The Universality of Parkinson's Law!

Despite the eminent economist OJ da being my best friend in IL, I keep a safe distance from all economists, say at least 500 meters, because of their ability to state even the obvious in the most incomprehensible language. If guys like Art Buchwald can make such statements about economists as ‘An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways of making love but doesn’t know any women’, I can visualize the frustration they may have felt about them! I always thought that economists were guys who were blessed with everything except a good sense of humour until I came across an incredible economist! My first exposure to C.Northcote Parkinson was almost a decade after he pronounced his profound law that ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’. On reading it, the scales fell from my eyes about economists as a clan and I started looking at them with fresh interest. Parkinson established that economic laws could also be stated in a language couched in humour and his instant rise to stardom paved the way to a plethora of economic laws stated in equally humorous language like the Peter Principle and the Dilbert Law. By now I realized that the much maligned community of economists was second to none in humour. My latest discovery is of course OJ da. To talk about his delightful sense of humour here will be like carrying coal to New Castle!

I must now get back to Parkinson’s Law about how work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This law makes me more contemplative than all the Vedas and Upanishads put together. The more I think about it, the more I am overawed by its universal applicability! For example, I had just read a blog by Chitvish lamenting how the ever increasing availability of consumer goods in the market had left us wanting more. This is in reality a derivative of Parkinson’s Law.

In the 1940s, there was a famous Doctor in Triplicane (Chennai) by name Dr.Krishnamurthy Rao. He had an equally eminent assistant called Ramachar who carried a designation of Compounder. He was also a Stamp Vendor. Whenever I fell sick, my mother took me to him in a hand-pulled rickshaw and we used to be mentally prepared for a two hour wait because such was his popularity! All the medicines required were kept stored in his clinic as raw materials and it was Ramachar’s job to mix them as prescribed by the Doctor. The Doctor prescribed a combination of powders and liquids. He had a penchant for prescribing carbonate mixtures for most of the ailments as he strongly believed that most of the illnesses arose out of a bad stomach. The mixtures were dispensed in flat bottles which carried on one side the details of our name and the number of days for which the concoction needed to be consumed. On the other side of the bottle a strip of paper depicting a marking of single dozes would be stuck. There would be a prominent legend inscribed on the bottle imploring us to shake it before use. The concoction would be so bitter that it would be impossible to consume it without a spoonful of sugar. In my later years, whenever I heard the beautiful song ‘A spoonful of Sugar’ sung by Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, I always had a fond recollection of my trysts with Dr.Krishnamurthy Rao. The song went like this:
A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-down
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way!

Most of our illnesses were cured within a maximum of 5 days through these mixtures which had absolutely no toxic effect. We attributed this to the curative powers (Kairaasi) of the Doctor than the medicines! Branded medicines were unknown then. Then started an invasion of penicillin and other antibiotics. With that, the number of diseases also increased in geometric progression. These medicines created more diseases! A medical shop is not considered good unless it has at least a hundred thousand branded medicines. Thus we see the relevance of Parkinson’s Law here too! Diseases multiply to match the availability of medicines in the market!

What Parkinson stated perhaps playfully has now reached the status of profound philosophy! It has indeed become the fundamental principle of all human activity!

 

Dear Viji
Thanks for the first FB. You are a 'kairasi' FB writer!
What you say is very true about Doctors. Their love and concern may cure about 70% of our ailment while the medicines they prescribe may cure the balance of 30%. Kairasi is nothing but the synonym for intense compassion!
Sri

 

Dear Mindi
Your point about the economics and commerce fraternity generally lacking in humour needs to be examined in detail. My own take on this is that people who have a flair for numbers are usually very rational in their thinking. Humour needs a person to be a bit irrational. The more irrational he is , the better will be his humour, like Oscar Wilde for example! Of course, I am another example! Rational guys can never look at a scenario with a stretched imagination which is the basic ingredient of a good sense of humour.

As regards the length of a meeting and its value Shanahan's Law states it very clearly thus:
" A meeting's length is inversely proportional to the square of the number of attendees and its productivity inversely proportional to its length!"
It is indeed amazing how some people are able to conceptualise life's little aberrations in hard hitting statements!

Your last statement is the quintessence of human behaviour and we see them everywhere around us!
Sri

 

Dear Shanthi
That's a very tempting question you have raised in the end! It is very difficult to pass it over. And with Mindi acting as a catalyst, I am keen to stretch my mind a bit over this vital question.

Coming back to the humourless economists, of course every rule has an exception. I was a banker no doubt, but it was more out of compulsion! I studied geography and became a bank officer because in my days, the job you were saddled with had no connection to the subject you studied. Thus a chemistry graduate joined the Accountant General's office and a Zoology graduate became a Railway guard!

Even before Copenhagen was selected as the venue for the epoch making summit, we all knew what the outcome would be but you must admit that Copenhagen was a nice city to be! When Russia (the then USSR) was behind the Iron Curtain, they always joked about how the election results were printed and kept in a sealed receptacle even before the elections took place!

The connection between the growth of economy and the helms of skirts eludes me but I'll find it out some day!
Sri

 

Dear Jaya
It's news to me that you got your job because the work expanded to accommodate you! It is a greater news that your boss tends to associate this Parkinson with that Parkinson!:rotfl

But honestly, you must get hold of this book and read it. The sales commission can either be paid to me or offered to you as a discount. Bankers are certainly a big bore if they are knowledgeable but I was not! I retired prematurely twelve years ahead of the due date because of my frustration at not being able to master the subject of Banking.

The closest to a compounder I see these days is the guy who makes Pav Bhaji in restaurants. He displays the same skill as the Ramachars of my days! I have seen Ramachar even acting as the Doctor whenever a lowly patient came for treatment in the absence of the Doctor. Those were the days indeed!

Adutha thread mattum ille, endha threadleyum ungalai vida matten!
Sri