How to shed the image of a misfit and become a most wanted

When I landed up in the Customer Services department, I felt was a misfit because it was known generally as a department for those on the verge of retirement. The officers were aged persons and their presence was basically to take advantage of their long years of experience. They had worked in different departments and had brought with them varied experiences.
One of them was a Sardarji – he held the responsibility of maintaining record of innumerable reports of accidents and incidents that were reported by the Indian Air Force, our customer. The fleet of MiG-21 fighter aircraft ran into several hundreds and new aircraft would be getting added on a regular basis. It was his responsibility to keep track and advise our Boss whenever he wanted information.

For each and every aircraft, there used to be a separate file – and, whenever any new report came, it would be filed in that.
The system was fine so long as the concerned clerks came and the letters were put in the file but, there were instances when some officer would remove a file and forget to put it back in the location.
I decided to change the system but had to proceed with caution because I did not want to annoy the old man. He would have felt offended and would think I was too big for my boots. There was a generation gap between us and I had to bridge that gap step by step.
Therefore, I embarked on a mission of my own. I wanted to computerize the complete history of each and every aircraft from the day it went into service till it was written off. Accordingly, I began to come to the section early before others came and left after the others – and, I would take up a few aircraft files every day and go through the hundreds of paper in them to decide just how I should proceed. (to be continued …)


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