If the work that we do is a well-honed passion, then it is one’s love of labour. If not, it is just labouring with love, that is misaligned. How do we find our passion align with our work interest?
I am reminded of my father who was my guru for assembly lining a given task. The way he taught was by showing me how it is done. The intel for organising a task and splitting it into small to-do list sequence meant, if one step is missed too then it becomes difficult to go back. But I realised that some tasks allows for non-sequential order.
In my family each member has their own way of working on task given to them. I love to work along with another person in tandem. Every person has different vibration while working. Matching their speed and energy helps in creating a rhythm for work.
I tend to sense rhythm and discord while working with another person. This data provides insight for me as to what kind of cooperation expected I can pace myself with the person. Most often household tasks help in determining the work tempo.
I sense collaborative energy while looking out for any presence of discord. Now, understanding this misaligned energy help for marking areas where improvement can be made in the future.
There have been moments when I hadn’t been able to complete a task and the impatient initiator just took away the task because of my response time for certain task is slow.
It has often happened with family members. The only reason could be that I was not present in the moment or the instruction was complicated. In the kitchen often the dynamics of making a dish plays out the differences and resonances. Sometimes the thrill of creating something within discord seems to be more rewarding.
I think this seems to be applicable for managers who have done similar work earlier. Now as the supervising the work of his/her subordinate the attitude needs fixing.
It is important to note that once a task is assigned and preferences of reporting are finalised then the manager need to give time and space for the task assigned person to accomplish the task by themselves.
Of course, being an approachable manager helps in detecting early bottlenecks and step in to guide the task streamlining is my understanding. Male members in my family always jump in and do the task assigned to another person especially if they find the person hesitating in finishing the task.
The faith that is placed and reinforced by the manager or task assigner helps to build confidence in the person performing the task, I believe staunchly. There is a fine line between controlling the stick and giving out carrot in a situation.
That way my first manager outside my father’s office was rather inpatient with me, more over my self-taught HTML could take me so far. I did not know how resolve the image dispay issue. Now I know that the images were in a separate folder in hosting server which when referenced results in the display of the image. Or at least if the manager would have arranged for the images as files in local drive, then I could have included them. So, when she show box with a x marks her displeasure hit the roof.
The fact that the manager had no clue about website and she was super focused on marketing that made the task completion a challenge. I didn’t know to ask for graphic images of the official website. Because I was not given the time to process the issue and find solution. But my webpage content was impressive for the manager.
Other than the manager, rest of the higher ups who I met were really kind. But the management remains kind, uses the next in hierarchy to pressurise the employee. Working overtime became an issue when she dropped me off at 10 pm at home. I was received by my worried parents. Back then I didn’t plan to inform my parents.
I am not saying it is wrong or right! Just that when the manager knew my self-taught HTML was just 90 days old. The kind of knowledge that. I have now might be a little more than back then, I always felt that learning is an endless stream sometimes you learn on the job.
It is like sitting in the banks of a river fishing with no care for catching any fish but interested in the process of fishing. First job outside was as a Technical Writer. After that I took a break and explored creating a homemade book of my poetry collection.
I have been writing different kinds of pieces related to diverse services, technical writing, content writing, magazine syndication writing and cover page writing and blogging with brutal honesty. In all these writing activities the aim was to improve expression and gain narrative knowledge.
But then, we digress, our aim was to follow the traces of task assignment to completion. The best way to approach and to accomplish the feat of completion. All my office task were not finite in my head. I always saw that it can be done better than the interim fix. Some jobs I felt I had the strength to hang in their beyond when task is completed to a particular stage.
I loved the Chandamama internship and four months as an employee. If I hadn’t been recuperating from my treatment for my episode. I would have stayed on. But the fact remains that Chandamama was not reinventing with new age kids. The old format was its sacred heart. Back in my childhood days there would be an elder a Chandamama aficionado reading Vikramadithyanu Vathalamum.
The format was simple with predictable outcome. As wise king Vikram knew the answer and the minute, he answers the question the vathalamum flies back to the tree in the graveyard, where the king goes back carries the ghoul back to complete his task. Now this is a wonderful template for stories that the Vatalam says and asks a question in the end.
The dilemma of the situation is that the king is forced to judge the outcome if not head will burst and roll. Given that Vikramadithyan is a wise and just ruler his answers are steeped in wealth of wisdom.
In 2000 by then the Cable TV with its flashy program that are mind numbing were competing for a child’s attention. The slow dwindling of the reading adult in nuclearized family resulted in lowered purchase of books and magazines.
Chandamama was a niche publisher, it was for both reminiscing adult and the child’s bonding time. The fact the modernity meant watching the new attraction of cartoon show replaced reading.
Comics are still read even today as the visual media has greater attraction than the textual written words. The magazine according to me is for exploring the child’s independent reading ability. The readership was often between 5-8 graders. The came up with Junior version but still they couldn’t move the readershiplevels.
While Amar Chitra Katha, a comic company is attempting to rebrand themselves to make it appealing to young audiences. This makes me think that there is a strong need to stay relevant with changing environment of readership and following.
Somehow in the field of Children’s writing there is fewer experimentation. The attraction for foreign authors and less for local home-grown authors could be seen in every personal home library. Is it the Indian author don’t propagate their work or is reading books a dying hobby?
Itinerant Storyteller 