EFFICIENT 'SHE' !

She was a typical employee.

She had all the prerequisites normally required for an efficient office assistant. She would come to office at the strike of ten in the morning. In the evening she was not in a hurry to leave the office. She would sit half an hour more.

She was pretty. She kept very good relations with all. But her opponents kept saying that she was more at home with senior officers. In an office situation, such an insinuation is often aired by gossip makers. Here also she was an easy prey to those who fondly made wild allegations.

I did not subscribe to the views of her opponents. I always thought she was an innocent victim. She was a quiet employee. She devoted her time doing office work. And quietly so.

A dedicated worker that she was, she got her promotions much earlier than her fellow workers. I always thought she deserved to be promoted.

But the gossip mongers thought otherwise.

I have observed this worker as an outsider only in the sense that I have never worked with her in the same department.

Promotions took place every year. During one such promotion rounds I was also promoted. This time I was posted to the department where she was working. I was also allotted a seat next to her seat.

I found her the same quiet worker. She was never finding time for any unnecessary talk with anybody to while away time. She sat engrossed in her work. Personnel department work took most of her time though she was not supposed to do that work. But I did not find anything wrong in doing this work over and above her normal allotted assignments.

When enough work was found wanting, she took on herself the responsibility of doing such additional work. Since this additional work pertained to the personnel department, she attended to personal files of workers.

Then with an admiring air about her way of doing work, I closely observed her work. From morning to evening she was busy. She would sit erect. She would attend file after file. Every single sign I got was proving that my preconceived notions about her were correct. That she was an efficient worker was now evident and clear.

Then to learn something about her methods I closely observed her. That was for learning methods of work so that I could copy them in my own sphere of official activity. She was found examining file after file with a lot of patience about it. Pay fixation appeared to be the work she attended. Fixation is done after promotion of an employee to a higher cadre.

I observed she took a lot of time to dispose of a file. Then I observed she started from the beginning of a file. I found she examined each and every paper available in the file. And she disposed of a couple of files by the close of the day.

An admirer as I was hitherto, I closely watched her. Now, because of curiosity, I watched her from 'close quarters'. She continued her work uninterrupted. What is it that she must be doing, I wondered for a moment. She read each and every paper in the file. Sometimes with interest. And sometimes with a casual air about it.

Her method of work was slowly and slowly unfolding itself before me. Her efficient method of work was coming more and more clear. Her secret of getting promotions lay bare before me. It was that she employed a perfect and unblemished method of remaining busy throughout office hours. That was only a technique of remaining busy. And nothing else.

Yes she remained an efficient worker.

She remained a busy hand.

All this, only by merely reading correspondence

available in the file !

And nothing else.

She was efficient, no doubt.

But it was efficiency with a difference !

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