The HOD is busy

[Guest guest]

THE HOD IS BUSY

(As narrated to me by a good friend  – Any resemblance if any to a person

living or dead may be purely coincidental & unintended)

It was a busy OPD & the attendant who was supposed to be calling the patients

suddenly disappeared & the crowd started creating chaos.

Angrily I asked the steno (whom I could contact with great difficulty) if the

fellow was sent somewhere. She confirmed that he had been sent by the HOD on

some very important & confidential mission in which all of them were terribly

busy since morning & when I asked her to connect me to him I was told that he

had strictly forbidden anyone disturbing him at any cost.

Further enquiries made subsequently revealed a very interesting story which I

thought of sharing with you all.

Actually the HOD was supposed to attend a conference somewhere down South & he

wanted Govt. permission to travel by Air (which he was anyway authorized to

undertake).   In this context that day he was writing a very urgent, important

& confidential letter to the authorities & this kept everyone on his toes for

one full day.

A simple letter asking for permission to travel by air as per entitlement would

have sufficed but then how would the authorities tell someone really great from

the ordinary mortals. So he probably decided to make the most of the occasion &

floor everyone.

The letter went something like this, “ I am delighted to inform you that such

and such association which is blah blah blah …. (one full paragraph describing

the great organization). It is a matter of pride for our institute that I have

been invited by ….. to…..

which is going to have earth shattering implications here. So  I may be given

permission to attend it.

“In case I travel by train, the following would be the schedule (in case all

trains are in time):-

-         The train starts from here at …. hrs. For this I have to

start at…. Hrs to reach the station at least at …..hrs.   This train

reaches Delhi at ….. hrs.

-         TOTAL TIME  - …. hrs ….mins

-         Next train starts from Delhi at …..hrs.

-         WAITING TIME- ……hrs….. mins

-         This train would reach the destination on …. day at …..

hrs

-         TOTAL TIME - ……hrs…..mins

-         Approximate time to reach the venue from Railway Station (as

informed by the organizers) …  hrs….mins

-         Hence the total time taken to reach the venue from my house -

…hrs…mins (Time-A)

-         Similar story narrated in case he traveled by air and time

calculated (Time-.

-         Net saving --  Time A-Time B is …..hrs….mins

SO in order to save my PRECIOUS HOSPITAL TIME OF …. HRS … MINS SO THAT

PATIENT CARE,  TEACHING & TRAINING OF STUDENTS, RESEARCH ACTIVITIES OF THE

DEPARTMENT & THE ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIVITIES OF THE INSTITUTE IN WHICH I HAPPEN TO

BE INVOLVED DON’T SUFFER, I MAY BE ALLOWED AIR TRAVEL IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF

THE PATIENTS, STUDENTS,PUBLIC & THE INSTITUTE.â€

But why it kept so many people busy for so long i.e almost one full day ?

 So many train & air travel timings had to be confirmed, then reconfirmed and

then re re confirmed from different sources, cross checked, verified & then re

verified so that no misinformation was sent to the office.

Two residents were assigned the job to confirm the timings from all the sources

possible (Organizers, travel agents, internet, enquiry counters), noting down

(for record ) the details of each  enquiry made & verify it with their

signatures & two attendants were sent after them to keep an eye on them to

ensure that they did the job properly. It is a different matter that they all

had tea together discussing their HOD before each going his own way & dutifully

reporting to the boss in the evening.

The draft was typed, re typed ,re re typed, re drafted , re re drafted, then re

re typed.

I always wondered what kept some of our seniors & their staff so busy?

So it is the interest of the patients, students, research & the institute.