This weekend, I thought of what I could do as extra-curricular activities as I was free and had nothing to do. So, I asked Rahman Mridha (Former Director, Pfizer, Sweden) if he can give me any task, I can accomplish to create some value.
He said, “You can visit any nearby garments or factories, meet their managers or directors, see what they do the whole day, meet new people and at the end of that day you can evaluate what you have learned. It will give you an amazing experience.” I loved that idea. So, I tried to contact some of the managing directors he and I knew. But the people we tried to contact were very busy and therefore they were not available for those kinds of jobs. So, it was certainly a disappointment.
Anyways, I could not afford to let the time pass by without doing any meaningful work. Also, I didn’t want to contact Rahman Mridha again as a failure. So instead of wasting time, I went out in search of people who run certain institutions to get an idea of how they lead their life. While walking, I saw people of various professions. I saw guards, various kinds of street food sellers, hotel managers, restaurant owners and so on. I tried to talk with a few but most of them were busy with their work or busy with phones and Facebook and everything.
Also, some of them are too shy to give an interview about what they do in everyday life. They were barely cooperating with or talking to me. They were like, they want to skip me, I am a problem. Most of them rejected the opportunity to give an interview about what they do in their everyday life.
Anyways, I managed to talk to a restaurant manager. He was also trying to skip me, but I managed to get some answers to my queries. Replying to my queries, he narrated many things like as soon as he wakes up, he checks if all the necessary goods are bought. He must check that every day, that’s the first and foremost job at the beginning of the day. He assigns two or three people for that job of buying all the necessary goods. He has a personal ambition of serving fresh food, so he doesn’t keep anything from the previous day. He said he has 10 workers other than his family members.
So, he is really being useful to the society, creating jobs. Sometimes during peak hours, he works himself. Dishonest people create complexity while working, and they are hard to manage. He faces difficulties while managing when they choose dishonesty. He also stated managing to make profit is hard. Sometimes, he faces loss and pays it from his savings. And he suddenly moved on to working as he was called. It's his full-time job from morning till late night. He wasn't very happy with it but still does it for a living.
Next, I managed to talk to a street food seller as he wasn’t busy at that time. I simply went to his shop, bought food and then started talking with him while slowly eating. First to start conversation, I asked him simple questions like when he opens the shop and what he does before that. I was astonished to hear that he does nothing else. I still wonder how he manages to cover up his daily expenses and family’s costs with the earnings of this small shop. Luckily, he told me how he does that. He said inflation is making the money crisis worse, but he is still managing it. I was mainly astonished by his reply on the question of, “Are you satisfied with what you do? How are you really feeling about your life?”
He said, “Thanks to the almighty, I am doing well, and I am satisfied!” This was the best interview I had taken that day. Anyways, other customers started coming in and as my queries were answered, after greeting him, I left the place. The moral of this story is, even for a street food seller, he was happy, and he proudly told me what he does every day. He had no shame in representing what he does every day. I was once told that if a man earns millions of Taka but if this huge sum of money came from corruption, he cannot celebrate his earnings, not even in front of his family.
His soul would be deeply terrified by his own doing. I was also told that if a man earns the least sum possible to pay the bills of his family, he will proudly tell his family about it. In fact, his soul is clean, and he would represent himself with no shame or fear. I suddenly remembered these from this incident.
Anyways, coming back to my assignment. Observing the people I met, I can say that among all these people, the street food seller seemed to be the happiest one. He works 5-7 hours a day and spends the rest of his time with his family and prepares things for his shop. He was deprived of modern technologies, but it seems like it worked as his blessing. He doesn’t have the ambition of gathering money to own the world. But he sure saves money for the dark days or some emergencies. He is grateful, satisfied, and he sure is happy.
“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to enjoy your life. The things you are running after are illusions, snap out of it. Take a break and look at life.” We are often told things like these. Now, from meeting all these people, I received a practical knowledge of why these sentences about taking breaks and enjoying life are so important. So, we should make a commitment to spend time in a creative way to enjoy life while making a living.
END/TDM/EHM
