Vijay Lakshmi Has Done the Hard Yards
Vijay Lakshmi knows about struggles and how hard work pays dividends. The 66-year-old Human Resource Manager knows too well about the hard yards and how this experience has seen Sigatoka Electric Limited expand from humble beginnings to Fiji’s leading electrical supplier and contractor.
Mrs Lakshmi is the wife of the company’s managing director Vijay Narayan.
In the 1990’s she did not realize that while doing her normal housewife chores at home, a call from Mr Narayan to assist in some typing in the small office would pave the way to her becoming an important cornerstone of the company.
“That was back in the 1990s and there was no one to do that typing.
“So my husband (Mr Narayan) requested if I could do some typewriting.
“At that time we had a typewriter as there was no computer in the office and it was really hard then especially when typing up quotations where they could not be any errors.
“The building was a double storey so we had our home on top and the office at the bottom and I used to just make my way down the steps, do the typing and back to my house work again.”
She said after typing some quotations and more jobs started coming in, she was offered a permanent job in the company.
“I was doing those things for free at first. “So after my five months, he said asked me to join the company so I said okay.
“At that time they were not paying me because I was a family member so I was helping doing quotation and then started doing the banking and even reception work.
In 1996 a staff looking after payroll left for Nadi and she started handling this too.
“I’ve seen the company grow and am very proud and happy that we managed to bring the company to where it is today after initially having only one branch in Sigatoka.
Back in 2003, when the computers came in Mrs Lakshmi started taking computer classes in the evenings classes.
“Computers are very easy as it does everything as compared to typewriters.”
For Mrs Lakshmi, she says there is no age limit to working.
“You can work as long as you can until your body can not take it.