Engineering a Life

by Krishan K. Bedi

  The man glared at me. “I’m going to tell your supervisor about this,” he growled.

  “Please do so,” I replied, pointing to my badge. “Here is my badge number.”

  Muttering under his breath, he stormed off to board another bus stopped ahead of us. Half of my passengers followed him, and the rest boarded on my bus. As the bus driver, I was in command and knew I had done the right thing. I wouldn’t let anyone try to take advantage of me. Besides, the CTA wouldn’t fire me after giving me two weeks of training and receiving complimentary letters from the older ladies.

  At the end of the summer, I returned to Knoxville, intent on working towards my master’s in industrial engineering. My favorite engineering class that fall was Advanced Work Measurement, where we learned to observe and analyze workers performing repetitive tasks. The professor dealt a deck of cards among four students, while the rest of us determined how quickly or slowly the professor passed the cards along. As future industrial engineers, we would need to recognize the normal pace of a certain task, so we could set a standard time for that task based on its pace and fatigue factor.

  I applied the same focus to my other two classes as well. Instead of going out every night, I stayed home to study, and it paid off. At the end of the semester, I received one A, one B, and one C, a big improvement from the previous semester.

  When Christmas break arrived, Paul Kehir invited me to his home in New Jersey. The first night at his house, we sat in the living room with his parents after dinner. Mr. Kehir drank whiskey, and Paul and I drank beer while Mr. Kehir told us jokes. I laughed at all of them, and as the night went on, Mr. Kehir seemed to enjoy having me there.

  A day later, I met Paul’s girlfriend, Arlene, when her parents invited us for dinner. Arlene was a pretty girl, and I could tell Paul really cared about her. However, Mr. Kehir was not too keen about Arlene’s parents. Sometimes he made fun of them, but it was light, in the spirit of fun. Mr. Kehir was simply of the joking nature, so Arlene’s parents never took it the wrong way.

  Mrs. Kehir liked Arlene, and when we were back at their house, I overheard her telling Paul she wanted him to make a decision. Paul and Arlene’s relationship was simple compared to my relationship with Larisa. Their parents approved of the match, they didn’t have any religious differences, and the only trouble was deciding when to set the date after Paul popped the question to Arlene. I didn’t know much about American weddings, but Paul told me that to propose to Arlene, he would buy her a ring, and then ask her if she would marry him. He was trying to decide how he would ask, but I was sure however he asked would be fine, and she would say yes.

  That night, I told the Kehirs what marriage arrangements were like in India.

  “The parents choose a partner based on certain characteristics and requirements,” I explained. “Usually, the two people don’t know each other at all.”

  “Wow!” Mrs. Kehir laughed. “I can’t imagine getting married in such a way.”

  Somehow the discussion turned to other Indian customs.

  “Aren’t husbands in India strict with their wives?” Mr. Kehir asked.

  I nodded. “In small villages, sometimes the husband takes his wife to a dark room and spanks her if she does not behave or treat her husband with respect and dignity.”

  They all got a big kick out of that, and whenever Mrs. Kehir disagreed with her husband in any way, immediately Paul or Mr. Kehir would say, “Take her to the dark room!”

  Once Arlene complained about doing something Paul asked, and Mr. Kehir said, “Take her to the dark room!” Everyone laughed, and Arlene looked at them like they were crazy. Then we told her about the old Indian custom. It was fun for all of us, and we laughed about it at every opportunity.

  After spending an enjoyable six days with the affectionate Kehir family, I visited the Cheemas, who lived twenty minutes away in Morristown, New Jersey. After I arrived, I filled the Cheemas in on everything.

  “Wow, that is really something, Kris,” Billo said. “You have a bachelor’s in math, and now, you are starting a master’s degree in industrial engineering. You really do not give up.”

  After I’d discovered that the Cheemas had moved to Delaware several years earlier, I’d called them and asked why they had left without telling me. I had also suggested that I could go to Delaware too and attend the university there. At the time, they both replied that I was not smart enough. Now, sitting in their living room over a cup of tea, I reminded them of their statement.

