Factory Stint @ Orai

My management training stint involved a “fraud” one week stint at a factory. As is my luck – I landed up at Orai [yes I had to look for it on the map too – it is about 50 kilometers off Kanpur]. My batchmates got factories in Calcutta and Pondicherry, but I had to get Orai – not that I am complaining – I genuinely enjoy this kind of stuff J and no I am not perennially on pot J. The reason I call the stint fraud, is that it was all of one week, I mean what are you expected to do in one week – especially in a place like Orai – except check out the wildlife and the nightlife. Both of which I XL at [pun intended]

So let’s see what the key highlights of Orai were:

Nightlife – the first thing I was warned about once I reached Orai was that HUL personnel are prime kidnap targets. Finally – somebody valued us poor employees. Nobody had actually been kidnapped to date – but it added to the excitement. That aside – nightlife at Orai consisted of 2 major joints:
The Railway Station – you could buy Kurkure even at 3:00 AM in the morning from the lone tea stall that stood forlon on platform number 1.
Hotel Jaiswal Palace – this was the “Taj Presidency” of Orai. It boasted of a restaurant where you were served basis how well you knew the waiter. If you were a genuine guest and were hungry like hell – I suggest you ought to try the Kurkure stand at the railway platform. If you were a factor employee then you were automatically upgraded from “ignore this jerk” to “this jerk’s factory provided 50% of our revenue” service. Not a bad deal at all

TPM Audit – The factory was justifiably pround of a TMP audit that had happened on it’s facilities and the fact that they had passed with flying colors. My insider – gupt sutr mentioned to me that greater than the fees that the firnagi auditors charged was the cost that was incurred on changing the carpets of Jaiswal Palace. Yup, yup – money was spent by my firm to change the carpets in the hotel where the auditors were to dine

Inhouse Life – the factory campus was sprawling and contained a badminton court – indoor and floodlit. I spent most of my one week here – along with my tutor – who was also the commercial manager at the factory. I did more exercise in that one week that I had in the past year. Sure did help my ever expanding beer belly!
What I did for fun when I was not being waited upon at Jaiswal Palace or looking to give Sania Nehwal a run for her money. I considered the following:
Ø Setting off the fire alarm – damn that would have been something
Ø Taking off for the nearest town on a jaunt and letting the factory manager know that I had been kidnapped – would have been fodder for the local daily
None of my fantasies came true – I behaved and kept these dark thoughts to myself.

What did I learn from the factory stint
Ø The value of having mobile network at all times
Ø My stamina sucks – every day post my badminton matches – I would literally crawl into bed with aches in muscles and body parts that I did not know existed.

My only regret – nobody kidnapped me!