Ladies and gentleman, without further ado, my new Western toilet in Phaltan! My bungalow is now fully equipped with a Western and an Indian commode. Fortunately I haven’t moved to the bungalow yet, so I didn’t have to experiment with the squat toilet, but I’m sure the day will come will curiosity will get the better of me...
The owner has done a pretty good job on the renovations of the bungalow, including two new A/C units (this was considered very cosmopolitan at all the other bungalows I viewed), a refrigerator, washing machine, power backup (not a genset, but an inverter), painted the downstairs and even left a very nice 19” color CRT TV. And...he’s put a bed in for me that would have been great when I was 13 years old as my feet hang off the edge of the bed about 1 foot!
I spent the month of May here in Pune without A/C as the landlord would not fix the A/C. Apparently a family of birds felt that the airconditioner compressor was a great place to make a home and the little bird family burnt up the compressor!
My parents will also be happy to know there are plates in the kitchen that are just like my favorite, vintage plastic plates back home in OH.
Now that my Phaltan Palace is complete, I just need a PDC to run. Construction is moving along well at the site and racking installation will begin the week of June 27th. With the PDC completion coming in the several weeks I’ve been very busy with recruiting the talent to pick, pack and ship our components. It has been an amazing experience interviewing literally hundreds of young people from the villages surrounding Phaltan.
Recruiting at the school with the below sign showing all the snakes in the area was not as fun...
Having the opportunity to offer employment to young men and women whose previous opportunities only included very manual farm work is very rewarding. The stories I’ve heard about their lives have been very touching and this is single greatest experience I’ve had since coming to India 7 months ago.
It is interesting to note that the India PDC will probably have the highest level of gender diversity of all our CGL sites. With our 1st batch of recruits we have 70% women! This is a very skewed ratio for any warehouse, let alone a warehouse in rural India. These young women have demonstrated amazing self confidence in their interactions with my staff, the HR team and I. In fact, it was not that there were more women candidates than men, it’s that the women candidates were far more ambitious, confident and dedicated to obtaining employment with Cummins than were the male candidates interviewed thus far.
Below are some photos taken this week during our OnBoarding / training sessions with the 1st batch of employees. We played a game where the associates were told that King Solomon was coming to visit their village. The associates were split into 5 teams and each told some of the king’s favorites things so that they could prepare for his visit. The teams were given time to prepare for the “king’s” (Suresh in the below photo) visit and then we reviewed their work to see how well they met the king’s requests. The employees crafted elaborate crowns for us, snacks, coffee, music, flowers and newspapers; however, only 1 team measured Suresh’s head for the crown, asked his favorite sweets, flowers, etc.
The moral of this session was to teach the employees the importance of understanding our customers’ needs and wants. We ended the session by explaining how this game will relate to their experience working for Cummins India. This group of employees are going to be an amazing asset to our PDC operations!
Asides from hiring an all new workforce for our PDC, we’ve also undertaken many improvement projects which will change the way our customers are serviced in an attempt to improve our FPF. While these changes were made to improve our material availability to our customers, the changes will result in a much different way of doing business than in the past. In an attempt to educate our dealer base the PDC team organized “India PDC Road Shows” across the country. Last week Raj, Jitu, Mukund and I spoke to the Western and Northern dealers. These shows were a great chance to get direct feedback from our dealers. Although I would rate the shows a success, I think the Delhi area dealers may have been more interested in the conference next door to us than listening to me speak about PDC operations....
That’s right it was either listening to the goofy guy from OH speak about G+6 racking, WMS and improved process flow...or try to sneak a glimpse at the Ford Supermodels!
In the below photo I think you can tell by my super firm expression that I was getting tired of answering questions about how scheduled ship dates works :-)
In the below photo is a picture of Raj on his cellphone at the Delhi road show. Nothing wrong with this, right? Well Raj kept the wireless mic on while he was talking to his wife and it was broadcast to the group while I was presenting!
Next week brings more presentations in Bangalore and Kolkata so keep your fingers crossed that Maxim magazine won’t book the conference hall next to us!
In between all the excitement and craziness of the past few weeks, Reetika and I took a trip to Mumbai to unwind. We stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace and this place certainly lived up to its name!
Mumbai is an incredible city and I always enjoy visiting, but this time was different. Staying in the Taj Mahal Palace, dinner and drinks at Leopold Cafe and walking the streets were the horrific terror attacks of 2008 occurred was surreal. It was very sad that such terrible events unfolded at such a great, diverse area.
Here I am at Leopold Cafe enjoying a mango milkshake and some wheat beer; both are delicious separately, not so tasty together.
Just outside of the Taj Mahal Palace is the Gateway of India. This is a beautiful monument that was constructed to welcome King George V and Queen Mary and was also the site were the last British troops left India in 1948.
Armored vehicles like the one below are unfortunately now very common in this area of the city. These vehicles were well fortified and looked like something out of GI Joe rather than Mumbai, India.
We also ate at a TGI Fridays in Mumbai and it was great to take in a slice of Americana. I was happy to see the menu items were almost identical to the TGI Fridays I've ate at in OH like "Tex Mex Spicy Lamb"
During my trip to Mumbai I left a blue blazer at the hotel so last weekend I went to have another blazer made. Along my way to my normal tailor I stumbled across the creepiest looking tailor signage I've ever seen in my life.
Reetika and I also recently took in a bartender course so that we could learn how to make Guava / Vodka / Chile Powder mixed drinks (it tastes way better than it sounds). Every drink we learned to make, whether sweet or not, was loaded with spices! While I am now 92% Indian, spices and fruit juice mixed with liquor is going to be an acquired taste.
The fine owners of the restaurant where the bartending class was held have shown me that what I thought was football for all these years was completely wrong....
Speaking of football, look who has "Bengal Fever"
Here is my license to consume alcohol in Maharashtra (the state I live in). It is technically illegal to consume alcohol without one of these permits, but in reality its just a way for police officials to make a quick rupee.
In news from our other CGL PDCs I'd like to congratulate Sriram for his recent victory at the Tanjong Penjuru Spelling Bee. Sriram came in 1st place beating out Terry Shu in the finals by successfully spelling TURTLE.
Congrats Sriram, better luck next year Terry!
Finally, I am in the process of trying to get a dog here as well. There is the cutest (so ugly, he's cute) dog that hangs out around my favorite restaurant in my neighborhood. His name is Kevin, he has 3 legs, a big gnarly tooth that hangs out and is always happy and excited whenever I see him. Last weekend I fed him 12 buns. He was in heaven until the 11th bun which he dropped on the ground and the 12th which he threw to the ground. He is a filthy dog as well so I have to take him to a puppy salon and a vet before I make him my Phaltan roommate. As soon as I hire a maid and a century for the Phaltan bungalow, Kevin will be living in the lap of luxury at the "Sitara" bungalow rather than the streets of Pune.

