A Question and that took me back -- some 25 years ago
I was travelling last week and used one of the call taxi services to get to the airport.. Not always you get this kind of a driver -- who was very courteous , had tons of innocence on his questions and happy and contented. He called up well ahead of his scheduled time to be at my residence and indicated he knew how to get to my place and that he will be on time. That was reassuring since it was early morning and other transport options may not be available so easily. Drove steadily , stopped at signals although it was early morning and kept me engaged.
As he just got in to the airport his two questions made me go back in time. How long have you been flying ? That was easy.. I said "close to 25 years " . The next question was " do you remember your first flight ? " I stuttered and said yes.. He asked " was it exciting ?" .. I said I flew with lots of tiredness and did remember the first flight..
Rewind ..
I was in my last couple of months of my Industrial Training and was looking forward to a full time employment having qualified as a Chartered Accountant, ( 1987 ) .The company that was with, closed its annual books as of August end. Their Hosur plant had just got off stream during that year and the books had to be closed for the first time. I was sent in the previous year to help in the set up and so for closing the books for the first year was a automatich choice to go and help out the team at Hosur. Responsible and Accountable Trainne indeed.
We had a definite target date to complete the financials . The submission was the last Friday of the month of September. The financials had to be submitted on Friday morning at Chennai. I was sent out in the first week of September tn help and ensure.
Only when I reached there , did I realise the enormity of the task. I and the local support team member ( graduate assistant -- there were just four in total handling the Accounting and Finance -- One Manager - one General Ledger keeper , one graduate assistant ( handle payable , costs and stock transfers ) and one admn type help. . Task was to updage and complete the Cost Accounting transactions.
Those days a where Calculator was a luxury , we had to reconcile the Priced Stores Ledger ( Financial records ) with the Stores Ledger (only physical ). In today's world these are integrated. There were close to 5000 cards that had to be updated for the last three months , priced , entries to be posted and then the closing stock and material consumed to be evolved. The job was laborious but both of us split the cards up based on local , imported purchase and started the work. The stores office was in the plant and we sat in the Admn building. With no intercoms , for any query , we had to walk to the store to clarify. We could not set daily meetings on to calendars for review !!
The final week of the assignment --from Monday to Wednesday , we hardly left our seats , close to twenty hours at work and by Thursday evening , we were ready. And postings were manual in to the General Ledger, the General Ledger keeper would do" T "accounts of all the journals , summarise and post manually to the General Ledger.
When the General Ledger Keeper completed the postings and extracted the Trial Balance , we ended with a difference ( total of debits did not match with the credits ). Using our normal techniques , I picked up casting as well as posting errors but by the time, we found the errors and completed the Trail Balance , the last bus to Chennai from Hosur had gone. The plan was to extract and take a hard copy and I would take the overnight bus to Chennai.
We decided to use the Telex but getting out four pages of Financial information over telex would not work. The Accounting Manager took the call. He told me , there is a flight at 7 Am from Bangalore to Chennai. Take that and get to Chennai. How to get to Bangalore ? He told that everyday , there is a cargo van that goes from Plant to Bangalore for supplies at 4 AM . Catch that and better get to Chennai was his command.
It was around 3 Am . I rushed back to my hotel room ( chinna hotel ) , settled and checked out much to the amusement of the Owner for the odd hour I checked out and then came back to the plant ( Three kms , used to walk daily this distance daily ) , it was drizzling all the time , jumped in to the cargo van and reached Bangalore at around 5:30 AM . A auto ride to the airport , I got my ticket over the counter of the Indian Airlines office ( ticket cost Rs 266/- ) and checked in and went to the security.
I had locked my suitcase and as I was being frisked physically , the person took the keys of the suitcasef and put it in the Dustbin. I did not even notice it.( I had hardly slept the past four days !! ) There no scanning X Ray equipment those days through which you could pass your baggage and each bag had to be opened. I looked for the keys and that was missing. The security guard broke open the suitcase and he must have regretted opening it. There was the Financial statement and clothes all unwashed of the past week . He quickly handed me back and I found a rope to tie the suitcase ,t for the locks were broken. I was in a trance . I did notice the take off but must have dozed off after that and was woken up by the airhostess to see me off the plane at Chennai. I think they did serve breakfast but I do not remember it , ( currently you have to buy your meal on a flight ).
I continued with couple of bus, train journeys to reach Thiruvottiur at around 9.30 AM. There was lot of commotion as no one could reach anyone at the Hosur plant. And getting through to Hosur was not so easy. You had to book trunk calls to get through . And I walked in , totally in shambles , no bath , eyes red shot , tired and hair unkept ( note the point , had hair on my head those days !! The team at Chennai heaved a sign of relief as I had carried what they were looking out for.
There it was , my first flight -- but look at the advancement that technology has brought in.
Did you notice ?
