It was interesting to see the inside of the paper mill today. The first thing that stood out to me was how many people were working. The parking lot is right next to the front gate and it had hundreds of bicycles and motorcycles parked in it. Raju told me there are probably 1,000 direct mill employees and probably a few hundred more that are contract employees. At a paper mill this size in the US, there would probably be a few hundred employees. I guess it’s good that so many people are able to have jobs, but it seems like a waste because a lot of them aren’t even doing anything. For the system I’m working on, I normally will have 1 or 2 people helping out at a paper mill in the US. Today, I think there were six different people with us at one point. But only 1 or 2 of them were actually doing something helpful.
And then I saw what some of the people working there were doing and it seemed like busy work. I saw this huge puddle in the road when we first walked in this morning and then at lunch time, the water in it was being manually scooped out into buckets by two barefoot women. It was pretty dry by the end of the day. I’m sure it fills up with water all the time and these women scoop it out every time, but why don’t they just fix the road, so it doesn’t fill up with water? I also saw men who were barefoot or wearing flip flops working all over the mill on all sorts of little projects. Projects that would take a day in the US, but here, it probably keeps them busy for weeks. And it is weird to see them all wearing flip flops when I wear steel-toe boots.
The other weird thing from today was all the stray dogs inside the paper mill. I saw at least 5 of them. I feel really dumb taking pictures when there are people around, but I snuck in a couple. I’m going to try to take more over the week. Here’s one of the dogs just lazing around in the middle of the mill.
And then I saw what some of the people working there were doing and it seemed like busy work. I saw this huge puddle in the road when we first walked in this morning and then at lunch time, the water in it was being manually scooped out into buckets by two barefoot women. It was pretty dry by the end of the day. I’m sure it fills up with water all the time and these women scoop it out every time, but why don’t they just fix the road, so it doesn’t fill up with water? I also saw men who were barefoot or wearing flip flops working all over the mill on all sorts of little projects. Projects that would take a day in the US, but here, it probably keeps them busy for weeks. And it is weird to see them all wearing flip flops when I wear steel-toe boots.
The other weird thing from today was all the stray dogs inside the paper mill. I saw at least 5 of them. I feel really dumb taking pictures when there are people around, but I snuck in a couple. I’m going to try to take more over the week. Here’s one of the dogs just lazing around in the middle of the mill.
I'm sure you can't see this photo very well, but it's depicting what to do in case of an emergency at the mill. The middle square on the top has this title: “On getting information about any gas leakage use available mode of transport to move away quickly from the place.” The funniest part of it is the mode of transportation they show in the cartoon. A motorcycle with 2 people on it, a bicycle with 2 people on it, and 2 trucks completely packed with people in the back. They definitely know how to pack people into vehicles here.
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