  “Now look. I have made it back to the University of Tennessee,” I said.

  “See, our comment was a challenge to you,” Dr. Cheema joked. “And look at you now. You have finished your bachelor’s and are working on your master’s at UT. We are very proud of you.”

  After a wonderful reunion with the Cheemas, I returned to school. While I struggled with Applied Digital Computer Engineering, my Operations Research professor, Russ Buchan, livened up his night class with jokes. Tired at the end of a long day, most students were not in the mood to sit in class for three hours. Sometimes Professor Buchan told me a joke in the hallway, and then, when everyone took their seats at 6:30, he would say, “Hey, Kris has a joke to tell.” The students roared with laughter to hear American jokes coming from an Indian guy. Students in Nashville and Chattanooga, taking the course via satellite, went crazy hearing me over the speaker.

  I liked Professor Buchan. He was passionate about industrial engineering and seemed to like me as well. In the spring, he became my major advisor, and I took Advanced Operations Research, choosing him to help me with my thesis.

  As the deadline for payment of tuition approached for the spring quarter, I began to worry. Running short on money, barely able to buy food, I worried that I couldn’t pay for three courses before UT tacked on a late penalty. One day, Professor Buchan asked me if I would like to work part time at the UT Hospital and Research Center.

  Surprised, I said, “But I have no experience in hospitals.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Professor Buchan said. “You’ll learn.”

  He scrawled the name “Macks McFarland” on a piece of paper. “Go see him about working there. You’ll be fine.”

  The next day, I took a bus to the UT Hospital and Research Center. Mr. McFarland interviewed me, and a few days later, he offered me the job. The hospital paid me three dollars an hour, letting me work as many hours as I wanted Monday through Friday. Grateful that Professor Buchan had come to my aid when I needed the job most, I thanked God for helping me at just the right time. The mantra I recited one hundred and one times a day strengthened my belief while I went through a tough financial time, struggling to pay for my coursework. I knew God was teaching me to trust him and assuring me he would provide for me when I needed help.

  I discovered that industrial engineers were breaking new ground in the healthcare industry, and in hospitals, they were called management engineers. Using time analysis, the industrial engineer determined the number of people needed to perform certain functions throughout the hospital. As a management engineer at the UT Hospital, it was my job to save the hospital money.

  Each day, the Housekeeping Department mopped and waxed the hallway floors while the Laundry Department washed, dried, and folded hundreds of pounds of laundry daily. After obtaining the square footage of floors they cleaned and the pounds of laundry they washed, management engineers would observe the amount of time it took to complete these tasks and determine the minimal amount of people needed.

  “What do you know about hospitals?” Sewa asked when I told him about my job. “What are you going to do there?” It became a joke to my Indian friends who couldn’t imagine what an industrial engineer would do in a hospital. Since I didn’t have any more knowledge than they did, I simply went along with their jokes.

  On my first day of work, Mr. McFarland gave me literature on industrial engineering studies in the healthcare field. The University of Michigan and Georgia Tech were pioneers in the field, and Mr. Mc
Farland purchased their methodologies so I could review them.

  After one week of hospital orientation, I began my first project—determining how many technicians were needed in each lab of the Pathology Department. Mr. McFarland made sure the supervisor, department manager, and pathologists knew what I was working on. “Provide Kris with full cooperation,” he told them. “Give him whatever he needs and explain to him everything he asks so he can finish his project.”

  Throughout the week, the supervisor explained the Hematology Department to me while I took notes. Later, I elaborated on them at my desk, and if I came to parts I didn’t understand, I spoke to the supervisor again. At times, I worked directly with the administrator, and since he was the top person, my recommendations carried weight. I was a part of the administrative team, and on a weekly basis, I met with the administrator, two assistant administrators, and the Pathology Department head to discuss major issues the hospital faced and possible solutions.

