When I walked into Pappettan's office, he was working a young colleague on a report. Based on the conversation and their postures, I deduced they have been at this task for a quite a long time. So I decided not to interrupt them. Instead, I watched them curiously. The young colleague was doing these tasks for the first time. As a result, Pappettan explained to him what to do. If the young colleague was clueless on how to do it, then Pappettan gave hints. When the results were shown to Pappettan tweaked it. Occasionally, Pappettan also asked to redo it. Soon, they had to produce a series of graphs that went along with the report.
Young Colleague: *enthusiastically* I looked at the old reports. They did not have anything that is useful. I am hesitant in reproducing them. But I am also not sure how to represent data.
Pappettan: *smiling* I had worked on some graphs in my spare time. Let me show them to you.
Then Pappettan pulls up an excel sheet which contains a series of colorful graphs. After examining these graphs, the young colleague is surprised and also impressed.
Young Colleague: *admiringly* How do you do it?
Pappettan: *calmly* These are simple graphs. There are a dozen tutorials on the net.
Young Colleague: *correcting himself* That was not my question.
Pappettan: *questions in a non-threatening manner* Then?
Young Colleague: *explains* For the past two weeks, you have been helping me get up to speed. Then I see you running around for meetings. After all that, where did you get time to work on these graphs.
Pappettan: *solves the mystery* I did after the regular work hours.
Young Colleague: *halts as he is unsure of what this means to him*
Pappettan: *smiles and continues* I don't do it very often. Since the workload has gone up, we had hired you. But I cannot let the regular business affected while you are learning. Hence I do stretch myself a bit after the regular hours. I do not expect you to do it.
Young Colleague: *stress leaving his face and admiration in his eyes* I doubt if I can ever do that. Look at me now. There are many things on my to-do lists. The list is becoming longer, and each item is harder to close.
Pappettan: *corrects* I am in a similar situation. You don't see my failures. When I spent time with you, there are unattended things on my to-do list too.
Young Colleague: *silent*
Pappettan: *concludes* But when your training is complete, my workload will reduce which will free up my time to pursue other things. So I might be overstretched now. It is temporary. Since I will get more time in the future, it is essential that I invest my time now.
Photo Courtesy: Lauren Manning
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