What profession pays more than what we think it does?

Momos (referred to as Dumplings as well in some places)

So there is a famous momos corner in my locality where I do end up visiting at least twice a week. The owner, Raju, is quite friendly and often strikes up small conversations with his customers.

One afternoon I found him a bit free, so after ordering my favourite plate of fried chicken momos, I casually started talking to him.

Me: Raju bhai , ek baat batao, Ek din mein kitni plates Bechte ho? (Raju, tell me one thing. So how many plates do you sell in a day?)

Him: 300–350 ke aas paas. (Around 300–350)

Me: Too Matlab mahine ki 3.5–4 Lakh ki bikri toh ho jati hogi? (So that would mean 3.5–4 Lac worth of momos being sold every month?)

(Now he sells tandoori momos, fried momos, steamed momos amongst a dozen others on his menu, with prices starting from Rs 60 going up to Rs 100. So I averaged the cost at 80 Rs per plate, and came up with a figure accordingly)

Him(with a nonchalant expression): Haan sir. But Kat kata Kar humare paas 1.5 Lac ka munaafa aa jata hai (After cutting all expenses, we do end up making a profit of 1.5 Lacs).

I was taken aback.

I wondered for a moment that we have all the fancy education, degrees, work in plush offices, but rarely we try converting our education to application.

We study thick books and come across concepts like revenue generation, top line and bottom line, market research, segmentation, product strategy, and all these fancy terms.

And here we have Raju bhai, applying all these concepts in his daily business, without even having the slightest idea of what they are. He understands profit and loss only, and his entire business strategy, product segmentation, market research, pricing , etc revolves around that itself.

It also reinforces my belief in the fact that no occupation is small.

More power to all the Raju Bhais out there. :)