I went to high school in the early 80s--a wonderful time when foreign languages were an option. And they were an option I opted not to exercise. One year of Spanish with Senor Elder was enough to ruin my GPA and to limit me to ordering tacos and burritos in Mexican restaurants.
In college, I did take both Greek and Hebrew in preparation for Seminary. Greek, well, it was all Greek to me--I did pass, but with generous amounts of grace involved. Hebrew, believe it or not, I took extra Hebrew classes because I liked it--however, that was over 20 years ago and I have no idea where my Hebrew Bible is, nor do I know when I last saw it.
Suffice it to say, I speak English--and that not very well. Which makes me wonder--how did I land in the position of helping Chuck communicate our supply needs to the staff at the CMC?
Everyone on the staff speaks wonderful English--and probably an average of 3 or 4 more languages. Their English is very good, but heavily accented. Listening requires effort and concentration to follow and comprehend--two things American ears are not usually good at.
Okay...that is the language set up for this story...now for the money and math portions...
The Indian currency is the rupee. 1 dollar is worth about 42 rupees. Keeping in mind our budget for supplies and trying to compute what has been spent and what needs to be spent while making these calculations is a little tricky--but only a little. Interestingly, many products in India are sold by metric measure, which makes sense. However, the instructions for use are given in English units, which doesn't make as much sense. I think India is either trying to recover from the British, or cling to their British past. I'm not sure which.
Okay...language...money...measure...here is the recipe for ordering roofing materials...make sure to follow these steps precisely...
- Measure one round/circular roof in feet and apply the appropriate mathematical formula to determine square footage (Perhaps, pie are square--preferably ala mode...)
- Transpose the square footage into square meters
- Surf the net for roofing product sold by the kilogram
- Disregard the fact that it is a liquid product being sold by weight
- Calculate how many square feet one kilogram will cover
- Translate that measure into square meters.
- Simultaneously, calculate the cost per kilogram in rupees
- Then change the rupees into dollars for comparison to the project budget.
- But, don't forget that this product will be applied by locals hired for this express purpose
- Consult the local contractor to learn how many man-days will be needed for the process
- Project that expense into the overal cost
- Make all measures and calculations in English while listening to the staff make the same measures and calculations in Tamil (or was it Hindi...)
Got it so far? Because that was the easy part...
- Once an amount of product is arrived at and a projected cost is discovered, contact the manufacturer--miraculously with a home base in India--to learn if there are any local distributors.
- After learning the product is only available in Bombay/Mumbai and will take 2-3 days to ship, return to step 1 to determine if there are any alternate products.
- After reconciling yourself to the fact that this is the only product remotely sufficient for the product and remotely available, reprocess all the math and measures.
- Present your findings to the staff for permission to place the order.
Still with me?
- Leave the office thinking all is well.
- Spend approximately one hour on other work.
- Look up to discover Raja coming toward you with a disturbed look on his face.
- Loan Raja your pen and paper so he can run you through the math one more time.
- Learn from Raja's numbers that "you crazy white guys" (an approximation of what Raja called us--or at least what he had to be thinking about us!) had miscalculated by about 2.5 times.
- Smile contentedly and give Raja the thumbs up as you laugh at the fact that he just saved everyone about $1500-2000 (or 80,000-90,000 rupees)
As I said in the title--Raja to the Rescue!!
