Outside a dog, books are man’s best friend

Last couple of weeks it’s been tough for me to spend my time, which is relatively idle. Of course it is official time and let me mention, I can be found only in two places through the year, either race course or stable. Did I sound whinny? If I say, change in organization is the cause of the free time, I may not be wrong. I am in transient phase, trying to gain foothold at a new place. As I hardly have any control over the cause, I consciously decided to utilize the time to gather information. Gathering information (like policies, etc.) about the new place seemed to be the call of the hour. Hence I started my expedition.

Human resource department takes pride in claiming, that all related information is just a “click” (Mouse click) away rather than saying a building away or a location way (as in case of big manufacturing houses). But I have so much of free time that I will easily motivate myself to commute from building to building or location for the sake of information. Now, there’s a problem in “click methodology” (of extracting information), I need a system (desktop, aka computer). My boss told me I will have a system only when I have a project. And my experience says when I have project I will not have enough time to excavate information. Irony of the industry is the right tool is only procured, not at the right time but much later than that, saying “better late than never”. I want to thank the person who phrased the words, at least it provides an easy getaway.

Implementing “click methodology” was not feasible, thus resulting in my dependence on people whom I talked to in the organization. The only drawback of such practice - whatever is served, will look like Swiss cheese (which has more holes than cheese). It depended on an individual’s inventive mind on how to cement the holes and make it concrete. While such transfer of information continued thru such unscheduled on-call meetings, I used the rest of the time in library. No don’t get me wrong, I just comforted myself in the cozy sofa kept there. To hide the oddity of my relaxed posture on the sofa, I picked up a newspaper and buried my face behind the pages. This habit had a magnetic effect, now I happen to read the columns as well, even of financial news papers. Albeit, my resume projects my expertise in finance, my knowledge and pocket will disagree at will. I read such journals of compulsion as there are hardly any takers in the library who loves reading those pinky orange colored papers. The rest of the dailies are always on demand, predator outnumbering prey. To get my hand on to one, I depend on my scavenging and hopping skills of a frog. By the mid of my day I realize my hard work paid, I read 3 of those.

Passing the rest of the day is much easier because I do not have to imitate a frog and I can sit quiet especially after a sumptuous meal. It is important to relax after a hard day’s meal, so I browse the open shelf for small books which has 200 pages or less, than find a low profile corner of the library (where less people ventured) and unwind myself over a chair. People say, “Outside a dog, books are man’s best friend”, I whole heartedly agree to this. I remember, during my school days, I remained surrounded by books whenever I slept. Yes, that’s primarily because I used to fall asleep over an open book on the study table while studying. Who needs a sleeping pill when books are around? Physique of some book is meant to force people like me to sleep. Here in library, I get so engrossed in the book (read as sleep) that unconsciously my chin rests over the table, and my eyes almost closes, at a distance of a few millimeters of the page. I wish, I could even read the first chapter of the books completely that I picked relentlessly, post lunch after post lunch. Believe me, my intentions are always sincere, but the urge of a cat nap betrays my effort. All the books I tried reading after lunch can vouch on my claim. Darn me! Nevertheless I have an inference from this experiment, all the books smells the same.

Practice makes a man perfect but an imperfect practice seldom – Yours sincerely.