SERIAL: INDIAN IN COWBOY COUNTRY
TWO LINES:
Friday was a mixed day at work. As soon as Satish arrived in the morning, he received a call from Clark’s vice president of operations, Steve Longorio. Their company’s equipment had passed a crucial field test at a customer test well. He congratulated Satish and said that the hard work of the previous five years was beginning to show some payoff.
The customer had committed to using their equipment on the next five development wells on offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, but he still had to get past their drilling superintendent, who abhorred unproven equipment in his bottom – hole assembly. Steve asked him to accompany him to Lafayette, Louisiana, to meet this resister and turn him around.
Satish was unaware that over his nine years at Clark, he had built a good reputation in the company and the drilling industry for being not only a good engineer but also a pragmatic one, who understood the motivations, risks and concerns that dictated each action on a drilling rig.
He was famous for a posture he took whenever he was at a lectern. He would hold up his right hand, stretch out four fingers, and say that the top four guidelines for any decision were: “number one, health, safety, and the environment, number two, quality, number three, schedule; and number four, cost.” He was passionate in the pursuit of these objectives and admonished and threatened to fire anyone who would sacrifice or compromise the first two.
Satish was a natural to talk to customers. He was a good listener and could communicate succinctly with them, absorbing and using their local accents to make his audience comfortable. Moreover, his reputation for being uncompromising on his first two objectives usually preceded him to meetings, which comforted oil company personnel. In addition, he loved to try local cuisines anywhere on the globe, which also pleased his hosts.
He was most at home in Lafayette, where he enjoyed authentic spicy Cajun cuisine, Zydeco bands, and the Cajuns’ unique sense of humor. At times, when Clark’s field crews drilled in an area that had extra-hot cayenne peppers, a field hand would remember him and FedEx him some overnight. Laura, his assistant, held these potent packages in her outstretched hand when she brought them to him-their spicy fumes penetrated paper and brought tears to her eyes. She claimed that one package had almost burnt her fingers!
Satish was elated to hear the good news about the field test from Steve. He felt that it would give him substantial leverage when he went in for his annual performance review with his boss, John Boudreaux. Over lunch, John congratulated him for his role in the successful field test and his other accomplishments over the year.
He told him that he was going to receive an above-average increase in his pay, thanked him for the exemplary job he had done, and ended with, “I am sure you’ll continue doing a great job over the next year”.
He then gave him a performance review document with comments suggesting that he review it and, if he agreed to its contents, sign it. If not, annotate the document and send it back to him, and they could meet again to discuss it.
Satish was happy with the raise, but disappointed that he had not been promoted to director, especially after his significant contributions to the recent success. Besides, he was the only “manager” in the entire company who reported to a vice president. He shared this thought with John, who told him that his hands were tied, and that he had attempted to compensate the shortcoming with a higher raise.
Satish said little after that. The two had a pleasant lunch, discussing his impending trip to Lafayette and how to handle his first layoff that afternoon in a humane manner, while following company policies and procedures.
It was a depressing task, telling his employee that his services were no longer needed, especially on a Friday afternoon. He fought hard to keep the employee, but John told him that it was a corporate mandate to cut at least ten percent of the headcount, Satish was lucky that he was being asked to cut only one person from his staff of twenty-seven people.
Joe, a Cajun, had been a conscientious company man for more than fifteen years, but had not attempted to stay current with his field of expertise. Over the years, Clark moved him around from one position to another, performing delegated tasks by hand that people could easily perform with personal computers. He had seen the writing on the wall, and had asked to be laid off during the next round. Yet the task was an unpleasant one.
Satish liked Joe, and after he had given him the bad news, he suggested that they meet after hours to see how he could cushion the transition. The “redundant” employee was then escorted by a human resources assistant to his car, after a time was set for him to come to the facilities over the weekend to pick up his personal belongings.
