Question

Caselet (Questions 97-100): Om Chowdhury was one of the supervisors in the Fire and Safety (F&S) department of Maqsood Textile Mills. He was a distant cousin of Mr. Bhiwani, the General Manager (Personnel & Administration), and the Personnel and Administration department handled all personnel-related decisions. It was often rumored that Om had gotten the job because of his cousin's influence. Om, however, was careful in his work and never gave anyone a reason to complain. He was known to be a quiet man who kept to himself and his duties.

All F&S supervisors reported to Mr. Rabindra, the shop-floor manager. The mill ran on a three-shift basis, and Rabindra allotted supervisors to the different shifts. Supervisors had to stay present through the whole shift and run scheduled checks on the machinery and firefighting equipment. For some reason, Rabindra kept assigning Om to the night shift more often than the other supervisors. Om never objected to this, while the other supervisors often pleaded with Rabindra to be given day shifts instead. Staying awake and alert through the night shift was one of the hardest parts of the job.

After a while, Rabindra noticed that Om seemed indifferent to his work. Twice he found Om missing from his cabin, and others told him Om had been seen wandering different parts of the shop floor. Rabindra called Om in and reminded him of his responsibilities. Om did not argue and promised not to be careless again. Rabindra also raised the matter with Mr. Bhiwani, who called Om in for a personal talk and reminded him that their family tie made the situation awkward for everyone. Om agreed to improve, and soon he became a model supervisor, even going out of his way to help employees with their problems.

Three months later, Rabindra visited the plant at night and, looking into the F&S office, found Om playing solitaire on the office computer. Rabindra fired Om on the spot.

The next morning, Mr. Bhiwani called Rabindra and asked how he could fire an employee like that, and suggested he reconsider the dismissal. Rabindra replied, "This decision has already been made. There will be no turning back."

Question: Out of the options below, which one best sums up the learning from the solitaire incident?

• A. Managers often do not take any responsibility towards training juniors.
• B. People tend to become relaxed during the night shift, and this requires surprise checks to keep them on their toes.
• C. Certain roles have different ways of carrying out their duties.
• D. Having relatives in the same organization can be a source of potential problems.

Hint:

Ask what is normal for a watch-and-check role like fire safety, versus a role with constant visible tasks.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

This question asks for the single best takeaway from the whole solitaire episode. Let's test the five statements against the story.

1. A. Managers do not train juniors: training of any kind is never mentioned in the case, so this cannot be the lesson drawn from it.
2. B. Night-shift staff relax and need surprise checks: this reads like a fix rather than a lesson, and it treats Om's one incident as proof of a wider pattern the case never actually shows.
3. C. Different roles are carried out in different ways: an F&S supervisor's job is largely to be present and alert for an emergency, so quiet stretches with little visible activity are a normal part of that job, unlike a role with constant, visible tasks. Mistaking this for idleness is exactly what tripped up Rabindra.
4. D. Relatives in the same firm cause problems: this is true of the Om-Bhiwani side detail, but it belongs to the hiring subplot, not to the specific judgment failure in the firing.
5. E. Managers place silent people in certain roles: the case never claims or implies this as a general rule.

Option C is the one that generalizes correctly from the actual events without inventing extra facts.

Let's summarize:

• A watch-and-check role naturally has idle-looking stretches once the checks are done.
• Judging such a role by the busy-ness standard of a different role produces a wrong reading of the person's conduct.

So the best summary of the learning is option C.