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

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
We need the broadest, most defensible lesson the "solitaire incident" teaches, not just a comment on one character's behaviour.

Step 2: Key Approach:
A good "learning" statement should generalize from the case without adding facts the case never gives us.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Om's role as an F&S supervisor was to stay present and alert in case something went wrong, not to be continuously active the way a machine operator would be. During a quiet stretch of a night shift, once his scheduled checks were done, there was little else "to do" in a visible sense, so an outside observer like Rabindra could easily mistake normal downtime in this kind of watch-and-check role for slacking off. The deeper lesson is that different roles have different, legitimate rhythms of work, and judging one role by the standards of another leads to unfair conclusions. Option A is not supported since training is never discussed in the case. Option B assumes "relaxing at night" is the norm and jumps straight to a fix (surprise checks) rather than stating a learning, and the case does not establish this as a general pattern beyond Om's single incident. Option D is true as a side detail (Om and Bhiwani are related) but it belongs to a separate subplot about hiring and influence, not the lesson of the firing itself.

Step 4: Final Answer:
The case teaches that different job roles are carried out differently, and a role built around watching and checking can look idle when it is not.
\[ \boxed{\text{C}} \]