Later that afternoon, Satish declined invitations from his fellow managers to join them for their traditional weekend beer. Instead, he joined to discuss his plans. Then he embarked on his forty-five minute drive home to Monica and their one-year-old daughter, Seeta.
As soon as his car pulled into the garage, the back door of his home opened and Seeta, his infant daughter, ran out, all wobbly. She grabbed his knees and said, “Carry me.” He obliged her, and while he was being showered with kisses, he entered his home.
“Want some chai?” Monica asked as she poured hot water on tea bags in two mugs. “So, how was your day?”
“We had great news and bad news,” he said.
“Bad news?” she asked with concern.
“I had to lay off an employee and, trust me, it is one of the worst acts a manager can do. They don’t pay me enough to do such things.”
“Is your job safe?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, sounding positive. “We had a successful field test. We now have funds for the next phase.” He and Seeta, who was sitting on his lap, sifted the mail. He quickly dispatched junk mail to the recycling bin, separated bills and magazines for his personal attention, and sorted out sale and coupon sheets for his wife.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I had my performance review today. It was good. I got a good raise but no promotion.”
Monica could see that he felt as if he had let her and Seeta down. She had seen her husband give Clark every iota of the physical and normal energy he possessed. When she met his superiors at office parties, she heard nothing but genuine praise for him; yet, an unseen obstacle prevented his ascent in the company. She told her husband that some day he would be rewarded for his efforts.
Soon a cup of hot chai arrived at the table, accompanied by some Gluco biscuits, imported from India. On cue, Seeta reached out for one to munch. Husband and wife chatted about various topics, from Monica’s excessive dieting to lose the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, to who brought what to a women-only lunch at a friend’s place, to how the other women had loved the exotic taste of her version of a Middle Eastern baked dessert.
“Thank God I kept some at home for you. There were no leftover!” She teased him: “How can you eat that stuff?”
“I love it. It’s the best.” He went over, kissed his wife, and said abruptly, “I have to go for a haircut.”
“Now?”
“Yes! Now! I am overdue for a haircut. Tomorrow we have to go to a wedding reception, and the barbershop will be crowded in the morning. I’ll be back in half an hour. You won’t even notice that I am gone.”
“OK,” claimed his wife. Seeta looked up, perhaps puzzled at how easily her mother had granted her father permission to leave the house so soon after he had just arrived.
“Wait,” his wife said. “I have a coupon for you, for your haircut.” She pointed at the refrigerator. “And, by the way, can you buy milk, and whatever multigrain bread is on sale, and some cheese, the kind with jalapenos and chilies in it?”
Retrieving the coupon, he headed for his favorite barbershop. The one he frequented had a sports theme to it, with a receptionist behind a pastiche of a stadium ticket window. A large-screen TV tuned to a baseball game dominated the lobby. Many sports magazines were clumsily scattered around the sitting area. Every element tried to add some masculinity to this enterprise with only women employees.
“Last four digits of your phone number, please,” chimed a perky high school kid.
He gave it to her.
“Any preference for a hairdresser?” she asked.
“I’ll just go with first available, please,” he said. He proceeded to the waiting area with its stale, dog-eared magazines and its grainy, large-screen projection TV with shrill sportscasters whose looks were marred by the bulging veins of fake enthusiasm in their foreheads and necks.
He really didn’t care what the announcers were so excited about, so he sifted through magazine. Before he could get past the table of contents, a young Oriental woman called out his first name.
For decades, he had heard his name mispronounced in every possible way, and he instantly recognized his name in the jumble of sounds this Asian woman made. He stood up and approached her. This petite woman had a name tag that said “Quynh.”
“Hi, my name is Quynh”, she said.
“Hi, Quynh,” he said.
She led him to a seat and pointed to it with the poise and grace of a model on a TV game show displaying the grand prize. As she wrapped a protective sheet around him, she said, “You say my name correctly.” She was visibly pleased that her name was not mispronounced.
“Hey, if I can say Zbigniew Brzezinski, Quynh is a piece of cake,” he bragged.
