Old habits die hard

During my salad days of entering government service, my head of the department was a reticent, a stickler for riles and did not tolerate any indiscipline. My immediate boss was liberal but loquacious. He was a chatterbox and did not notice if the other person was annoyed. He would call me every day under the pretext of technical discussions but would chat on anything but that. Yoga was a favourite subject.

My HOD instructed me one day to prepare a report. Due to sheer bad luck, my immediate boss also decided to call upon me. Since I was terrified of my HOD, I wanted to complete the work assigned to me first. When I got the inkling that my boss would not conclude his chat anytime soon, I tried to interrupt him to tell him that I had to attend to the work assigned by HOD. He got annoyed and shouted at me.

“Why are you interrupting? Do you not know conversational etiquette? When I am talking, you should listen. Do you think, I do not have any better business? Please know that I am your immediate boss and I am more important to you than your HOD. I approve your diary, tour programme, TA bill etc. I review your performance. If I spoil your report, let me see
how the HOD will come to your
rescue,” he thundered. I managed to consol him somehow and hightailed it out of there.

A few days after that, he invited everyone in the office to his chamber and said, “look from today onwards, I will not talk much. My yoga guru has advised me that whatever energy you gain through yoga, you are losing through unnecessary talk. Talkers are never good-doers.

I sound better with my mouth shut. I must be a good listener and I should not be ‘talkoholic’, because motor-mouthed people are often viewed as less intelligent than people who engage in “active listening”. Hence, I want to be fluent in silence. I am informing you all in advance. So, you people should not feel bad, why our boss has all of a sudden has become an introvert,” he continued this ironic rant about his silence until our HOD’s assistant, came to his chamber to inform us that that there was a discussion scheduled with the HOD.

I smiled to myself, thinking old habits die hard.