive me son- Me and my inquisitive nature! Old habits die hard!

Besides office work, I know that my son is keeping himself busy the last few days organizing a shastipoorthi to celebrate this momentous day of my life. I must confess that I can’t wait to get married to the same woman all over again. My happiness knows no bounds as I am a few hours shy from turning 60 and I thank the almighty for showering me with so much love!

Let me take you back down memory lane yet again as I recall a peculiar incident that happened just after I joined work. Our office was U shaped with a corridor in the centre. All the heads of various departments had separate chambers as offices and that included yours truly! Every day one workmen by name Ganesh used to come and open each and every door of the office chambers and hurl random abuses at me and all the other officers  that included me too. The man obviously used to be drunk so my colleagues just laughed at him without ever retorting to his coarse language. When I enquired about his strange behavior, I was simply told that “this is a regular habit of ganesh’.

Being the curious kind, I decided to use my methodology to unravel the real reason for ganesh’s queer conduct. Like clockwork, Ganesh arrived at the scheduled time the next day and was his usual self - totally drunk with profanities pouring out of his mouth every nanosecond. The moment he opened my office door, I quickly pulled him inside and locked the door. My curiosity got the better of me and I started interrogating him “tell me why are you doing this? What makes you come here everyday and disrupt the peace in this office”.  Being completely inebriated, ganesh was in no state to answer my queries let alone understand them! He started flinging his hands violently in an effort to escape from my firm grasp. Today I confess that I slapped Ganesh and he ran away shouting that he was beaten up by me. Seeing Ganesh dart across the corridor with a hand on his puffed-up cheek, people were perplexed for a moment but they quickly attributed it to his drunkenness and forgot about it. But I could not forget about Ganesh.I was bent upon finding out the cause for his strange behavior. Actually I felt bad for him and wanted to help him out. So I enquired about where he lived and went straight his house the next day.

Seeing me at his doorstep, he ran out of his own house leaving me totally stunned yet again. The sprinter in me who was probably inactive since many years was quick enough to wake up. Yes….I started chasing him and didn’t stop till I caught him. I brought him to my office and asked him why he was drinking so much.

Bullet that Shocked and Shook me

GS Ramesh

As you know Dhanbad, being one of the most popularly known as Criminal Den, where Money lending, Extortion and all varieties of Crimes was a usual activity. Working in such environment as a Personnel Officer in a Coal Mines was every day challenging, exciting and obviously stressing.

Every time I felt it is better to quit and I had a few good offers even posting was for Chennai. Temptation, Yes to come back to Chennai was very high. 

I wrote to my Dad about the offers and asked him, he replied to me that you stay and stick on. If you come back home, you will become home sick Child. You will never come up in life and you will always try to hide yourself behind ….. because the safety latch is the Home. Stay away fight the battle and come out with flying colours. Very irritating his advise. I told him you want me to die. He gave a statement which touch my heart and became my success secret. The statement was we can die anywhere, if someone has to kill you that is your destiny he will kill you anywhere and vice versa. Why to get scared for death, it is equivalent to dying every day within. 

Honestly my Dad is great person, really change my mind and immediately one shocking incident happened in the Office. I had in my Department one person, at that time he will be called Personnel Department Clerk and another person who was sitting next room of my Office was a Despatch Clerk name Mr.Singh. Morning around 10 AM he came to me and he briefed me about his job and activities. We had meeting for 20 minutes and he went back to his seat. Suddenly I heard 3 gun shots and 2 of the bullet just pierced and came out of my wall where I was sitting. 

I really jumped out of my seat and suddenly 3 people with .303 Rifle opened the door of my room and told me in Hindi, Sorry Sir for the bullet coming this side and left. I was in state of shock, they walked out in a jeep and I ran out to call Police, no one responded. I ran out to another room, I found Mr. Singh’s body tilted one side of the chair. Three bullets which was shot in point blank range, I just stood there. Imagine what would have been my reaction?