Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://pradx.wordpress.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on September 17, 2008 as per the permalink. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.
Global meltdown, job cuts and dipping of interest in jobs seems to be the flavour of the season. Accordingly, I’m bunking college today due to sickness.
September 15 was engineer’s day. It is celebrated to mark the birthday of the great Statesman-Engineer from India, Sir M. Visvesvarayya among whose many achievements was the first hydroelectric project in Asia at Jog Falls.
On the occasion, we reactivated the Mechanical Engineering Students Association (MESA) in our college. As the first speaker, we got Dr. Parameshwaran (an erstwhile dean, Faculty of Technology, MU). He’s a great, old school speaker to have who gave his speech without many of the modern aids (no ppts, no computers or even paper in hand) that a speaker normally uses.
He talked to us about caring for our work – “Even if you are a sweeper at a railway level crossing, work so that your railway crossing is the cleanest in the world.” Visvesvarayya said that and he quoted it during his talk.
With so much stress paid on effectiveness and efficiency in jobs today, I think that we miss this subtle force – caring. I think, once a person cares about his work, effectiveness and efficiency usually follow.
Parallel Spirals 