Please don’t mind my title, but this is inspired by my coworker, to whom I should say “Thanks Mate”. We were out on a business meeting at a sugar mill where he had to demonstrate the performance of our welding electrodes on cast iron and educate the welders.
I was to deal with the chief engineer and other electrical and mechanical engineers about the comparative performance between Larsen & Toubro and our company. Incidentally, L & T are our main and only competitor.
We reached that sugar mill at a fixed time, and he went to the main welding floor where he welded giant-sized parts of sugar machinery under repair. Actually, this is an annual process when they dismantle the entire sugar mill, repair everything, change damaged parts, repaint and make everything new.
Let me add here that most welders know the art of welding better than their engineers, as they do it regularly, whereas engineers know it better, but only theoretically. I was talking to the floor engineer because the chief engineer was busy doing his routine round of the boiler section. Suddenly, the floor engineer said, “Let’s go see what the welders are doing with your engineer.”
We two moved to the demonstration area and watched the demonstration. Suddenly a welder asked, “Why is that green fume coming from this electrode?” Hearing this, the floor engineer said, “Oh, this is nothing serious. Sometimes the smoke changes color because of atmospheric impurities.”
My coworker is a seasoned engineer and knows a lot about welding electrodes, transformers, and flux, but he was surprised. He didn’t expect such a question from a welder. He looked at the floor engineer for a moment and said, “Are you sure this is because of atmospheric impurities?”
The floor manager snapped back immediately, “What else?” My coworker, who is a cool-headed guy, was skeptical and replied, “Have you ever heard about different chemical combinations used for various flux types?” The floor engineer did not expect such a remark from a visiting sales engineer, so he walked off from that place.
I later told my colleague to handle a situation like this a little more carefully since we didn’t want to lose an important account talking that way. My friend said, I am sorry, but I was so frustrated by hearing his reason that I really wanted to call a spade a shovel at that very moment. Thankfully, that floor engineer did not mention that incident in our sales meeting and we got that order.
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