All in a day's work. Launch of a mobile app for my office. Hon'ble MP Smt. Kirron Kher was the Chief Guest.
At the Telecom Minister's function in Panchkula
Sports Meet 2016
To sum up my job in a
nutshell: it’s management of time, resources, and people. I’m constantly
looking for ways to keep my office staff busy, else they lapse into a state of
desultory wakefulness interspersed with bouts of petty squabbles. We have about
twenty-five new recruits- Lower Division Clerks and Junior Accountants. A
number of them seem to consider this as an extension of College-life, rather
than Central Government. They play truant often by reporting late for work or
simply calling in sick just before or after a holiday. In view of this I’ve
become quite strict about attendance and granting leave. The youngsters have
become correspondingly creative in making up excuses to support their leave
requests.
There are the usual, of
course:
‘Mother is ill’,
‘Mother-in-law is ill’,
‘Brother/ sister getting
married’,’
‘Aunt/ Uncle died’ and
so on.
The hype surrounding
leave has affected the more senior officials, too, particularly Jeevanji (featured
in my previous posts about Working Woman’s Wonders). He’s in his mid-fifties, a
Supervisory level officer. And he takes leave only too often. He came to me a
few days ago, begging for two days’ leave, Thursday and Friday so it would give
him four straight days off.
“But you took time off
only last month,” I said, “You can’t keep doing this. I’ve warned you...”
“Madam, it’s
unavoidable,” he said, “There’s been a death in the family. The cremation is
tomorrow. I have to go.”
“Who is it this time?”
I demanded, since he’d already accounted for his parents, father-in-law,
grandparents, maternal and paternal uncles and aunts. Besides, his
mother-in-law is perpetually on her death bed- a candidate for the future, no
doubt.
“My uncle,” said
Jeevanji and added before I could quiz him further: “If you don’t believe me,
I...I can send you a video of the cremation tomorrow and I’ll share it through
wattsapp!”
He had me there.
“No, thank you,” I
said, “That’ll be kind-of disrespectful to the...corpse, don’t you think?”
Needless to say, I
granted him leave.
As always there’ve been
the usual bloopers in files, too.
-Are personnel or
personals to be deputed for training? My office mixes them up frequently.
-Should the
requirements of a tender be fool proof or full proof? My office favours the
latter.
-And then came this gem
of a request from my admin. section:
‘Approval may kindly be
given for hiring ½ labourer tomorrow.’
I was tempted to ask:
which half? The top or the bottom?
-Our hon’ble judges in
CAT are not immune to such innovative uses of language, either. While ruling
against my department and in favour of an employee, the judge wrote by way of
explanation: ‘After all, a lot of water has flown into the river by now.’
Not under the bridge,
mind. Er...yes, Your Honour. Where else is water supposed to flow? And, sorry,
but I’ve never heard of flying water.
Here's one of my favourite scenes from As Good As It Gets: Melvin's day at the office!
