11 Aug 2013
This
has been an interesting week. Well, that’s not truly fair; the weeks are almost
always interesting. This one was interesting in a couple of unique ways. It’s
been an interesting week at work and Friday was Eid, the last day of Ramadan. In
addition Rae has a calling (that she knows about and another one in the works)
and we are getting settled in at our flat. I’ll talk about the first couple of
items and leave the other two and whatever else she wants to talk about to Rae.
First
work: there are changes afoot. Sukanta, who has been our COO, was asked to
resign but allowed to retire. He has been with MAII for nearly three years and
during his time the performance has gotten worse each year. I have known,
actually, that this day was coming for some time. It would have happened sooner
but our CEO was trying to give me time to get fully settled in and get a better
grasp on the unique aspects that come in the Indian context. However, after
another quarter of decline she and the board decided that it was time to make
the change. He announced his resignation to the management team on Thursday and
Charu sent an email to all employees and to key people in Stratford University
later that day.
I
have some mixed emotions. It has been clear to me for some time that Sukanta,
despite his strengths, was not the right person for the job. I feel sorry for
him. It is never easy to know you have failed and frankly at his age this is
likely his last job. In fact he mentioned he was thinking about relocating to
the UK where his son lives, so maybe he actually will retire and not just
“retire”. I am not too worried about the reaction of the campus management or
staff. I have developed good relationships and having been here for a few
months I am a known quantity. It’s not like someone brand new is coming in. The
one thing I am worried about is if some will think I orchestrated Sukanta’s
ouster, and if they believe that if they would hold that against me. Again, I
think I have built a good relationship with everyone and don’t anticipate any
problems from the change in role.
In
some ways it will now be easier for me to do what I was hired to accomplish. I
was hired to come in and make the changes necessary to bring success. With
Sukanta in place I sometimes felt like he was a brake on what I needed to do.
On more than one occasion he gave directions to managers that countermanded
directions I had given. That always caused panic and confusion and I had to
settle things back down and re-establish the direction we needed to go.
I
wish I could say with Sukanta gone our organisational changes are over but I am
sure there will be at least one more round. There are several factors at play.
One, we have too many employees for the number of students we have and project
through the end of the year. Two, our academic department is terribly
unorganized. There are not clear job responsibilities, several people have
overlapping duties. I think we are probably overstaffed in some areas and
understaffed in others but it is hard to sort it all out. As my father would
say, right now it is a mare’s nest. Finally, we still have several people
performing at unacceptable levels in admissions. We are working our way through
the performance improvement process with several folks, and I am sure there are
more changes yet to come. Any one of these changes would not be terribly
disruptive in and of themselves but in aggregate it creates a fair amount of
organizational stress. At least I am aware of that as an issue and what it
takes to help alleviate that stress, starting with open, honest, and reliable
communication. That will be novel here. Sukanta has had one employee meeting in
three years. People did not know how to react because it was so novel. At some
point they may think we have too many employee meetings but they won’t think we
are keeping them in the dark.
Shifting
to Eid. You probably have heard of Ramadan but you might not be aware of Eid.
Ramadan, of course is a month long religious observance during which Muslims
fast each day from dawn to sunset. It is to be a time of purification,
spiritual growth, and recommitment to the principles of Islam. Eid is the first
day of the month after Ramadan and it is a celebration. Family and friends get
together for parties, feasts and festivals. There are also special religious
observances on Eid: special prayers are offered and charitable contributions
are to be made to the poor. As I mentioned, it is a time for gathering with
family and friends. Sometimes this entails people returning home from some
distance or gathering in a central place. Mehndi, our driver, is Muslim and his
extended family have all gathered in Agra, which is the location of the Taj
Mahal. He was very excited about getting together with his immediate family,
aunts, uncles, and cousins. He has been about as animated this week when he
talked about his plans as I have seen him. He left Thursday evening and will be
back to Delhi this evening. While he has been gone, we have been getting around
by cab. It has worked out okay but our freedom of movement has been somewhat
restricted.
Well,
I think that’s it for me. Heeerrreee’s Johnny, I mean Rae….
Rae
here.
This
week has been uneventful as far as water in the basement or anywhere else, but
it hasn’t been without some electrical issues.
Besides the usual outages that seem to come with the downpours, we have
had a couple of other interesting, and by interesting I mean puzzling, electrical
issues. Last night we had just gotten
home and were going to work on getting our computer set up when all our lights
went out. We checked our breaker panel
and could get the lights to come on for just a few seconds and then they would
go off again. There were also some
outlets that worked and some that didn’t, for instance, my night stand light
worked, but Phil’s didn’t. Our bedroom
TV worked, but not our living room. Our AC units were still working, thankfully. After some tries we were able to communicate
with the guard that we had no lights. They took a shot at our panel and
eventually an electrician was called.
Turned out it was an exterior fuse in the main electrical panel.
In various places in the house there are these
stabilizer boxes that are mounted on the walls.
Before I got here there had been a problem with the one in our bedroom
which meant that the AC units and some outlets in the two bedrooms don’t
work. Well, last night the stabilizer in
our bedroom kept making clicking noises and so we had some question about
whether it was going out. That question
was answered when we got home late this afternoon from church. Yes, it was failing and had finally
died. So, right now we have no AC and no
outlets in the two bedrooms. The
electrician has just arrived and so we’ll see how this plays out. Luckily we don’t have to pay for all these
weekend electrician visits. I’m not sure
that there are such things as weekend rates, since Saturday and Sunday don’t
mean the same to them here.
Phil
mentioned that we have had alternative travel arrangements this weekend, as our
driver has been away. Yesterday we had our
driver take us to Select City mall to see if we could get a few of the things we
still needed. This driver was much more
patient and much less aggressive than Mehndi. He did however take us to a different
part of the mall than Mehndi usually does so I took a couple of pictures of the
entrance that I’d not seen before. This
mall area has 2 or 3 different malls kind of all together. There are a couple of car dealerships inside
the mall also.
In
order to enter the mall you must go thru security. If you are carrying a purse or backpack they
go thru a scanner. Sometimes you are ushered into a booth and they “wand” you. I’ve never been “wanded” before, but
yesterday both Phil and I were “wanded” a couple of times as we went from one
mall area to another. We arrived at the
mall about 1:00 which is early by Indian standards, so there was no line to go
thru security when we entered. We left
the mall around 5 and as we walked out there were just a few light sprinkles,
but as we waited for our driver to arrive the sprinkles turn to mild rain then to
heavier rain, and then to a real downpour.
It took our driver a bit of time to get us because the traffic into the
mall was very heavy and I noticed that the queue into the mall was quite long. Glad I wasn’t waiting in the queue right
then. The mall is a noisy crowded place,
so don’t let the quiet tranquil exterior picture of the mall throw you. I should have taken some pictures of the
queue and the inside. Maybe I’ll be
smarter next time.
Phil
mentioned that I have a calling. I was
actually called 2 weeks ago but have yet to be sustained. In spite of that I have been given some
assignments and have needed to move forward even though I’m not official. My new calling is 1st counselor in
the District YW’s. The reason they are
having me move forward with things is because we are having girls camp next
weekend. Girl’s camp here is quite different
from what I’ve ever experienced, so I will have more to tell you about that
after next weekend.
Well,
that’s a few of this week’s events. Hope
you all are not taking for granted your constant flow of electricity.
Namaste,
almost
PS.
The electrician has us fixed temporarily and so here’s hoping we hang in there
until they can do the necessary repairs.
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