Quynh was puzzled by the comment, and understandably so.
Friday was a mixed day at work. As soon as Satish arrived in the morning, he received a call from Clark’s vice president of operations, Steve Longorio. Their company’s equipment had passed a crucial field test at a customer test well. He congratulated Satish and said that the hard work of the previous five years was beginning to show some payoff.
The customer had committed to using their equipment on the next five development wells on offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, but he still had to get past their drilling superintendent, who abhorred unproven equipment in his bottom – hole assembly. Steve asked him to accompany him to Lafayette, Louisiana, to meet this resister and turn him around.
Satish was unaware that over his nine years at Clark, he had built a good reputation in the company and the drilling industry for being not only a good engineer but also a pragmatic one, who understood the motivations, risks and concerns that dictated each action on a drilling rig.
He was famous for a posture he took whenever he was at a lectern. He would hold up his right hand, stretch out four fingers, and say that the top four guidelines for any decision were: “number one, health, safety, and the environment, number two, quality, number three, schedule; and number four, cost.” He was passionate in the pursuit of these objectives and admonished and threatened to fire anyone who would sacrifice or compromise the first two.
Satish was a natural to talk to customers. He was a good listener and could communicate succinctly with them, absorbing and using their local accents to make his audience comfortable. Moreover, his reputation for being uncompromising on his first two objectives usually preceded him to meetings, which comforted oil company personnel. In addition, he loved to try local cuisines anywhere on the globe, which also pleased his hosts.
He was most at home in Lafayette, where he enjoyed authentic spicy Cajun cuisine, Zydeco bands, and the Cajuns’ unique sense of humor. At times, when Clark’s field crews drilled in an area that had extra-hot cayenne peppers, a field hand would remember him and FedEx him some overnight. Laura, his assistant, held these potent packages in her outstretched hand when she brought them to him-their spicy fumes penetrated paper and brought tears to her eyes. She claimed that one package had almost burnt her fingers!
Satish was elated to hear the good news about the field test from Steve. He felt that it would give him substantial leverage when he went in for his annual performance review with his boss, John Boudreaux. Over lunch, John congratulated him for his role in the successful field test and his other accomplishments over the year.
He told him that he was going to receive an above-average increase in his pay, thanked him for the exemplary job he had done, and ended with, “I am sure you’ll continue doing a great job over the next year”.
He then gave him a performance review document with comments suggesting that he review it and, if he agreed to its contents, sign it. If not, annotate the document and send it back to him, and they could meet again to discuss it.
Satish was happy with the raise, but disappointed that he had not been promoted to director, especially after his significant contributions to the recent success. Besides, he was the only “manager” in the entire company who reported to a vice president. He shared this thought with John, who told him that his hands were tied, and that he had attempted to compensate the shortcoming with a higher raise.
Satish said little after that. The two had a pleasant lunch, discussing his impending trip to Lafayette and how to handle his first layoff that afternoon in a humane manner, while following company policies and procedures.
It was a depressing task, telling his employee that his services were no longer needed, especially on a Friday afternoon. He fought hard to keep the employee, but John told him that it was a corporate mandate to cut at least ten percent of the headcount, Satish was lucky that he was being asked to cut only one person from his staff of twenty-seven people.
Joe, a Cajun, had been a conscientious company man for more than fifteen years, but had not attempted to stay current with his field of expertise. Over the years, Clark moved him around from one position to another, performing delegated tasks by hand that people could easily perform with personal computers. He had seen the writing on the wall, and had asked to be laid off during the next round. Yet the task was an unpleasant one.
Satish liked Joe, and after he had given him the bad news, he suggested that they meet after hours to see how he could cushion the transition. The “redundant” employee was then escorted by a human resources assistant to his car, after a time was set for him to come to the facilities over the weekend to pick up his personal belongings.
Later that afternoon, Satish declined invitations from his fellow managers to join them for their traditional weekend beer. Instead, he joined to discuss his plans. Then he embarked on his forty-five minute drive home to Monica and their one-year-old daughter, Seeta.
