Redefining Volunteerism-Part 5

Food- a universal celebration! The Canteen in a pharmaceutical set up is, generally, an ‘aromatic-yet-noisy-cum-chatty place! Plates, cups, glasses, spoons ‘clutter & clang’ while chatty-gossipy-sobbing-overworked-human-hearts are happy with the aroma of food wafting in because all gather to embark on a journey of satisfying hunger!

This canteen is a perpetual beehive. Pre-work precedes the act of serving while Post-work and clean-up follows the act of ingestion! The first shift teams would arrive early on, but the current situation had altered timings of food breaks and was intended to provide some respite to the employees who worked at the canteen.

Meanwhile, like everywhere else, the staff at the canteen were greatly reduced in numbers. It was due to the travel curbs, due to mandatory lock-down, due to the inability of crossing borders of towns and other complications. But when the business mandate is production/testing-as-usual, it also meant that activities at the canteen had to be as-usual. The cleaning- scrubbing-sanitizing-hygiene had to be followed, with even more care, which meant that the already stretched resources were thinned down and multi-tasking was to be the rule of the canteen. Prioritization had to take a new hue! The prep-work had to be smarter, the elaborateness of the menu had to be curtailed, the portions of serving had to be optimum, the mechanism and operating procedure of preparation, serving, cleaning-up had to be reformed. Although it was estimated to be a chaotic situation, the team handling the Canteen had a tough call to make. The 5-Champions (they headed 5 departments in the facility) were entrusted with a special task- 'The happiness quotient was to remain buoyant'. Now, this buoyancy had to do with their choices! Of balancing! Of being able to get the ‘breakfast-tea-lunch-tea-snacks-dinner’ cycle working. Was it easy….Yeah….No way! Was it tough….Yeah…But not impossible! Guess what they got onto? “Mess! It is an utter mess” they said to each other. They were against an uphill task- that of organizing for a breakfast-tea-lunch-tea-snacks cycle for 200 employees. “Ha.. consider ourselves lucky, we are not to arrange food for 1000 people”. “It is a mini-marriage party!”. “How much food do we eat!” were some of the expressions, they had, when they got into the action.

So our 5-Champs were to be assisted by 3-Untrained Hands, who claimed to have prior experience with cooking, during marriages, on a part-time basis. Their first challenge was to estimate the amount of raw material, next came the prep work. The process of washing, cutting-n-chopping vegetables, preparing rice, sambhar, rotis, boiling milk, making tea, brewing coffee seemed simple at the first look, for among the 8 were Chefs, Sous-chefs, vegetable choppers, servers, waiters and 'give-me-any-role' ready to bringing dishes alive!

Task 1: Making tea was relatively easy, yet it was served only at 11:00 hours, instead of 09:00 hours. The breakfast, which was to go along with the tea, was supposed to be “poha”(seasoned flattened rice), but all they could manage were two Parle-G biscuits per head.“What happened to Poha?” was meant with sheepish smiles and the caramelized stench from the kitchen remained the untold story.

Task 2: Lunch! Chills & shudders went down all spines. “Poha@Breakfast” had laid the rules of engagement.

Everyone has wisdom in oodles and expert advice is available for free. Our 5 Champions also received generous doses from such advisors, who were hell-bent in supporting them. Ideas were in plenty but all advisors remained reluctant to touch anything in the canteen. They turned out as time-eaters and nothing more because the challenge of preparing the lunch had not disappeared or lessened by any measure. 

The normal lunchtime was off-mark by 2 hours, and the socially distancing added to the slowing of plates being picked up by hungry souls! Anxious moments and absolute silence! The canteen was never this quiet-EVER! Mustering courage, one of the 5-Champs asked for feedback on what was served. “It’s OK” from the employees seemed like they received a Michelin star. As if in seconds, the queues grew longer while the food portions started diminishing! An impromptu huddle meeting between the 5-Champs got more food out into the cauldrons, as if by magic and seemed just right until the last person had his meal.

Day one ended without further calamities! It was a somber evening. It was time to reflect on what had gone right and what had gone disastrously wrong. With elbows resting on the table, the team sat around one of the stainless-steel (SS) tables in the canteen. The chill radiating from the stainless-steel chairs felt exaggerated. “How do we make this work?” asked one of the 5-Champs. “Are we cut out for this?” reflected another, giving voice to the self-doubt that had consumed all of them. Their introspection prevented them from noticing, a tall and lanky silhouette, who has just made himself comfortable in one of the SS chairs, next to them.“You are, if you think you are, you are not, if you think you are not” boomed the voice, and everyone turned towards the direction of the voice, in unison. This person, who has just joined their self-pity meeting, uninvited, was their Head of Administration. “Why don’t we follow the process of, “Akrasia” that we learned?” he paused before continuing. “The things we know we need to do, but we don’t do, and the things we do not need to do, but we do!” The group unenthusiastically started listing down their individual Akrasia. It was cathartic, in many ways. They followed the Learning sessions from October 2019. They identified the critical quality attributes (CQA) and critical process parameters (CPP) to achieve the listed CQAs, drawing out the flowcharts. The team started to feel lighter and brighter. “Yes, we can nail it, we need to plan better. Let us put these flowcharts on our kitchen walls so that we follow them.” spoke one of them. “Let us convert them into deployment flowcharts, with timelines” retorted another. “Good point, let me do it” chimed-in the third one. They seemed to have forgotten their losses, their disappointment, their humiliation and were ready to face their hungry customers! 

It took them 7 days to be in control of the process and with that came humor in plenty! This 5-Champs and 3-under training team turned out to be Large-Volume-Culinary experts. The spilled milk stopped to matter, the watery tea did not shock them, the slightly charred rotis and excessively fermented curd did not dither their spirits. Never underestimate the power of the “OTJ” learning was the dictum! The buoyancy of happiness quotient was an indicator when all who crossed the threshold of the canteen door vouched to be ‘Voluntarius Community’!