Personal story #1 - The unrecognized Management gurus
Last week has been a blur. All I
can recall is the mad scramble to finish the cooking, cleaning the vessels and
the kitchen, cleaning the house, taking care of the garden, all by 9 O’ clock am
so that I can start my work from home at a decent time. It is a repeat after 5 pm till I am
exhausted. But this is not a piece about
my ‘plight’.
Today with one week gone without
any help, I took a pause to reflect if I can manage this better. Then it dawned on me that all I had to do was
to recall how efficiently my help at home would plan her day and even the week.
She had allocated certain days for
certain chores, carefully choosing lean days for heavy work. For instance, she would consciously avoid
taking up non routine work on a Saturday when all the inmates of the house are
hanging around. Mondays were for some
tough work, as she would have come refreshed after the Sunday break. Even within
the day, she had a specific order in which to do things. And she would smartly
take breaks and arrange the chores, so she is not exhausted. As I was staring at
the sink full of vessels, I understood why she would use certain vessels for
certain food and quantity (cook and serve ones for lunch, and others that could
be reused to make multiple items with mild scrubbing).
And I realize that the lady who
does cleaning also has it all charted out: as I was sweeping and mopping, I
realized why she had a ‘route’ to follow within the house – one that avoids footfall
and takes the dust away from the main areas.
It occurs to me whether it is a
driver or a security or housekeeping or a gardener, they all have a strategy to
go about their work in an efficient way, something that we probably don’t recognize.
And here I was, leaving all the ‘planning’
for my professional work, but going nuts managing my own home! I wish I had asked
them to make a presentation to me (pretty complicated I am sure with flow charts
and multiple scenarios factored in) to cope during these times. They may not use the smart arts and the jargon,
but I have a feeling it would turn out be much more fascinating than the ‘work’
presentations.
So, now I know who to ask if I
want some pragmatic approach to a situation at work – the Management gurus who
run my home and your home!
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