Six Sigma and my Great Grandfather

My great grand father was a tyrant. He was a Magistrate and those days a Magistrate carries locally as much, if not more, prestige than the Chief Justice of India of today.

This incident occurred during the last stages of his life. He was 84 and his wife, my great grandmother, was 72. As was the custom in traditional brahmin families, food was always prepared fresh three times a day as the head of the family rarely ate stale food. Like most of her contemporaries, my great grandmother was a superb cook.

One day my great grandfather sat to have his lunch. He took one morsel, spat it out and threw the plate with the food on my great grandmothers face. "How can you be so careless as to put extra salt in the Sambar?", he screamed at the poor woman.

She was also made of sterner stuff, having lived with him for a long time. She tasted the sambar and found that though it was slightly salty, by no means it was unpalatable.

Giving him back in his own coin she said " I have been cooking for you for 60 long years (No, I have not got the years wrong. Those days girls marry at the age of 12) and never once had this happened. I am getting older and I am not as sure as I was. Maybe the hand jerked a little while putting the salt. It was a mistake. You don't have to throw such a tantrum for this"

"That is precisely my point. You have been cooking thrice a day for 60 long years. You should have achieved such perfection by now that even if you are cooking in your sleep, you should not have made such a mistake. How can you?", thus saying he stomped off.

My great grandmother used to tell us this incident when we were very young. At the time we hated the tyrant as we had never met him and know him only through his reputation. But we knew great grandmother and she was a sweet lady.

But later, when I studied management and underwent training in Quality Management, I started appreciating my Great grandfathers view point. And it was reinforced when I was exposed to the Six Sigma concept.

People like my great grandfather and great grandmother practiced Six Sigma in all aspects of life on a daily basis.

Why did we never inherit such good habits from them?