Preoccupied

I took news paper in my hands. Straight away went to page 3. I was preoccupied and I was not wrong. One sensational news. It was not murders, suicides, rapes or ATM robberies for a change. “Teens stab each other in dual”. One can’t blame Facebook for this, first of all, teens have stopped FBing and more importantly no such game like “Neknomination” yet available in FB for duals. I left news paper there itself thinking I will read the remaining pages filled with boring political and other irrelevant news for later part of the day. And I started writing this as I was so preoccupied that I will write about "preoccupation" today.

Why?

“Can I have one request? Can you get petrol filled for my TVS scooty ? Morning I will be in a rush and will not get time to get that done” my wife at 7 PM last evening. Her 10^th request, will not be the last one of the day, for sure. I took off. As I entered the petrol pump, I got a feeling that I am entering into that Lebanese restaurant on 100 FT Road at 7:30 PM on a Tuesday. (There three people will converge to assist you to select a table from all the vacant ones. And those tables would remain vacant until or even after you finish your expensive, prolonged dinner with a very few items! ). Yes three of them converged here too, to the only customer of that time. One with the pump in hand another with oil packets in hand and third one with nothing. The nothing on hand fellow asked “How much petrol ?”. I told him 40 ml oil and rest petrol for 200 rupees. While telling him that, I already started looking at the meter. I was so preoccupied. Not once, not twice but umpteen times I felt that I had been cheated by them by not ensuring Zero on the meter while they talked to me. "Why not 80 ml oil?" He asked. “Last 10 years I am using this vehicle and I know the oil-petrol proportion well” I told him and he vanished. It was oil-packet fellow’s turn next.  “One packet or two packet” ! I got down from scooty and stood in front of the meter and told “one packet if it is 40 ml, two packets if it is 20 ml” not removing my eyes from the meter. Job done by pump fellow. I was temporarily satisfied that I ensured Zero while starting the pump, I would not have been cheated this time. As I started riding away from the petrol pump, I had another doubt – did they mix anything in the petrol, did they adulterate it to cheat me!

“Can you please take your mechanic to my colleague’s house this morning? Her scooter is broken down and we can help her” my wife started her innings in the morning itself.  I had taken off that time with the mechanic behind on my Hero Honda Splendor+ to her colleague’s house. (Yes, I am henpecked like anybody else!!). I hadn’t gone there earlier, but I had a fair idea where it was located. But to make him readily agree, I had told the mechanic “it is just nearby”, as if I use to go there every day for a cup of coffee! Have you watched these mechanics? They won’t look at you, their focus will be on your vehicle. To know whether any work needs to be “half- done” by them, they are so preoccupied with that! My mechanic was no different. I could see from rear view mirror he started looking at the back wheel, assessing the braking efficiency as I kept on using brakes at least 20 times in that 1 Km stretch. As I approached the area, I slowed down. I deliberately did not tell him that I am trying to locate the house, I wanted to check his pre-occupation level. “What happened sir, could be dirt in the carburetor, I think your bike needs a service!” yes, it was running at 104 degree Fahrenheit!

“Chairman of a huge US company is visiting us. My boss asked us to prepare a short presentation for just 20 minutes. Why don’t you meet the marketing manager, prepare one and take it to my boss for his review?” Mr. Wise, my boss told me that morning. I knew that this was an existing customer. I did the ground work. Road map, Milestones, Challenges ! Seeing these jargons, don’t get me wrong that I was planning to take Mr. Chairman for a free ride from Bangalore to Tumkur, you might be having that impression about me as I have been talking about only two wheelers so far. It was meant for our future association in software development and services. With that write up I approached Mr. Mktg. “Oh Chairman, from so and so company. No problem. I had done many such presentations. You can take this last one that I did to CEO of a biscuit manufacturing company. Latest. You can show these slides to super boss”.  I just enquired “Mr. Mktg there are 25 odd slides, but the chairman is there only for 20 mins with us”, even having such an expertise in pressing a key, I could not have skipped through 25 slides without even reading them – given the speed those Personal Computers used to provide! “These Chairmen are all like that, once they see our slides, they will sit through for an hour”. Mr. Mktg is so experienced and preoccupied.

I took print out of those 25+ slides, put nicely in an envelope and went to super boss. Understandably, I was so nervous, first time entering into super boss’s room. “What is this all about?” smiling, looked extremely happy that day as he took the envelope from me. I said it is presentation for that upcoming high voltage visit. “Who prepared this ?”. I just told him this is by Mr. Mktg. His face turned red. All happiness went off. “I don’t want to see this. I know what this will contain”. He knew Mr Mktg and his presentation well. He too was so preoccupied. “You just have four slides I will tell you – da da da da”. I quickly noted them down. “No need to review it with me, just show to Mr. Wise ( my boss ) and then be ready”.

I went to Mr Wise with the “da da da da” stuff. He had a smile as if he knew super boss well and he was expecting this “da da da da” anyways. He too was preoccupied. However he assisted me in preparing those 4 slides and yes, we were all set for the presentation. Mr. Chairman arrived on time. Super boss is ready to make the presentation. I was in the corner in front of the PC, ready with my fingers to press for the first “da” to appear on the screen. You must be thinking that my "preoccupied" saga is going to end now. Not really.

“What do we discuss today?” Chairman asked. “We have a short presentation on way forward"  told the super boss. “No No, instead let’s discuss our large development project that you had messed up recently to come up with some concrete plans for future. No presentations please” Chairman also knew well what these presentations would contain, he was preoccupied too ! In the whole scheme of things the only person who was not preoccupied was me, but I was excessively occupied!!

One gets preoccupied by past experiences. It is nice to have that at times. But too much of preoccupation may make you blind and you would miss many good points in the process. So have an open mind, try to be as less preoccupied as possible. If the tendency comes in strong, just get occupied with something useful!