There's nothing like 'menial tasks'

“Hey trainee, get me a photocopy of this”.

From my second day as a graduate engineer trainee in the technical department of motor factory, I started taking photocopies; copies of multiple drawings and documents every day. The xerox machine would heat up; this was no excuse to stop. Being an engineer, I was expected to sort the problem out, which I managed to do. And resume the photocopying. For the uninitiated, in those days we had manual copiers, for A4 size sheets.

After two weeks of practice and becoming an expert at photocopying, I graduated to taking ammonia blueprints. Any document larger than an A4 size was prepared on tracing paper and ammonia blueprints were taken for copies of such documents. Within a week, I could repair most faults on the ammonia printing machine.

During this process, I was wondering how to make it more efficient.

The documents were drawings or other performance characteristics of motors, used for responding to existing client or potential customer queries. Depending on the query, copies of specific documents for the motor type were copied, and these were used in making the response.

Cut to two months later. With the support of a senior colleague who helped prepare the database of all material used in the factory, I developed a software package for designing motors and for analyzing motor performance. This package was made for the various types of motors that were manufactured at the factory.

The software package changed the way the department handled motor design and performance related queries; response time to clients reduced from over a week to less than half a day.

What I learnt from this experience:

• The junior-most person in any team ends up doing the menial tasks; one can either cry about it or make the most of it.

• Approach every task with a mindset of curiosity and a desire to improve; there’s always room to innovate.

I share this example with mentees who complain about spending a lot of time in making power point slides or excel sheets.

(This was published as a post in LinkedIn in June 2025)