VuPoints: Work life

There is this restaurant in Pune called Chinese Room, which serves good Chinese food. The restaurant is on East Street in the Cantonment area. The first time I went there was on a Saturday all alone and had roasted duck chicken (you guys have to try this in Chinese Room) and I met this amazing captain who was really courteous and gives you a feeling that his job is not all about taking the order and passing it on to the kitchen but to delight the guests.

He was talking to all the guests and checking if everything is fine and helping them with deciding what to order and stuff. Everyone does that, what is so great about that, you might ask. May be, everyone does that, but how they do it also matters, I guess. You got to visit this place and experience the service first hand. Seeing him at work, you can t stop wondering how come this guy is so pepped up about his work, from where does he derive this enormous amount of energy and how come he gives the feeling that you are his first guest and his day has just started. There is lot of cheer and smile is always there on his face.

Sample this, the other day when I was dining at the restraunt there was a group of people who belonged to the muslim community and this guy was personally shaking hands with the male guests and thanking them for considering to dine at Chinese Room and also wishing them belated Diwali (the incident took place right after the diwali weekend). One may argue about his choice of greeting (giving diwali wishes to muslim guests) but look at it this way, despite knowing that they don’t belong to the community he warmly welcomes and wishes them.

During my first visit after I was through with my lunch I couldn’t stop asking him how come he is so pepped up and passionate about his job. He answer was “I like interacting with people”. I really don’t if he really liked interacting with people or he could not think of better answer but this guy gives 200% to his job. As a token of appreciation I gave him a wonderful review and a good tip.

When I see people like this I feel passion is something which is inborn which comes through liking and love and and you cannot make people become passionate with incentives or perks. If he wants to do it he will do it but if he doesn’t want to he won’t even give a damn about it.

The first time I heard about this word was when I started reading Jack Welch’s “Straight from the Gut” in 2001. Back then I was in college and read it a bit. Jack talks about passion and how people who are passionate about their work differentiate themselves and will eventually succeed. May be, I really didn’t understand what he meant when he talked about passion towards work, but now after 6 years, I have not only understood what he meant but started looking for people who are passionate about their work.

Over the period of time, I have come across people who really love to do what they are doing and enjoy their work; here are some people who I want to introduce you to.

The first on the list is (although the order doesn’t mean much)
a) An autowala
b) A waiter at the Chinese Room
c) Couple of girls at the Tommy Hilfiger showroom in Mumbai
d) A journalist working with a media company
e) Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher airline

The case of the Autowala (let’s call him Arjun)

There is something about Arjun and his Auto. The first time you hire this guy for a ride you will be amazed by the way he has decorated and beatified his auto. To start with it has a red carpet as the floor mat instead of the rubber ones. It has well cushioned bucket seats for the passengers. Like when you get in to the auto you will get a feeling as if you are boarding a vehicle belonging to the royal community. One side of the auto is open for passenger entrance and the other one is closed with a gold/bronze-plated chain. And the dashboard is so well decorated that the architects of Maruti 800, Santro and Indica will hang themselves in shame or can get some tips from him. The auto has a music system and to top it all it has a DVD/VCD player (all of them in working condition). This is something about interiors and coming to the exteriors the auto is well maintained and has lot of jazzy stuff like steel logos. And the driver’s seat is also sort of a bucket seat with a headrest.

Now where does passion fit in to entire scheme of things? I am looking at it this way; many of us have hired autos and traveled in them. If the guy was decent enough we might have had a good experience but we can’t say it was a memorable experience, which is worth mentioning it to friends and clicking pictures. Arjun, like any other auto driver could have kept his vehicle plain and still would have made money out of ferrying the passengers. But, I guess he thought there are 4000 other autos out there and how can I get that one customer with 4000 options to choose me for his ride? This is something not many people think about, for the rest it is the same old day, same old auto and they know there will be passengers out there who will hire them however the condition of the auto is. These people believe that customers need them, but Arjun believes that he needs customers and he decided to go out of his way to please the customers and give them a wonderful experience and may be he can expect some repeat business. Because if you are anything like me you might also want to hire the same guy when he is around rather than usual auto.

This is passion, passion towards work, towards his vehicle, passion for quality service. For all those people from Pune and want to get lucky I can help you with the registration number of the vehicle, so next time when you are hiring a rick you can check the license plate of the autos in the stand before you choose.

Here are some pics of the rick and the next post is about the waiter in the Chinese Room.