I somehow found this article yesterday while I was mindlessly surfing a few minutes away. It's an interesting story about India's tiffin-wallahs in Bombay who transport some 160,000 hot lunches (tiffins) from family homes to the offices and schools of hungry husbands and children and then perform the same in reverse with the empty lunchboxes. The tiffin wallahs who do the transportation are largely illiterate and rely on a system of symbols hand-painted on the tops of the containers to sort and process them in rapid order. Extremely impresive since they only make a mistake once a month, earning them a 6 Sigma performance rating from an unlikely admirer, Forbes Magazine. All this for the cost of about $3.33 per month, with service six days a week.
The tiffin wallahs are all of the same caste and a fairly closely-knit group, many related and largely from the same village. The service, in fact, is suspended for a month every year so everyone can go home for a long festival in their home town. Every tiffin-wallah works for himself and pays dues to a union or association and is guaranteed a job for as long as he can do the work. The association itself handles administrative tasks and then donates a large share of its take to feeding the poor.
A very interesting look a business I never knew about and probably wouldn't have thought feasible.
It is a very interesting system. I read a Time article on India a few months ago and their culture is amazing.
That is so cool. As a little girl, I went to Morelia in Mexico (my uncle is from there) Anyway, the wives take hot lunches to the husbands and the kids in school. I was shocked but remeber wishing my mom would do the same for me.