Fresh from engineering college, I had joined Tata Steel as a manager and had been posted in a power house. Since a manufacturing plant and problems concerning it are much different from what are taught in colleges…

Fresh from engineering college, I had joined Tata Steel as a manager and had been posted in a power house. Since a manufacturing plant and problems concerning it are much different from what are taught in colleges, it took me quite some time to understand the systems in a process plant.

One day, in the initial days, there was a big problem in the ‘automatic voltage regulator’ (AVR) of the generator system. As a graduate trainee doing on-the-job training, I was supposed to be on site while my superiors did the troubleshooting. During troubleshooting, two of my superiors had an altercation on the design of the AVR.

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“You don’t get it M, over-excitation limiter has to be on the negative Q quadrant,” said my boss Mr. G, “because we are drawing power…”

“That’s what I am saying, sir. We draw power, so the limiter has to be in the positive Q quadrant,” said M. “Just look at the capability curve and you will…”

“Look, if we go by what you say we will have severe n-point heating…”

The argument went on for quite some time and I was unable to make even an iota of sense out of it. All the technical terms used by them sounded to me as bizarre and encrypted as it sounds to you. However, I acted as if I was paying attention and was following all that they said.

“…I bet you are wrong,” Mr. G said haughtily after the altercation seemed to reach precipitation point. Undoubtedly, he was sure about his concepts.

M: I bet I am right!
G: I bet you will lose the bet!
M: Sir, I bet on my bet that I will win the bet!

Now, the conversation had become too heated. So, to get out of the deadlock, they turned their attention towards me.

“What do you think about this?” Mr. G asked me.

Both were expecting an answer from me. From what I could infer from the conversation, at least one of them was right but not more than one.

I told Mr. G, “Sir, I bet one of you is going to lose the bet.”