Today was pretty exhausting..with meetings after meetings. Nowadays the frequency of meetings have gone up in the office. Some of them are non productive and some of them are very useful. In a day of 8 hours works schedule, when most of the time is eaten by meetings, where is the time to work.? At times, no one can help it..that’s the way the corporates are functioning.
What happens when involuntarily one has to sit in a meeting or a lecture which is non productive for him ( of course it would be productive for the speaker or the meeting organizer)? Some brave people dare to sleep openly or walk out. Some poor guys have to fight hard the seducing sleep goddess and pretend to be awake. And there is a third category of people, who are creative enough to make use of the otherwise non productive time. I will share few instances..
When I was studying in Roorkke for M.Tech, one of our professor was a world renowned guy. But unfortunately his classes were like heavy doses of sleeping pills. ( He personified the fact that very knowledgeable person need not be a good teacher and vice versa) . I usually used to sit in the front bench and try to grasp the maximum possible from what that renowned person utters. Some of my friends (second category) would pretend to be attentive and would sometimes utter curse on the torture they have to go through. When I scan through the class I would see even some of the regular back benchers, very actively taking notes of the lecture and being attentive.
After few months of the lecture I discovered the truth. Few of my good friends, who are regular back benchers in that particular teacher’s class, were actually not writing lecture notes. They were busy writing letters to their friends, families (no e-mails at that time ). Since they couldn’t find much time to finish all the assignments from other teachers (for them…after boozing, gossiping, watching movies, and bird watching, time seemed to be in sufficient) , it was very convenient to do all those assignment work in this teacher’s class. Poor professor..he looked happy on seeing even back benchers being “very attentive in his class “ and sincerely taking the notes.
When I got job and I was sent to Dubai on an induction training, there was a week long training on safety. As the training deviated from my core area of interest (technical/geology), I started feeling boring and sleepy after few days. The instructor will randomly chose a person from the students and would ask questions in the middle of the course. ( his way of ensuring that students are awake always). It was a struggle. Sleep will crawl through the eye lids. Then I will have to rub my eyes hard to awake. I would see multiple images of my instructor, indicating a need for falling flat on a bed. Then I used my creativity a bit. Next day I came to class with a small plastic bottle with water (small enough to be kept in my pocket). The lid has a small hole. When I feel sleepy, I would spray water into my eyes from it. I will get a temporary relief.
While working in Mumbai, I had the luxury of attending exciting technical meetings as well as sales marketing meetings, which used to freeze my blood to absolute zero. I had to attend one such teleconference inside my boss’s room. Already it was 5'O clock in the evening. My other colleagues were also inside the room. We were having an teleconference with our top boss (who sits in Delhi). After few minutes of pretended attentiveness , our interests started fading. My boss had no option but to listen and communicate with his boss . We all had to be mute spectators.
Then I started using my creativity. I have a taste for sketching. When creativity blesses me, I can draw anything on anything. All I could grab there was some paper cups kept on my boss’s table. I started drawing his cartoon. My junior colleague who had a luxurious mobile phone with camera ( remember its in 2004 ..) wonderfully captured all those moments . My boss was not aware of that. Till not I have not shown that to him . ( now he is not my boss anymore..but he remains a good senior and friend). May be he will see this if he happens to read this blog. Those pictures and videos I have it in my computers. They serve as a souvenir for the beautiful office family I had in Mumbai and the funny moments like this.(We often used to call such moments as TTP moments - Total Time Pass Moments)
Since then, whenever I sit on boring meeting, I feel that itching sensation to draw the caricature of the speaker who is serving me with sleeping pills. But then I control.( The environment is not same as I had before. Why to take a risk? )
Jose
Bangalore
14-April-2010
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