Forwarded by a friend: Manu N
February 28, 2008
February 13, 2008
Is it Thankless jobs or Thankless people?
They say it's a thankless job; but, think it over: is the job thankless or is it the people (boss, customer, subordinate, company, whoever) who are thankless?
'Say thanks!' I exclaimed at a person who almost passed by without a word after taking my help. A close friend of mine calls me a 'mean person' cos I have a habit of making many-a-person thank me. And for many, to whom 'Thanks' comes as a sneeze during allergies, I make it a point to say 'You must be!' and for that, another friend calls me a 'Grinch.'
But, you must take a look around yourself to find out all those people who just walk out on any help you've extended or a favour you've done with a casual acknowledgment or sometimes even without a word of thanks.
While this is only about personal stuff, the scenes at workplaces are rather rude; thanklessness is an understatement. A person I was interviewing lately offered this reason for a switch "I want to switch as my job is a thankless job." I was caught smirking "Boy, tell me bout it!" We all crib about our thankless jobs, but how can that be a universal phenomenon? Think about it, and if
you sit to enlist all the professions of people who complain as thankless jobs... you'll have:
* Drivers
* Servants (House maids, Man-servants)
* Teaching
* Customer support
* Maintenance (Computers, Factory)
* Security personnel, Police
* Postman / Mailman,
* Housewives' (Ah!!!)
* Community workers
* Front-desk executives
The list goes on as you think in more detail...
Not just that, you'll have people from highest order like entrepreneurs to the lowest servant in his company / family who has the same complaint referring to a 'thankless job'.
We're living in a fast world, we talk of Just-in-Time deliveries and get pissed-off without a seconds thought and give it off to the other person for a minutes delay. We've become so impatient that we cannot heed to the voice of our family members, let alone a cry on the street.
A machine in a factory cannot halt beyond few minutes on an unfortunate accident costing a person's life, nor can a international live-telecast of a game on the injury / death of a participant. The show must go on... How utterly not concerned!?!
Take a second to thank someone. And when you do thank someone, do it with a realization, that they made something easy for you, or done something complete for you, even the slightest help, even for someone's very presence.
"No job is menial" a student (Indira Parthasarathy) of once argued in my class. And I stand by it. No job is menial; people are.
Don't give a chance to anyone interacting with you to complain about thankless jobs. Make them realize that the job is worth the while, and more importantly, that the people being served are thankful.
Be thankful.
'Say thanks!' I exclaimed at a person who almost passed by without a word after taking my help. A close friend of mine calls me a 'mean person' cos I have a habit of making many-a-person thank me. And for many, to whom 'Thanks' comes as a sneeze during allergies, I make it a point to say 'You must be!' and for that, another friend calls me a 'Grinch.'
But, you must take a look around yourself to find out all those people who just walk out on any help you've extended or a favour you've done with a casual acknowledgment or sometimes even without a word of thanks.
While this is only about personal stuff, the scenes at workplaces are rather rude; thanklessness is an understatement. A person I was interviewing lately offered this reason for a switch "I want to switch as my job is a thankless job." I was caught smirking "Boy, tell me bout it!" We all crib about our thankless jobs, but how can that be a universal phenomenon? Think about it, and if
you sit to enlist all the professions of people who complain as thankless jobs... you'll have:* Drivers
* Servants (House maids, Man-servants)
* Teaching
* Customer support
* Maintenance (Computers, Factory)
* Security personnel, Police
* Postman / Mailman,
* Housewives' (Ah!!!)
* Community workers
* Front-desk executives
The list goes on as you think in more detail...
Not just that, you'll have people from highest order like entrepreneurs to the lowest servant in his company / family who has the same complaint referring to a 'thankless job'.
We're living in a fast world, we talk of Just-in-Time deliveries and get pissed-off without a seconds thought and give it off to the other person for a minutes delay. We've become so impatient that we cannot heed to the voice of our family members, let alone a cry on the street.
