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An efficiency deficiency
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Our 10-minutes-this-way-that-way attitude might encourage chaos but it does infuse our lives with a certain sense of adventure
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DAILY ANXIETIES Our lives are anything but boring and fairly bristle with challenges PHOTO: SAMPATH KUMAR G.P.
If inefficiency can cause train accidents, can over-efficiency do so, too? The driver of the local train that crashed in Japan a month or so ago was reportedly speeding in order to make up for a 90-second delay. The diligent employee wanted to ensure that his commuters did not miss their connecting train. Now, it seems there are connecting trains every two minutes. Just think about it: if the ill-fated train had arrived 90 seconds late the commuters who'd missed their earlier link could have got their next one after just 30 seconds. Safe and sound.
Urban Japan sounds like a frighteningly efficient place. The people there probably plan their daily routine down to the nanosecond. But at what cost? Efficiency is, of course, an admirable quality. Why talk about Japan — the local trains of Mumbai have run like clockwork for years together, conveying millions of people from home to workplace and back. But with efficiency can come utter predictability. Our 10-minutes-this-way-that-way attitude might encourage chaos but it does infuse our lives with a certain sense of adventure.
I realise I'm treading on slippery ground here. Let me hasten to confirm that I am not making out a case for inefficiency, for efficiency (as I said earlier) is an admirable quality. It does, however, appear to be a First World obsession (I almost said affliction). Someone I know returned from a six-month official trip to the U.S., sounding quite disappointed. "There is no challenge to living there," he said. Daily life was smooth and uneventful, boringly so. Everything worked.
Our lives, by comparison, are anything but boring and fairly bristle with challenges. From the moment we wake we experience a series of minor anxieties (when challenges arise) and triumphs (when we overcome them). Among the delights of an unpredictable world are: the lights not going off despite the rain (yes, such miracles do happen), an empty bus rolling in five minutes after you missed an over-crowded one, and the sweet music of a gas cylinder banging against a cycle mudguard when you're about to lock up the house and leave.
Let's say a family is all set to watch their favourite TV serial. The power goes off and the betting begins. "It'll come back just when the serial is over," says one family member, speaking from long years of experience. "In five minutes," says the optimist. "Two hours," says the pessimist. When the optimist wins, what jubilation in the house!
You don't merely expect the unexpected; you expect the worst. Therefore, if things run even half as well as they're supposed to, you're thrilled to bits. And if nothing works out, well, you're not surprised. Which is how you're able to remain unruffled when you go to the tailor two days after the due date and he tells you, in a silky voice, to wait "only half an hour madam, just the buttons". Forty-five minutes later it's "ten minutes, just ironing", and 15 minutes after, "just five minutes".
You've probably seen this happen umpteen times: a prestigious function, which the organisers have planned to the last detail, is about to begin. The audience waits breathlessly as the elegantly dressed announcer walks on stage and takes her place behind one of four microphones. She doth ope her ruby lips to speak but alack, no sound doth issue forth. Rather than test the other three instruments one by one, she stands there helplessly until a technician sprints towards her, thrusting a cordless mike into her hand.
Inefficiency teaches us the virtue of patience and instils in us an abiding belief in destiny. When work isn't done on time it is tempting to bellow and fling heavy objects at the offender, but it is less stressful to take a deep breath and practise forgiveness. After all, given a chance, which one of us wouldn't put off for tomorrow what we don't feel like doing today? Those of us with time-bound jobs are efficient out of sheer necessity. And also, I suppose, because we're cursed with a conscience. Haven't you sometimes admired the shirker for the way he so easily and shamelessly avoids responsibility? He manages to hang on to his job, and the work he doesn't do gets passed on to you.
People believe private firms are more efficient than government because if one company fails to satisfy you, you can take your business elsewhere. But there is no guarantee that the alternative will be any better. Therefore you continue to patronise a company that provides indifferent service just because you're used to it — the known devil being better than... you know the rest. Many are the times I've come back from my bank swearing I'll change to another. Its latest caper leaves me scratching my head, though. Help me judge this one:
A Class IV employee stamped the wrong number on a chequebook — he interchanged a couple of digits. The account holder wrote out 16 cheques to various people before she discovered the error. How come the bank merrily passed the cheques? "In such cases we try out different combinations of numbers," an officer explained blithely. When the signature, name and number match they know they've hit the jackpot. Now, is that inefficiency or super-efficiency?
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ckmeena@rediffmail.com.
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