Thursday, August 28, 2008

Transformer Transformation

During the early part of my teaching career, I joined an engineering college near Bangalore and took over as the Head of ECE department.
There was an immediate requirement of 12 Nos. of small transformers for the laboratory. I was informed that the procedure called for taking the indent personally to the Director of the institution (a non technical person), who would scrutinize the indent and authorize the ordering.
This Director had a reputation for being very strict and abrasive. This being my first encounter with him, I entered his chamber with great trepidation.
He scrutinized the indent and read the title “Transformers-12 Nos.”
He thundered, “Do you know what you are asking for!!! ”
“Y-Y-Yes Sir”, I mumbled.
“Do you know what would each transformer cost? ” he continued in the same tone.
“Er….. about Rs.30/-, Sir.”
“What!!! Do you take me for a fool? Do you think you technical people can take me for a ride? Do you want me to believe that those big units that I daily see when I ride to college could be had just for Rs. 30/- .”
I immediately understood the situation. For him, transformers meant the large distribution transformers one can see installed by the road side.
“Sir, if I may clarify, these are tiny transformer units meant for use inside our laboratory.”
All of a sudden the tone of the Director’s speech changed. He appeared mellowed and embarrassed and said “Ok, please go ahead and order 24 Nos. if you want. I am all for giving you technical people full freedom in your activities.”

------ K Sudheendra

3 comments:

Anil Jagalur said...

Very interesting post. Very good instance of (wrong) public perceptions of common technical matters.

Delightfully humorous narration too.

Deepak. S said...

Nice one sir... :)

bin95 said...

Funny. Do you have any of those stories where newbie electricians or engineers are sent for something that doesnt exist?