"LAPTOP & ME"

“Lend me your ears” Antony seeks the attention of his county men, to explain to them, his interpretation of the actions of his assassinated friend, Julius Ceasar.

When you visit, by prior appointment some Sr.Manager in an office, more specifically an IT/BPO/ITES variety; the guy in front, is not taking his attention off his laptop.

You pause.

He says “Go ahead, I am attending to my inbox.”

Unsaid “I am attending to my inbox which is full of a lot of useless E-mails which I am deleting.”

“You may say your monologue; “soliloquy” in peace. I shall continue to be unattentive.You can’t comment on my non-attention” When by prior appointment you meet an individual a business environment, it is customary to give an undivided attention to the visitors. In fact protocol demands, that if a phone call is received, during the course of the meeting, one does not accept the same.

During the entire period of the meeting my friend would just not take his eyes off the laptop. We barely had any eye-contact, which is the pre-requisite of a good dialogue. I was trying my best to engage him in some conversation relating to the business at hand. He was punctuating his inattention by occasional “hums” “go ahead” etc.
I knew very well, he was not of the type to be engaging in multi-tasking. An upstart from some non-descript business school.
His inattention was more a show off. Perhaps to impress me that he was a very busy individual and had condescended to grant me time in his busy schedule.
A poor show, I must say.
Culture is an implicit behavior. The actions happen automatically without any specific signal from the brain. I meant that refinement; to which civilized society is so used to.
This kid on the block was bereft of it. I excused myself politically without concluding the business on hand.





This is the accepted behavior. Any other than this is intolerable; and boorish.

On my way out I said to the receptionist of “Lend me his ears.” “Why? What is wrong with his ears?” She asks you.

“I wish to pull them out of his skull He should learn to attend to his visitors with all his heart and soul. None seems to have taught him, the basics of courtesy; and refinement. “An irate me.

I was finally out of his office looking more like the assassinated Julius Ceasar; almost mind-dead.

M S RANADE

Chairman & CEO

Placewell Consultants,

Pune 411007mranade@vsnl.com