As soon as his car pulled into the garage, the back door of his home opened and Seeta, his infant daughter, ran out, all wobbly. She grabbed his knees and said, “Carry me.” He obliged her, and while he was being showered with kisses, he entered his home.
“Want some chai?” Monica asked as she poured hot water on tea bags in two mugs. “So, how was your day?”
“We had great news and bad news,” he said.
“Bad news?” she asked with concern.
“I had to lay off an employee and, trust me, it is one of the worst acts a manager can do. They don’t pay me enough to do such things.”
“Is your job safe?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, sounding positive. “We had a successful field test. We now have funds for the next phase.” He and Seeta, who was sitting on his lap, sifted the mail. He quickly dispatched junk mail to the recycling bin, separated bills and magazines for his personal attention, and sorted out sale and coupon sheets for his wife.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I had my performance review today. It was good. I got a good raise but no promotion.”
Monica could see that he felt as if he had let her and Seeta down. She had seen her husband give Clark every iota of the physical and normal energy he possessed. When she met his superiors at office parties, she heard nothing but genuine praise for him; yet, an unseen obstacle prevented his ascent in the company. She told her husband that some day he would be rewarded for his efforts.
Soon a cup of hot chai arrived at the table, accompanied by some Gluco biscuits, imported from India. On cue, Seeta reached out for one to munch. Husband and wife chatted about various topics, from Monica’s excessive dieting to lose the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, to who brought what to a women-only lunch at a friend’s place, to how the other women had loved the exotic taste of her version of a Middle Eastern baked dessert.
“Thank God I kept some at home for you. There were no leftover!” She teased him: “How can you eat that stuff?”
“I love it. It’s the best.” He went over, kissed his wife, and said abruptly, “I have to go for a haircut.”
“Now?”
“Yes! Now! I am overdue for a haircut. Tomorrow we have to go to a wedding reception, and the barbershop will be crowded in the morning. I’ll be back in half an hour. You won’t even notice that I am gone.”
“OK,” claimed his wife. Seeta looked up, perhaps puzzled at how easily her mother had granted her father permission to leave the house so soon after he had just arrived.
“Wait,” his wife said. “I have a coupon for you, for your haircut.” She pointed at the refrigerator. “And, by the way, can you buy milk, and whatever multigrain bread is on sale, and some cheese, the kind with jalapenos and chilies in it?”
Retrieving the coupon, he headed for his favorite barbershop. The one he frequented had a sports theme to it, with a receptionist behind a pastiche of a stadium ticket window. A large-screen TV tuned to a baseball game dominated the lobby. Many sports magazines were clumsily scattered around the sitting area. Every element tried to add some masculinity to this enterprise with only women employees.
“Last four digits of your phone number, please,” chimed a perky high school kid.
He gave it to her.
“Any preference for a hairdresser?” she asked.
“I’ll just go with first available, please,” he said. He proceeded to the waiting area with its stale, dog-eared magazines and its grainy, large-screen projection TV with shrill sportscasters whose looks were marred by the bulging veins of fake enthusiasm in their foreheads and necks.
He really didn’t care what the announcers were so excited about, so he sifted through magazine. Before he could get past the table of contents, a young Oriental woman called out his first name.
For decades, he had heard his name mispronounced in every possible way, and he instantly recognized his name in the jumble of sounds this Asian woman made. He stood up and approached her. This petite woman had a name tag that said “Quynh.”
“Hi, my name is Quynh”, she said.
“Hi, Quynh,” he said.
She led him to a seat and pointed to it with the poise and grace of a model on a TV game show displaying the grand prize. As she wrapped a protective sheet around him, she said, “You say my name correctly.” She was visibly pleased that her name was not mispronounced.
“Hey, if I can say Zbigniew Brzezinski, Quynh is a piece of cake,” he bragged.
Quynh was puzzled by the comment, and understandably so.
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