1. Manual systems
2. No phones - forget mobile ones
3. Security at the airport -- physically checking all baggage
4. Transport changes --
5. Time that it takes to get information and the effort involved
6. Look at the fare …
Interesting indeed. Thanks to the cabbie who made me think of the work that I did and my first flight !!
As he just got in to the airport his two questions made me go back in time. How long have you been flying ? That was easy.. I said "close to 25 years " . The next question was " do you remember your first flight ? " I stuttered and said yes.. He asked " was it exciting ?" .. I said I flew with lots of tiredness and did remember the first flight..
Rewind ..
I was in my last couple of months of my Industrial Training and was looking forward to a full time employment having qualified as a Chartered Accountant, ( 1987 ) .The company that was with, closed its annual books as of August end. Their Hosur plant had just got off stream during that year and the books had to be closed for the first time. I was sent in the previous year to help in the set up and so for closing the books for the first year was a automatich choice to go and help out the team at Hosur. Responsible and Accountable Trainne indeed.
We had a definite target date to complete the financials . The submission was the last Friday of the month of September. The financials had to be submitted on Friday morning at Chennai. I was sent out in the first week of September tn help and ensure.
Only when I reached there , did I realise the enormity of the task. I and the local support team member ( graduate assistant -- there were just four in total handling the Accounting and Finance -- One Manager - one General Ledger keeper , one graduate assistant ( handle payable , costs and stock transfers ) and one admn type help. . Task was to updage and complete the Cost Accounting transactions.
Those days a where Calculator was a luxury , we had to reconcile the Priced Stores Ledger ( Financial records ) with the Stores Ledger (only physical ). In today's world these are integrated. There were close to 5000 cards that had to be updated for the last three months , priced , entries to be posted and then the closing stock and material consumed to be evolved. The job was laborious but both of us split the cards up based on local , imported purchase and started the work. The stores office was in the plant and we sat in the Admn building. With no intercoms , for any query , we had to walk to the store to clarify. We could not set daily meetings on to calendars for review !!
The final week of the assignment --from Monday to Wednesday , we hardly left our seats , close to twenty hours at work and by Thursday evening , we were ready. And postings were manual in to the General Ledger, the General Ledger keeper would do" T "accounts of all the journals , summarise and post manually to the General Ledger.
When the General Ledger Keeper completed the postings and extracted the Trial Balance , we ended with a difference ( total of debits did not match with the credits ). Using our normal techniques , I picked up casting as well as posting errors but by the time, we found the errors and completed the Trail Balance , the last bus to Chennai from Hosur had gone. The plan was to extract and take a hard copy and I would take the overnight bus to Chennai.
We decided to use the Telex but getting out four pages of Financial information over telex would not work. The Accounting Manager took the call. He told me , there is a flight at 7 Am from Bangalore to Chennai. Take that and get to Chennai. How to get to Bangalore ? He told that everyday , there is a cargo van that goes from Plant to Bangalore for supplies at 4 AM . Catch that and better get to Chennai was his command.
It was around 3 Am . I rushed back to my hotel room ( chinna hotel ) , settled and checked out much to the amusement of the Owner for the odd hour I checked out and then came back to the plant ( Three kms , used to walk daily this distance daily ) , it was drizzling all the time , jumped in to the cargo van and reached Bangalore at around 5:30 AM . A auto ride to the airport , I got my ticket over the counter of the Indian Airlines office ( ticket cost Rs 266/- ) and checked in and went to the security.
I had locked my suitcase and as I was being frisked physically , the person took the keys of the suitcasef and put it in the Dustbin. I did not even notice it.( I had hardly slept the past four days !! ) There no scanning X Ray equipment those days through which you could pass your baggage and each bag had to be opened. I looked for the keys and that was missing. The security guard broke open the suitcase and he must have regretted opening it. There was the Financial statement and clothes all unwashed of the past week . He quickly handed me back and I found a rope to tie the suitcase ,t for the locks were broken. I was in a trance . I did notice the take off but must have dozed off after that and was woken up by the airhostess to see me off the plane at Chennai. I think they did serve breakfast but I do not remember it , ( currently you have to buy your meal on a flight ).
I continued with couple of bus, train journeys to reach Thiruvottiur at around 9.30 AM. There was lot of commotion as no one could reach anyone at the Hosur plant. And getting through to Hosur was not so easy. You had to book trunk calls to get through . And I walked in , totally in shambles , no bath , eyes red shot , tired and hair unkept ( note the point , had hair on my head those days !! The team at Chennai heaved a sign of relief as I had carried what they were looking out for.
There it was , my first flight -- but look at the advancement that technology has brought in.
Did you notice ?
1. Manual systems
2. No phones - forget mobile ones
3. Security at the airport -- physically checking all baggage
4. Transport changes --
5. Time that it takes to get information and the effort involved
6. Look at the fare …
Interesting indeed. Thanks to the cabbie who made me think of the work that I did and my first flight !!
Comments
Vidhya