Of Bullshit and other kinds of manure

Continuing with my series on life@B-school, here’s a thought: What if there was something about you, you thought was a good thing, and then you had this big realization that you were quite OC - Obsessive-Compulsive for the uninitiated, about it?

Let me tell you a story –Once upon a time (yeah right, I like fairy tales!) there was a little girl whose father told her to look after his boss’s garden. The boss had a beautiful garden, the kind that refreshes your weary soul – exotic flowers, gentle breeze – the works. Now her father told her – ‘Moon (that’s what he used to called her), take good care of this garden, it’s your responsibility’. Moon would observe her father very keenly and she would see that he went to the market everyday with candles to sell and would sell them to the best of his abilities. He was not the maker of the candles. The candles were produced in a factory not far off and he was paid a fixed salary irrespective of the number of candles he sold. And yet! There was no candle seller as good as Moon’s father! He would work the whole day, sell twice the number of candles that the other candle sellers could and after coming back, he would sit and think up new ways of selling more candles, or ways to make the candles better (based on feedback from the customer – he had his marketing research bang on!)! So anyway, Moon knew from a very early age that one must take pride in one’s work and do it with an enthusiasm that shines though, even if it does not get the big bucks home, it gets you that awesome feeling that very few people in this world have experienced – the absolute conviction that nobody else could have done it better than you!

So Moon started to tend this garden, she would inspect it every morning; make a list of all the things that needed to be done to it; make plans about how the garden could be made even more beautiful and weed free; and together with a couple of boys, labor away at it. Soon it went from being just a job to a consuming passion. She set tasks for self, which were sometimes a little ambitious considering her school-work and other pursuits, but found the time to do them. She set high standards for herself and expected those two boys to do the same. But it takes all kinds – and the boys turned out to be the type who would not work unless it was absolutely necessary, unless somebody was at their throat pushing them to work or unless they hoped to derive something positive, in the form of monetary reward or recognition from it.

Moon started to harbor feelings of resentment towards them. She would tend to be irritable as soon as their names were mentioned or one of their excuses to evade work came to light. She spent many a frustrated moment trying to implement the best course of action for the garden, but met with failure due to lack of assistance. She even cursed the seasons, when came the time for the trees to shed and the flowers to sleep, she hated that look for the garden – her garden.

Her father noticed all of this and sat her down one day. He said ‘Moon, work with all your might, but know that there will be times when your colleagues will slacken off and you will have to use all the tricks in the book to extract their pound of flesh; or fire them if it comes to that. But do not fester this resentment. You cannot go and reason with the rains to fall down on your garden because it needs it badly! When met with circumstances like that, you can either fret and fume, or go grab the hose and water your garden (and wet your colleagues who are standing by and watching - in the process hoping they catch a cold)!’

Yeah, I know the story was corny as hell :) So where were we - OCing, yeah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and you don’t wanna go that way, baby. This ain’t a race against time, or anyone else, it is, in the end, all about your own self. This place brings out the worst in you and throws it into your face, you have no choice but to confront it, and therein lies redemption - and that’s why I love my life here...