Multi tasking and work study - my views

When I ask our office assistant Chalapathi to bring coffee after four o clock in the evening for some visitors - I used to wonder why we are getting it late even though some of the times, our visitors are leaving without having coffee. Later I learnt Chalapathi is trying to optimise his two tasks of bringing snacks for other staff which is slotted for six o clock and this coffee together around five o clock. What an excellent idea of optimisation at the expense of time which do not has any meaning in Indian conditions.

My elective subject in my final year of studies was Work and Time Study. I have not understood this optimisation of tasks those days. Immediately after joining my first job I learnt about optimisation very easily and effortlessly. I have learnt following others. Our departmental typist was saying "it is not my duty to fetch files.". Well of course some of the times typing also is not her duty when she is not in a mood to do it. So I also learned very fast what are all not my duties forget about learning what are my responsibilities.

In any case wherever I am, my tasks are always very limited and at my comfort I can trim them further. Working in public sector and other organised sectors always have an added advantage. There are always enough competitors to go for a finished task, piratically a few for a task which is about to begin. But for a failed task there are absolutely none and we have to wonder who has initiated that task and guided it all through till it failed. It is worth while to remember here that TEAM WORK is always YOU but not ME as long as it is yet to be completed and afterwords it is only ME.

In our college days our Professor KVK explained about the work study at length in a lighter vein explaining about the movie "The Modern Times". In that movie to increase the rate of production the conveyor speed was doubled - and to accustom to that speed Charle Chaplin used to move his hands off duty also and wherever he is. So whenever I want the rate of production at my factory to be increased I used to worry that I do not have a conveyorised production line so that I can triple its speed. So folks if you want to go for a production line choose the one which can be done with a variable speed conveyor as the bottom line requirement.

Recently my nephew Teja has brought an Apple Ipod from his US trip. So now am enjoying with ear plugs of Ipod playing "Nagaada - Nagaada... of Jab We Met" while the ipod is charging from the PC and the Plug and Play modem (once again loaned from Suresh. You know these small loans of so many things from so many make me happy always) jacked to another USB port showing me the internet world. Also there is a back ground request of my wife asking me to fetch her some thing which can be comfortably ignored . My kid is baffled with so many wires plugged to the PC and to me running pockets of info to and fro. What an opportunity for me to teach my daughter about multi tasking unlike my Prof who has to quote an old movie. Yes really these are Modern Times.

Multi tasking - in my understanding is doing so many tasks simultaneously with the same resources. But for me - multi tasking is doing a thing what I like and that too for my pleasure and showing the world that am doing so many things and that too for others sake. Confused a bit and want me to explain? Sorry right now am busy in plugging still one more jack to another USB port and answering a cell phone parallely - so just for now "You are in queue - please wait.."