Allied Design 2

Narrative

On a pleasant day, start of a new year with a straight head and motivation to achieve more milestones and to do better things compared to last year, Ar. Mohit Shah, head of Design Life, arrived to work in his Honda. He did the first thing he always did after reaching the front gate of his office, which was not going in, rather entering the temple of goddess Laxmi which was right across the street. While greeting everyone who passes his way, he heads towards the office cubicle with his head behind and a straight back enters his cabine. (Routine - through going on walks with hand behind which stopped after covid)

When he crosses the street to his office, he sees Rahu kaka leaving. Rahu kaka is the person who always came in before everyone else and cleaned up the premises. This always had an important but under appreciated impact on the daily lives of the staff. After coming out of the building he drinks his tea from the adjacent street ‘thela’.

After he enters the building, there’s a cab that pulls up in front of the building. Two well dressed men get out of it and enter the building. They have their laptop bags on one shoulder while grabbing a smoke with some tea at a tapri adjacent to the street, throwing away the half smoked cigarettes when the head arrives and running back to the office for work. They both are the site managers. Also some autos arrive or some arrive though their private two wheelers in which students ,who have their internships here, get down, rushing in the building since they were supposed to be there before their seniors.

The day started by deciding the goals for the day. Vivek heads out to their respective sites. Harsh carries the sheets in the scroll following him.

When they reach the site, they see that the laborers haven’t started the work and it’s already 10 in the morning.

Vivek shouts,”Aee, utho aur kam karo, site ka kam Gudi Padwa tak khatam karna hai. Paise nhi milega agar kam nhi hua to.” All of them get to work at once.

Vinod, the head of the mason walks up to Vivek and says, “Itte kum pad rahi hai, thodi manga lo.” Vivek asks Harsh to take care of it.

Harsh calls up the brick contractor and says, “Bhaiya yaha itte kum pad rahi hai, ek truck aur bhej do. Agar lagi nhi puri to vapas le lena bas.”

Contractor says, “Aise thodi na chalta hai.”

Harsh says, “Are roj ke customer hai aapke hum, le lena.”

Contractor says, “Acha bhejta hu.”

They go to another site till the truck arrives. Checking the needs there. Here, the laborers were working and the client was also present.

Mr. Singh asks, “When do you think the remaining cement trucks will arrive?”

Vivek replies, “I have called the contractor, the trucks will arrive by tomorrow.” After a pause, “Anyways, what are you doing here?”

Mr. Singh says, “I need a plumber back home so I thought why not ask one of these men to come with me after the work here is done.”

At the same time, back in the office, Mohit stepped out to take a round at one of the sites, when Raj took a break from his work and went out for a smoke and some tea at a tapri adjacent to the street. After 20 minutes he sees Mohit coming back. He threw the half smoked cigarette and ran back in. He resumed his work before Mohit came back in.

Mohit had gone out to meet a client and discuss further plans for the site. When he came back, he called out Raj to his office and brought him up to speed. They worked there till 4 and then took a smoking break. They went to the same tapri.

Mohit asked,”What do you think about our cloud based system? Is it helpful with all the basic formatting of the files with appropriate fonts, line weights attached to it?”

Raj hesitated and said, “Sure”

Mohit noticed his hesitation and said, “If you don’t give me a true input then you are not being honest with your own work. It’s not wrong to be right.”

Raj, “I think it gives us plenty of projects in hand as the basic formatting is already there. So yes, till the time we use it wisely it will be efficient.

Mohit appreciates the reply, “Good.”

They go back to the office and resume their work.

Then comes Friday, the weekend everyone patiently awaits. Harsh and Raj have already planned to go out drinking with some other friends from their respective colleges as their internship was going on.

Harsh asks, “What do you think about the new virus in China?”

Rohit replies, “It’s their problem. And so far from here.”

Raj says, “But it is dangerously contagious. And might spread here.”

Anuj says, “Kuch nahi hoga re, khud holiday nahi milega, weekends bhi site pe jana padta hai, ek virus kya hai karega.”

The conversation goes on and on.

Harsh says, “Lets go guys, kal meeting hai yaar pure team ka”

Rohit replies, “Haa kal site pe bhi jana hai”

Mr.Mohit enters the house the very next day following the same routine. After praying, he attends the calls while surfing on his phone he comes across a whatsapp group. His friends talking about how everyone is struggling with the on going market. As soon as he entered the office, there was a team meeting regarding ongoing sites throughout the city.

Mr. Mohit, “okay, tell me what's going on with all the ongoing sites?”

Vivek, “Sir, the site which is currently going on in Navi Mumbai, clients are really happy with the site but to transport material from here, is affecting our profit margin.

Mr.Mohit, “Ask Umesh ji to help us with the transport, he has been our vendor since a while now or check with Kamlesh ji if he can help us with this issue.”

Rahul, “Sir we had a meeting with Umesh ji but he is not ready to listen.”

Mr.Mohit, “Talk to Kamlesh ji or else talk to the laborers on that site, kuch na kuch toh contact nikal hi jayega”

Vivek,”Okay, I will talk to Rajesh ji (Carpenter).”

Mr.Mohit , “What else? What about other sites?”

Vivek, “ It's not an issue now but carpentry work is going to start at the Santacruz site. We would need more laborers to complete it on time. All our laborers are occupied at all the sites across.”

Rahul, “I will ask Rajesh ji, Arnav ji if they have anyone from their friends or relatives who would like to join.”

Mr. Mohit, “But make sure all the skilled work is done by our skilled workers, I can’t bear any more loss now” I have to leave now let me know if there is anything important.

On 25th March the government declared quarantine due to COVID-19, and everything shifted to work from home or a cloud based structure of the office. The work didn’t stop completely, as the projects from the portal were still coming in.

What changed was the office timings, which started to get flexible with the use of Zoom, GMeet, Skype, etc. But these restricted the relational interaction between the co-workers. Also reminders and scheduling happened through chats and emails.

Mohit, “ Let’s meet at 9 in the morning and discuss this issue.”

Rahul requests, “Can we keep it at 10:30?”

Mohit says, “ That will be a little late. Let’s keep it at 10.”

The next day, people started going from 10 and everyone joined till 10:15. They take a lunch break at 12:30 and leave the meeting to go and eat.

Movies

• Gentleman's Agreement

• Gremlins

• Apocalypse Now

• Bridge on River Kwai

• The Godfather

Readings

• Organizational Structures

• Classical Management Theories

• Gareth Morgan And His Eight Organizational Metaphors

• Economy And Society by Max Weber (Chapter: Bureaucracy)

• A thousand Plateaus by Deleuze & Guattari (Chapter: Rhizome)

• No Rules Rules (Netflix and the cultural Reinvention)

• Many Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Reddiker

• Extrastatecraft the Power of Infrastructure Space by Easterling , Keller