The price of being disorganised

My desk is a mess - there is a telephone, movie DVDs, my laptop's adaptor, coffee mugs, books, papers and God-knows-what strewn all over it. And my bookshelf looks worse. There could be a monitor lizard sitting behind all those books and papers and I wouldn't know of it before April 2007. And the silly thing is, the institute encourages this kind of clutter. Honest. Last term, our MGTO professor told us in class that clutter on the desk is a sure sign of a top-notch CEO in the making. Since then, I've lost all incentive to clean my desk.

In any case, I could never keep my room a 100% tidy; it can be very tidy for a short span of time, or slightly tidy for a moderately long period of time, but never very tidy most of the time. Thank God, Mum hardly visits, else she'd tear my hair out asking me to clean my room. I still recall my time in Bangalore - cleaning my room was one task that was always on my to-do list. It had occupied some kind of a permanent position on the list. Whenever Mum asked me to clean my desk, I was always ready with a quick "Next weekend." And weekends are wonderful days.. they're meant to stay in bed till late, not give a care about the world, and worldly chores such as cleaning rooms. Actually, I have a ready-made excuse in that regard here. ISB doesn't have weekends. Weekends exist on calendar but are not real - they're loaded with as much work as weekdays. So there, Mum, I'll clean my desk on the next "real" weekend :-) Unless the monitor lizard decides to come out from behind the books before that.

Coming back to the CEO-in-the-making-theory, it has occurred to me that it also takes a CEO lot more than a mere untidy desk to stay in the race. One also needs a very powerful memory to remember where one shoved those tiny bits of paper that other people gave you telling you they're important. You know, those little things that seem so insignificant when you accept them from others - things like lecture notes, class handouts, case discussion slides, etc. And I seem to be lacking severely in the memory department.

Our Operations course in the third term had a case study about a restaurant called Benihana of Tokyo. Actually, the name of the case is a bit misleading. Since the restaurant is located in the US, the case should've been named "Benihana of Tokyo of the USA". Adds to the clarity for folks who haven't seen the restaurant themselves, or pre-read the case. The misleading name apart, the case was an interesting read. The restaurateur's idea is a fantastic concept. But profs shouldn't make us discus food or restaurants right after a meal at ISB's dining hall. Makes you feel really bad about not getting your money's worth. As I always do with every case, I picked up the discussion notes which I later lost in the clutter of my desk.

And in the fifth term, we have the same case all over again in another course called Marketing Services. The professor for this course (he's fabulous, btw) expects us to pre-read every case and submit a written analysis before the class begins. The question he wanted us to answer for this case was "What is the role of the chef in the Benihana restaurant?" I distinctly remember the Operations prof discussing the exact same question back in the third term. And in my eagerness to prepare the perfect write-up, I spent a good half an hour trying to find my old case notes... but couldn't find 'em. And then I spent another half an hour trying to answer the question by myself. That's a full hour. One hour of non-productivity, one hour lost in the race to become a CEO, but more importantly, one hour less of precious sleep. Anyway, I shouldn't be complaining; I made up for my lost sleep in the Marketing Research class :-)