  One challenge I faced as a management engineer was finding a non-threatening way to work with hospital personnel. They feared my recommendations would eliminate their jobs. “That will not be the case,” I assured them. “I am here to help the hospital run more efficiently, not to jeopardize your livelihoods.”

  On top of the employees’ suspicions, I felt pressure to succeed. Industrial engineers were expected to save the hospital three to four times more money than the salary paid to them each year.

  Because I was not an American, everyone was extra nice to me and asked me about India and my family. They showed concern that I was so far from my family and asked how I was doing. I tried to be friendly as well, and did not act like I was any different from them. I asked about their educational backgrounds, their children, and where they were from. Soon I developed a good rapport with everyone in the Pathology Department.

  For the most part, Mr. McFarland was an agreeable boss who treated me the way he did anyone else, but every once in a while, he would insult me in some way. Each morning, Mr. McFarland came to his office at 8:30, looked at the papers on his desk, reviewed his phone calls, and got a cup of coffee. Sometimes he gave Selma, his secretary, the money and asked her to get it for him. One day, Selma was not there, and since I also wanted to drink coffee, I offered to get it for him. He said okay, and I started to leave, thinking I would buy it for him. In the Indian culture, it was a common courtesy to pay for a cup of tea for your friend or your boss. Just then, Mr. McFarland took a dime out of his pocket and threw it on the floor. “Pick it up,” he said in a demeaning tone. “Take this dime for the coffee.” I looked at him for a moment, thinking about telling him off. But he was my boss, so I didn’t say anything, just picked up the dime and left. I needed that job and wanted to turn it into a career.

  Another instance that made me feel uncomfortable occurred in April 1968, while Selma and I were working at our desks. Mr. McFarland was sitting at his desk doing paperwork when he looked up and said, “Oh, a coon was shot yesterday.” I didn’t know until then, but Dr. Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

  Selma said, “Mr. McFarland, you shouldn’t be saying this.”

  But Mr. McFarland only said, “Oh, he was nothing but a coon.”

  I agreed with Selma. I didn’t like him saying things like that, but it was not my place to correct him. He was my boss, and I was also a minority, so I kept quiet.

  During the 1968 spring quarter, my professor-student relationship with Professor Buchan turned into a friendship. Whenever I invited him to my apartment, he would show up with a six pack of beer, and I would make curried food. He found me funny and felt comfortable with my straightforward manner. He was divorced and had a son, but he never talked much about his family. He often came to my parties with his girlfriend, and whenever the phone rang, he’d answer it and say, “Harry’s Bar and Grill.”

  The person on the other line would be confused, and say, “I’m sorry. I have the wrong number.”

  Then when they called back a moment later, Professor Buchan would say, “Yes, who do you want to speak to?” Sometimes Professor Buchan also brought John Snyder, my professor of Special Industrial Engineering Problems, and he would always tell people, “Kris’s place is the hottest spot in town.”

  As summer began, I started to work on my thesis, a requirement for graduation from the industrial engineering master’s program. At Professor Buchan’s suggestion, I decided to write my thesis about the hospital project in the pathology lab.

  Early in the summer, I was the best man at Paul and Arlene’s wedding. After the wedding, Arlene moved from New Jersey to an apartment in Knoxville with Paul. Every now and then, Paul and Arlene invited me to their place for dinner. The first time, Arlene cooked fish filets with rice and vegetables. As I chewed a piece of fish, I realized it was still cold and a little rubbery on the inside. Not wanting to embarrass Arlene, I moved onto the rice.

  “Is the food okay?” Paul asked me after a few minutes. “Do you like it?” He had told me once that Arlene was not the best cook.

  “It’s pretty good,” I said hesitantly. “But the fish is still a little cold on the inside.”

  Arlene’s face turned red. “Kris, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ll put it back in the oven for a while.”

  She took our plates back to the kitchen while Paul teased her. “Arlene, you are feeding my friend frozen fish.”

  Sometimes Paul invited Bill and Cindy, their next door neighbors, to dinner also. When I found out Bill took flying lessons at the Knoxville airport, I started seeing visions of myself flying an airplane and someday owning one.

