Question

Read the following caselet and answer the question that follows.

Mr. Rajiv Singhal, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Loha India Ltd. (a steel manufacturing company), had just been visited by several other directors of the company. The directors were upset with the recent actions of the company president, Mr. Ganesh Thakur. They demanded that the board consider firing the president.

Mr. Thakur, recently appointed as president, had undertaken to solve some of the management-employee problems by dealing directly with individuals as often as possible. The company did not have a history of strikes or any other form of collective action and was considered to have a good work culture. However, Mr. Thakur felt that by dealing directly with individuals, he could show the management's concern for the employees. An important step Mr. Thakur took was to negotiate the wages of the supervisors with each supervisor one on one. In these negotiation meetings he did not involve anyone else, including the Personnel Department which reported to him, so that he could take an unbiased decision. After negotiation, a wage contract was drawn up for each supervisor. He felt this would recognise and reward the better performers. Mr. Thakur carried out this process for most of the supervisors, except those working the night shift. For them he drew up the contracts on his own, benchmarking the night shift supervisors' wages against the day shift supervisors' wages.

For several days, Ram Lal, a night shift supervisor, had been trying to get an appointment with Mr. Thakur about his wages. He was upset, not only because he could not see the president, but also because there had been no discussion about his wage contract before it was put into effect. As a family man with six dependents, he felt his weekly wage should be higher than what he had been given.

Last Thursday afternoon, Ram Lal stopped by the president's office and tried to see him. Mr. Thakur's secretary refused his request on the grounds that Mr. Thakur was busy. Angry, Ram Lal walked into the president's office and confronted the startled Mr. Thakur with his demand for a better wage. Mr. Thakur stood up and told Ram Lal to get out of his office and raise his grievance through the official channel. Ram Lal took a swing at the president, who in turn punched Ram Lal on the jaw and knocked him unconscious.

Out of the following, which one seems to be the most likely cause of Ram Lal's grievance?

• A. His disappointment with the management's one-on-one interaction policy, since supervisors were in a way being forced to accept the wage contracts.
• B. Being in the night shift worked against him, since he could not interact with the management about his problem.
• C. He was not allowed to meet the chairman of the board of directors of the company.
• D. Employment in the night shift kept him away from his family during the day, so he could not interact with his family members much.

Hint:

Separate what the caselet actually states about Ram Lal from what merely sounds plausible about night shift work.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

This question tests whether you can trace a character's grievance back to its stated cause in the caselet, rather than to a cause that merely sounds reasonable. Let's go through the four ideas.

1. Disappointment with forced one-on-one contracts: the caselet describes the one-on-one process as rewarding good performers for the day shift, not as forcing anyone. Ram Lal's problem was that he never got this negotiation at all, so blaming the policy itself is off target.
2. Night shift kept him from interacting with management: the passage is explicit that Ram Lal tried for days to get an appointment and was refused because the president was 'busy'. His shift made it hard for him to catch the president during normal hours, and this directly fed his grievance over an unread, unilateral wage contract.
3. Not allowed to meet the chairman: nothing in the caselet has Ram Lal seeking the chairman, Mr. Singhal. He was after Mr. Thakur, the president, so this option describes an event that never happened.
4. Away from family during the day: true of night shift life in general, but the caselet ties Ram Lal's frustration to wages and access to the president, never to family time.

The option that survives is the one about the night shift blocking his access to management, since it is the one detail the passage repeats: he tried, and failed, to meet Mr. Thakur because of timing and the secretary's refusal.

Let's summarize:

• Pick the cause the passage states, not the cause that sounds true of night shift jobs in general.
• Watch for options that name the wrong person (chairman instead of president); they are traps.

So Ram Lal's grievance is best explained by his night shift timing cutting him off from the management.