Reading manual

Today I was shifted to a new project. The team leader has a reputation of being one of the coolest people in the company and I can vouch that she is a great manager because I have worked on few deadlines with her. As soon as she entered office, I told her that I now a part of her team. After exchanging the pleasantries of how happy we were to work together again, she asked me was I comfortable with the role assigned to me.

The role assigned to me is related to one of the subjects that everyone hated in my class. It was one of the subjects for which everyone had one universal prayer – Please Bhawgan, passing marks dila de, I promise I will never bunk classes to watch movies. I sheepishly told her that I was not and she gave me a manual with instructions that I must finish reading the manual today so that I can start working on the project tomorrow.

I took the manual, came to my desk and told myself – If I knew I had to study in office then I would have never wasted so much time sitting in classes and day dreaming. I started reading the manual and realized the VP (Production) was standing next to my chair. I jumped out from my chair to tell him that I was just refreshing my memory and he told me that did I remember an email he had send me asking me to conduct a test.

I told him I remembered the email because I had prepared the test according to his instructions with the help of another colleague. However, the test was never conducted because of deadlines pressure. In short don’t mention during my performance appraisal that I can’t give you A for dedication towards deadline.

The VP told me that since there was no deadline pressure right now, we must conduct the test. He told me that he had enlisted the help of one more colleague to help me with the test. I thanked him for the extra resource and told myself that I can now delegate all the work and take credit for successfully conducting the test. The VP replied to me by saying that can we have a meeting regarding test at 4 pm and said – Yes, sure Sir.

The VP left with a smile and I went back to reading my manual. Another colleague told me that I was supposed to look into the matters that a colleague was doing before she left for better opportunities. I told her I will check it with the workflow whether I am supposed to do it and told myself I hate giving best wishes to the colleagues that leave the company only to make me do their work until a replacement is found.

At 3:30 I received a message from the VP that can we have the meeting now. I said yes and me, two of my colleagues and the VP had the meeting on the company’s terrace. The VP told us to prepare a small test because he didn’t wanted to stop work for more than 45 mins. Me and my colleagues were very happy to accept his suggestion because a small test meant we would have very little work while correcting the answers.

I came to my seat and picked up the manual. I checked the manual and found that I had read not even half of the manual. I went to the team leader and before I could tell her I needed one more day to finish the complex manual, she told me – Look I am really busy right now. No time to answer your queries. Why don’t you thoroughly study the manual for one more day and I will solve all your problems tomorrow before I leave. I said OK, came back to my chair, switched off my comp and said – All is well.

To sum up

The best days are not the ones that we spend working but the ones where at the end of the day we say – I don’t understand how did time slipped away so fast.