It's rather funny how things that you tend to think of things learned for some purpose to be exclusively of use for that purpose. I mean, most people actually seem to have thought that the math that they learned at school was exclusively for use to pass exams and are astonished at the thought that it may have any applicability in life after school.
That, though, is not what I wanted to talk about. Though I am going to talk of what happened in offices, it is not about the applicability of math in office. ('Thank God', you murmur? Yeah, right, I know. Had it not been for calculators and computers, you'd have realized that math IS necessary for work in office. That you would need to know how to add, subtract etc instead of merely typing things into forms. See what you made me do? THIS was not at all what I intended...oh, leave it!)
Anyway, there was this friend of mine who was talking about his uncle's suffering at the hands of his much younger boss. (No, I am NOT that uncle though, but for my quitting early...)
"He is close to retirement, has quite a few lifestyle diseases which seems to have become the norm these days...even for people a decade younger than him. And this boss of his screams at him, stresses him out. No matter how often my uncle tells him about his blood pressure issues and asks him to not create such stress the bloody chap won't listen."
"Well, really, is there anyone who can understand things these days? I mean, they do not even understand if you tell them that the profit has increased by 25%. You need to SHOW them a bar chart with one bar 25% higher than the other for them to appreciate the fact."
"What's your point? Should my uncle be making a power-point with BP before and BP after graphs?"
"Hahaha! No, you take things too literally. He should do what my uncle does."
"And what does your esteemed uncle do?"
"He...well, he clutches his head, reels a bit and then drops into a chair. After the screaming session, he rushes to the company medico, complaining of dizziness. Of course his BP is high, after the stress of being yelled at. Whereupon he moans to the physician about how he has been telling his boss that all that screaming is only reducing his effectiveness by making his BP shoot. Apparently, after 2-3 episodes of this behavior and the consequent sick leave that he takes, he only has to lift his hands half-way to his head to silence the boss. Of course it's not a career-enhancing move. But, then, my uncle was close to retirement as I understand your uncle also is."
For the first time, I interjected. I mean, I had only thought of this as some esoteric idea used by writers.
"Ah! You mean TELLING people of your health issues is no use. You have to SHOW them. Like the difference between saying you are hurt and actually shedding tears?"
"Bingo! And you thought Show vs Tell was only a writing related thing."
Ye Gods! Now, if this sets people in your office reeling around every time you take them to task, do not blame me. Blame my friends!
