"The Crack is in Your Head"

This is how a Managing Director Of BHPV reacted when I told him that the liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen storage tanks erected at a shore based steel plant cannot be hydraulic tested as the tanks have developed STRESS CORROSION CRACKS.
Perhaps he must have heard the word stress corrosion cracking for the first time in his life. Granting that many would not know about stress corrosion cracking he did not want know what is stress corrosion cracking. In order to camouflage his ignorance on many things he always resorted to insult the person who brought any problem to him. I would like to say few things about his style of functioning.

He was an ordinary engineering graduate. I doubt whether he passed his B.E examination in first class.He had powerful political connections which he used effectively to climb up the ladder in Public Sector Undertakings. At a relatively young age he became the CMD of a company which was famous for manufacturing Three Jaw Chucks! The turnover of that company was around Rs.30 crores.He had no experience in heavy fabrication. Before coming to BHPV,I am sure, he did not know what a pressure vessel or a heat exchanger is let alone knowing how they are designed and manufactured. When the post of MD became vacant in BHPV using his connections he jockeyed to get that post. At that time BHPV was a company with a turn over of over Rs.350 crores. BHPV had good a design and manufacturing team staffed by post graduate engineers. The top was full of people who had put in more than 20 years experience in heavy fabrication. He came to such a place ill equipped with necessary skills to run BHPV. What he lacked in managerial skills he made up by insulting people without any regard for age, experience and qualification.He terrorized all including workers. Unfortunately we had to work with him for nearly five years. When he left BHPV he left a team which was demoralized and demotivated. Hence when he told me that" Crack is in your head" I did not get offended because I knew that I was dealing with a mental case. He demanded that I should repair the tanks in two weeks. Then I told him that he can find a person who could repair the tanks in that time as I was not capable of meeting his dead line and I walked out of the meeting. He threatened me that he will post me out of Vizag and harass me. I stood my ground and finally he agreed to my terms and conditions.Probably he learnt from his coterie that no one expect me can solve this problem. I will explain what is stress corrosion cracking and how we repaired the tank later.