A machine in a factory cannot halt beyond few minutes on an unfortunate accident costing a person's life, nor can a international live-telecast of a game on the injury / death of a participant. The show must go on... How utterly not concerned!?!
Take a second to thank someone. And when you do thank someone, do it with a realization, that they made something easy for you, or done something complete for you, even the slightest help, even for someone's very presence.
"No job is menial" a student (Indira Parthasarathy) of once argued in my class. And I stand by it. No job is menial; people are.
Don't give a chance to anyone interacting with you to complain about thankless jobs. Make them realize that the job is worth the while, and more importantly, that the people being served are thankful.
Be thankful.
February 5, 2008
The Inheritance of loss...
Having bought the book on October 28, 2006 and forcing myself to somehow finish it, I did (coincidentally) it on January 28, 2007.
Halfway, reading the book, you may feel a li'l bored ( not if you're a literature student) because of the author's eye and attention to details; however, once you've completed say about 200 pages, the story grasps your interest, and with the mastery of her writing, she inspires you to read till the end.
The ending leaves you spellbound, waiting to read further, but there are no more pages.
I am but compelled to declare my agreement to the reviews and comments of Salman Rushdie, and other authors...
Gary Shteyngart -- "If god is in the details, Ms. Desai has witten a holy book"
...boy, the spontaneity in her writing, meticulous work, sharp tongue!
Attached are a few quotes you may want to read:
Halfway, reading the book, you may feel a li'l bored ( not if you're a literature student) because of the author's eye and attention to details; however, once you've completed say about 200 pages, the story grasps your interest, and with the mastery of her writing, she inspires you to read till the end.The ending leaves you spellbound, waiting to read further, but there are no more pages.
I am but compelled to declare my agreement to the reviews and comments of Salman Rushdie, and other authors...
Gary Shteyngart -- "If god is in the details, Ms. Desai has witten a holy book"
...boy, the spontaneity in her writing, meticulous work, sharp tongue!
Attached are a few quotes you may want to read:
- Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss?
- …love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment.
- Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.
- In her attempt to cancel out one humiliation she had only succeeding in adding another.
- Undignified love, Indian love, stinking, unaesthetic love
- Study—the only skill he could carry from one country to another.
- Pusillanimity and his loneliness had found fertile soil
- …a terrible groan issued from between the whimpers that he was shocked his sadness was so profound.
- Purity of answer was a false quest.
- Nobody could be sure ho much of the truth had fallen between languages, between languages and illiteracy;
- He realized truth was best looked at in tiny aggregates, for many baby truths could yet add up to one big size unsavory lie.
- (Love) Before one knew it one could slide into areas of the heart that should be referred to only between social equals.
- A bit of pretense to raise her above her life (social class)
- Oh yes, he (the cook) awaited modernity and knew that if you invested in it, it would inform you that you were worth something in this world.
- One’s involvement in other people’s lives gave one numerous small opportunities for importance.
- …the lightning shamelessly unzipped the sky…
- …how delicious the pretense of objective study, miraculous how it could eat up the hours. (Sai & Gyan’s romance)
- On the strength of those pushing behind, and with the momentum of those who went before, they melded into a single being.
- …the leaders harnessing the natural irritations and disdain of adolescence for cynical ends;
- Perhaps that’s why they had been so happy to learn a new tongue in the first place: the self-consciousness of it, the effort of it, the grammar of it, pulled you up; a new language provided distance and kept the heart intact.
- After all, even on clichéd phrases, you could hoist true emotion.
- What was a country but a idea of it?
- …the way to coax strength as to pretend it existed
- Everyone had to accept imperfection and loss in life.
- How could you have any self-respect knowing that you didn’t believe in anything exactly?
- In this life… you must stop your thoughts if you wished to remain intact, or guilt and pity would take everything from you, even yourself from yourself.
- A human can be transformed into anything.
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