The other day, when I went to my office's canteen to eat its famous Indian breakfast before I started work, I bumped into M, a guy who did dispatch for my organisation. I know it seems a bit archaic in today's day and age to have someone on the staff delivering letters and parcels physically, but they probably kept him on as we are a governmental organisation and he has been a faithful staff.
M is a guy who looks a little, shall we say, mentally-challenged, walks in a bumbling way, speaks with a slightly muffled voice, but is always over-friendly. I try to avoid him often but am always nice to him when I meet him because I am the kind of person who is always polite and has a smile for others. So anyway, that day, I ended up queuing up behind him at the muslim stall and after I ordered my food, I saw him sitting quite conspicuously in the middle of the canteen and after a moment's hesitation, decided to join him, since I was a bit starved for company since Covid and WFH for so many months.
It was a good decision. We started by talking about work, and he told me that without fail, even when he worked from home, by 830am he was showered and dressed and ready to work. I felt a bit ashamed as I usually would be still finishing up my breakfast somewhere around that time. I was also surprised to learn that my organisation had put him to man the office handphone and answer calls from the public, which I thought was a risk. He said that he felt he didn't need to open in that standard way, nor to sound really official. He mimicked a typical conversation and showed me how he would first ask them what they wanted, and once he understood their issue, would efficiently "despatch" them to the right organisation and the right number to call (which he told me was all in his head). I was impressed, that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and who said a guy who didn't have a good phone voice couldn't answer the hotline? The main thing was that he was efficient, professional and he got the job done. I was blown away by the open-mindedness and wisdom of the person who gave him the job.
The second insightful thing he said which surprised me no end was when I asked him whether he was watching anything on the streaming websites like Netflix and what not. He shook his head vehemently and said an abrupt "No! Never!". He said he only watched programmed channels, where you had to wait for your favourite show to start screening. He told me to check out some free-to-air channel which showed all the old movies like Godfather. We both agreed that streaming websites had problems like providing an endless menu of movies to choose from (analysis paralysis), and allowed you to have instant gratification (you needn't wait for any good show to start, you could just click on a button and it would play), and you could binge watch all you wanted, leading to all sorts of problems.
Yes, gone are the good old days when you had to wait and even "order" your life around the start time of a show you wanted to watch, and then when it was over, you had to wait until the next week to continue the series and find out what happened next. I think such a way of living might sound quite unthinkable today ("What? Wait a whole week to watch the next episode?"). But this actually simplifies our life to a certain extent, as you scanned the TV guide for the day, and if there was nothing you liked, you then went on with your life and planned other things. There was no "buffet syndrome" and you were offered limited choices to choose from. There was also a certain rigidity to the schedule of programmes, so you had to instill a certain discipline in your life if you wanted to catch that show at that time. These also prevent TV or entertainment from taking over our lives.
There is great wisdom in choosing deliberate self-restraint or self-restriction in this case. This is also why I refuse to buy a higher-end coffee machine (e.g. one that grinds your coffee beans, or a Nespresso machine) as I want to keep my taste buds accustomed to freeze dried coffee as a norm, and enjoy only lattes made from freshly ground coffee beans when I am outside. This helps to keep a certain freshness to life.
No comments:
Post a Comment