  “It is really easy to get a pilot’s license,” Bill told me. “It is a great thing to have in life.”

  Bill gave me a coupon for one free lesson. After that, each lesson would cost sixteen dollars per hour. The first lesson involved completing paperwork and reading material about how to fly a small airplane. I thought it would be neat to have a pilot’s license, as most people only have a driver’s license. Then, once I found a good-paying job, I could buy a used plane and fly it all over the country. At the time, one could buy a used airplane for around $9000, and it seemed impressive to tell my friends and coworkers I owned a plane.

  For my second lesson, the instructor took me up in a small two-seater plane. I sat in the control seat on the left side of the plane with the control wheel, or yoke, and all the gauges and buttons in front of me while the instructor told me exactly what to do. We leveled off at a thousand feet above the ground, overlooking the mountains and the Tennessee River.

  “Make a left turn,” he said at one point.

  Pressing the rudder pedal, I turned the control wheel and watched the turn coordinator gauge at the same time. As soon as the plane turned, my door flung open, revealing the mountains all around and the ground miles beneath me.

  “Oh shit!” I yelled. “Now what do I do?”

  The instructor was trying to stay calm, but he was scared too. “Oh God, oh God,” he kept saying. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, thankful for the seat belt strapping me in.

  “Pull the damn door and close it tight!” the instructor yelled over the rush of wind coming into the plane and the roar of the engine.

  I tried several times, but the wind pressure kept knocking the door from my hand. At the same time, I accidentally pushed the control wheel forward, and the plane nosedived. Suddenly, all in one movement, the instructor took over the controls on his side, straightened the plane, and reached his arm across me to shut the door.

  When we landed on the ground, we both let out a sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry, I should have made sure your door was shut properly,” the instructor said.

  My heart was pounding, as if threatening to fly out of my chest, and I could hardly speak. It was my first flying lesson, and it would be my last. With school and work to focus on, I did not want my time in America to end abruptly if something were to go wrong again.

  Chapter 9

  My st
udy project report for the UT Research Hospital was due at the end of September 1968, and I devoted all my time and effort to completing the report, going to the office on weekends, cutting down on my social activities, and repeatedly telling myself, “You must sacrifice something to get something.”

  Professor Buchan and Mr. McFarland reviewed the report to make sure my staffing formulas and recommendations made sense. I was anxious, and my nerves were on edge. The chief pathologist, a member of the administrative team, carried a high status among the medical staff, and because my report uncovered the problems and weaknesses of the Lab Department, I worried that he might not agree with my findings and recommendations.

  In October, Mr. McFarland presented my study to the chief pathologist and managerial staff. For clarification of any point, the questions were referred to me. There were no major surprises for the lab staff, and the chief pathologist seemed pleased with my recommendations. Before we left the room, he made a closing statement: “Kris Bedi did a good job of understanding the laboratory functions and activities, collecting the historical data, and making good observations. I will think through the staffing level recommendations and discuss it further with my supervisory staff.”

  I felt everything had gone well. The chief pathologist acknowledged me for the study, even though Mr. McFarland presented it. Mr. McFarland, on the other hand, did not hide his annoyance that the chief pathologist and managerial staff directed all their compliments to me. Without saying a word, he stormed out of the room.

  Shortly after Thanksgiving, I received a job offer for a position I’d interviewed for two months earlier at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. They were looking for a management engineer, and Professor Buchan immediately recommended me. The letter stated my title (management engineer), start date (December 17), and salary ($9,000 a year). After graduation, they would pay me $10,000 a year. Later, I learned it took them so long to hire me because they were hoping to find another candidate. However, there were not many industrial engineers with experience in the healthcare field at the time. I was thrilled to receive the letter, even though I was also disappointed it had taken them two months to decide about me. Professor Buchan advised me to take the offer, so I sent an acceptance letter. While I was happy to have a job with a large, well-known hospital, at the same time, I was sad about leaving my friends, especially Sewa Singh and Professor Buchan.