We have progressed so much with modern, fast responding gadgets that we no longer have the patience to wait and watch when it stops working. The same goes with people who are slow at work even if they are highly skilled. Doing things fast has (sadly) come to mean as being an expert, which is far from truth.
For eg. if we put on the computer and it does not respond within seconds, (not even minutes!), we get angry and impatient. We want the desktop to come alive the moment we switch it on. If we struggle with a gadget for even a few minutes our thoughts race to junk it off besides feeling very angry and helpless.
We call the service person expecting him to arrive and attend to the problem immediately. We also comment how slow he is or how he lacks proper knowledge in remedying the situation! If the service has to be paid for, the anger gallops.
Anger and helplessness come only when we do not know how to deal with such issues ourselves. Knowledge and skills are powerful tools which makes us less dependent on outside help or intervention in rectifying it ourselves.
This goes for replacing fused bulbs, blenders coming to a grinding halt in the middle of the process, our not knowing how to use the TV remote or our cell phones properly with any number of buttons on them. We tend to think if we knew how, we would be quicker than the help we called in.
We are too lethargic to learn how to rectify things on our own. We look and expecct help always. On top we get impatient with the person who comes to help us. We want the help also to arrive quickly and rectify the fault quickly. This is the trend I have noticed everywhere.
I recall an incident which took place in the year 1991 when a PC at home was unheard of in India and very expensive to buy,even for an upper middle class family unless for business purposes.
My husband got into the Computer Aided Drawings business which was home-based, all thanks to my eldest sister's help in setting him up, though he did not have any knowledge about operating computers. It was the 286 cpu model and the price was
Rs.52000/-. Earlier to this was the 86 model which was really slow. Then we went on to upgrade the PC to 386, 486 and Pentiums, etc. over time.
He learnt CADD on his own. He was not afraid of opening up the hardware and repairing minor circuit faults and then he knew how to bring the software back working when it came to a standstill. When such after sales services was far and few, it paid him rich dividends in learning such things all by himself.
He got orders for engineering drawings from reputed companies and hotels in Chennai.
I would like to share an event which shows all can talk on how slow or unskilled others are at work while how they could have finished the same work in no time without being experts at it! Mere talking and insulting others seems to be the trend to put others down to show themselves up.
A relative, who is an engineer, used to draw his plan outlays manually for hours, came to execute an order which was urgent. He also had a working knowledge of CADD or so he claimed. Being a relative, we knew the service was for free even if both knew it cost my husband his time on the computer.
Be that as it may, what was more irritating was the back-seat driving with constant comments of how slow my husband was and how fast he would have drawn that simple drawing on the computer, in quarter of the time my husband was taking. Such comments could have put my husband off yet, he being a very calm and peaceful person by nature, kept working at the drawing quietly. The drawing was almost finished but for some finishing touches requiring 15 minutes of work, when he realised that he had some urgent bank work, so he just stopped, got up, dressed to go out! This shocked the relative so much that at first he began to protest, then slowly tried to cajole my husband to finish off the drawing which was just minutes away from completion.
Very calmly my husband informed the relative to occupy the (driver's) seat and finish the drawing himself since he also had knowledge of CADD, as he had to go to the bank before it closed for the day.
After about half hour, when my husband came back from the bank, this relative was still struggling with the next step from where it was left off by my husband.
That day this relative learnt that commenting was different from getting his hands dirty on any job.
Though my husband maintained a dignified silence, the lesson was well taught!
From that time onwards the boastful relative behaved in a more respectful way towards my husband.
Some lessons are learnt the hard way.
Mahalakshmi.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Power Cut And 3 Days Of Total Blackout
Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. TNEB for short. This is our power supplier.
Heavy rains always plays havoc with the power supply to our flats. Only our cable leading to our flats gets burnt or short circuits and power goes phut.
When the power went off, everyone thought the other will complain to the EB. I did complain over the phone several times before leaving for and after returning back from work. The second day, all the guys came out voluntarily not being able to cope without electricity!
Then it was chasing these guys on the phone and in person and requesting them to rectify the fault. But they were busy attending to urgent calls from everywhere. When it rains these men make money. There's no making hay while the sun shines :)
Since it's cable burning fault and not a fuse off call in our case, the men take longer to come.
The EB men dig a trench across the road leading to the junction box, patch up the joint yet again with liquid tar and fill the trench. This was a temporary solution to our eternal problem of getting TV sets, washing machines, ACs and heaters repaired on and off. The lights too flickered often whenever we used to switch on the water pumping motor. There had to be a permanant solution for this.
Today I was home when the men arrived after 2 days of constant follow ups.
I asked them how we could solve it. They said we have to replace our burnt cable with a new better gauge one. Even though it is actually the responsibility of the EB department to provide/replace burnt cables, they often escape by saying that there's no stock of new cable with the office. For 4 years we suffered because we were reluctant to buy them the new cable. We all may have spent double the amount in repairing or replacing our gadgets over a period of time.
This time we could not suffer anymore and we all took a decision to cough up money to put this eternal problem to an end.
Quickly we made calculations for the items and the labor for the 3 men.
It came to about Rs.9000/- total for the entire work.
40 meters of 35 guage cable wire, an insulation tape, 80 feet of 2" 6mm guage pvc pipes to encase the cable for protection against further external damage like rainwater, etc. and the men's labor charges was all that was required to solve our power cut problem.
3 days of no TV, no lights, no water in the pipe taught us to value these things which we take for granted. For me no internet and checking of mails and blogging too.
Today I feel happy to get connected again. The lights shine brighter with no flickering though we are all poorer by about Rs.9000/-. But we lose some to gain some.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi.
Heavy rains always plays havoc with the power supply to our flats. Only our cable leading to our flats gets burnt or short circuits and power goes phut.
When the power went off, everyone thought the other will complain to the EB. I did complain over the phone several times before leaving for and after returning back from work. The second day, all the guys came out voluntarily not being able to cope without electricity!
Then it was chasing these guys on the phone and in person and requesting them to rectify the fault. But they were busy attending to urgent calls from everywhere. When it rains these men make money. There's no making hay while the sun shines :)
Since it's cable burning fault and not a fuse off call in our case, the men take longer to come.
The EB men dig a trench across the road leading to the junction box, patch up the joint yet again with liquid tar and fill the trench. This was a temporary solution to our eternal problem of getting TV sets, washing machines, ACs and heaters repaired on and off. The lights too flickered often whenever we used to switch on the water pumping motor. There had to be a permanant solution for this.
Today I was home when the men arrived after 2 days of constant follow ups.
I asked them how we could solve it. They said we have to replace our burnt cable with a new better gauge one. Even though it is actually the responsibility of the EB department to provide/replace burnt cables, they often escape by saying that there's no stock of new cable with the office. For 4 years we suffered because we were reluctant to buy them the new cable. We all may have spent double the amount in repairing or replacing our gadgets over a period of time.
This time we could not suffer anymore and we all took a decision to cough up money to put this eternal problem to an end.
Quickly we made calculations for the items and the labor for the 3 men.
It came to about Rs.9000/- total for the entire work.
40 meters of 35 guage cable wire, an insulation tape, 80 feet of 2" 6mm guage pvc pipes to encase the cable for protection against further external damage like rainwater, etc. and the men's labor charges was all that was required to solve our power cut problem.
3 days of no TV, no lights, no water in the pipe taught us to value these things which we take for granted. For me no internet and checking of mails and blogging too.
Today I feel happy to get connected again. The lights shine brighter with no flickering though we are all poorer by about Rs.9000/-. But we lose some to gain some.
Cheers!
Mahalakshmi.
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