The Universality of Parkinson's Law!

Kamla · Jan 5, 2010

‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’.........

Hmmm, how am I to analyze this law...is it that Cheeniya sir is indirectly implying that one is not reeeally busy with work but makes the work longer to keep oneself busy??! I know sir, you are only quoting Parkinson, but why here and why now? Why is it that I feel addressed??!!!!

After a loooong break, I come here to enjoy some humor and this time, humor hits me where it bothers!:bonk:bonk

I see you took enough precautions not to hurt our humorous economist on board, but that was not enough to protect you from me! I really do not expand my work to fill my time Cheensaar, I wish it was true though.

Another lovely post from you and this time, I caught it on time I feel. Although, it was bitter to note what the economist says about 'expanding' one's work because some corner of my brain tells me I may be guilty of it (!), I have decided to swallow it with a spoonful of sugar!

L, Kamla

Cheeniya · Jan 5, 2010

Dear Kamla

From ‘Let there be Light’ to creation of Adam and, from his rib, Eve, God took six days to create Earth and life according to the Book of Genesis and on the seventh day, He rested. There was no question of work expanding to fill the time available for its completion in His case. He had a well laid out Plan and He was on the dot in completing the work. It was a classic example of working to a plan which included a day of well earned rest. More importantly, He had no fear of more work getting allotted to Him if He completed His work in six days and so He could enjoy His rest on the seventh day.

Though He set an excellent example for the humans to follow, we started messing up somewhere down the line. It all started with the capable people who could finish the allotted work in half the time given to them. When they found that they ran the risk of more work getting allotted to them if they finished their original task well within the time given to them, they had to find a way to complete their allotted work only at the very last minute of the allotted time. This went on and on until to a casual observer like Northcote Parkinson, it appeared as if it was all a mere drama!

Parkinson was certainly being unfair to toilers like the mighty Atlas who did not have time even to shrug and poor you! With Time being a fixed entity which can neither expand nor contract, I would amend Parkinson’s Law in your case to read as:
Work contracts to match the limited time available for its completion!

Incidentally, have another spoonful of sugar on me. You certainly need it to continue being as sweet as you are!
Sri

Chitvish · Jan 5, 2010

Dear Cheeniya Sir,
I am overawed by your post this time & hence addressing thus!! Traversing from economist to Parkinson to Ramachar - not an easy job!!
Eminent ILites like Shan, Jay, Mindian have all replied you in their typicallly 'highbro(w)' style & the celebrity cum rare visitor has graced here with her presence.
Knowing that I do not belong to either of the above mentioned categories, reply I must, to share my thoughts.
I liked Arch Buchwald's line best. Oh,don't get me wrong! Not because it is tickly, but because of its practicality.
Planning & prioritizing constitute the key to success in any work. You are likely to chuckle, what work, a housewife like me can talk about!!

Let me also share with you this. My father was a successful medical practitioner who strongly believed in (his) carbonative mixture & APC powder (aspirin-phenacetin-caffein), for all 'maladies'. The first thing he will ask his patient to do is to stretch the tongue (naakkai neetu). He would say the tongue reveals any problem with the digestive system. Carb mixture will clear it, APC will heal fever & last but not least, the one & only iodex for all pains!! Laboratories did not flourish like now, but doctors flourished because of their integrity & correct diagnosis.As Vish says, they did not use a gun to kill a fly or a mosquito!

Your analysis (in depth) is profound though Parkinson might have stated playfully!
Love,
Chithra.

Cheeniya · Jan 5, 2010

Dear Chithra
I feel honoured by your addressing me thus! And thanks for the compliment!

Shan, Jaya and Mindi may have raised their eyebrows to a new height while replying to my Rambling this time wondering if there is no limit at all to my madness that is being paraded in the name of Senile Rambling! Thus your description of ‘highbrow’ style sounds quite apt!

Art Buchwald was not just a humorist. His brilliance came out in many of his writings. My favourite quote of his is:
‘We seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone seems to think yesterday was better than today. I don't think it was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years before admitting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is yesterday and just go out and have one hell of a time.”!

I too have a housewife who keeps talking about her work incessantly and so I won’t chuckle! You are very true about the ‘nakkai neetu’ matter. I have put out my tongue in front of our family doctor a lot more than a dog would have done before its master!

Thanks again for dropping in!
Sri (Cheeniya Sir)

Padmini · Jan 6, 2010

Dear Cheeniya sir,
I truly observed the law you have mentioned in giving fb to this wonderful write up. From Economics you have drawn the doctors also..To, prove your theory about the " Humorous sense" I have to go back to my college days. After so much pressure from my principal, I took economics as my main. When I entered my first class,( of course with my " Aaravaram) I got severe dose from my Economics
Proffessor. There ends my connection with Economics, ( could bear the grin face of that lady.) Switched over to Chemistry.
The Parkinson's law is experienced in the case of cooking. Actually , the time taken to cook all sorts of dishes would take one hour for me in week days. The same thing, I will take two and half hours to finish my task since lunch time is only one'o clock.
Coming to the doctor, in my earlier days, the doctor would even say " nakkai neettu", he would see my eys and would give rose color mixture. All the ailments would vanish. ( poye pochche).
But now even for a small wound, the doctor asks us to take scan, EEG
etc. Everything is for money now and to get commission. The tieup is doing all these things .Next what law is going to come!!!
with love
pad

ojaantrik · Jan 6, 2010

Dear Sri:

One more devastating piece from you. I am not supposed to be playing at IL now, for contrary to the Parkinson wisdom, though quite as paradoxical as his law, I seem to be caught in a mess, involving time contracting to eliminate the enormous work load I ended up creating for myself, on account of sheer indiscretion.

Instead of lamenting my fate though, I decided to visit your home and request you to lend me your shoulder to weep over. But the first thing I noticed was the name by which IL knows me. And then I read the other name too and finally the rest of the post. It was, needless to say, difficult for me to begin to cry without notice.

My immediate reaction was that I had finally understood why I never won the Nobel Prize in Economics. I didn't win it because I committed the gravest ever crime in the discipline. I had smiled, or at least tried to make others smile. I mean once in a while for sure, even if not all the time. No wonder, they never invited me to the the "Gloomsbury" Circle. The fact that God hadn't made me available to be invited at the time is a matter of inconsequential detail.

But I am not sure if your Parkinson (1909 - 1993) was a part of the group either. Even if he was, Lord Keynes had probably looked down upon him with supreme contempt, because as far as his credentials went, notwithstanding the laws attributed to him, he was a mere British naval historian with a penchant for public administration. And as far as I could figure out, it was this latter trait in him that led to the law you quote amongst others.

But proving your point, economists didn't take too long to turn Parkinson's delightful observation into a spine chilling thriller. To make you shudder, in case you haven't shuddered already, economists felt it more convenient to state the law in the following form:

x = (2k^m + p)/n,

where k is the number of staff seeking promotion through the appointment of subordinates; p represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man-hours devoted to answering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective units being administered. Then x will be the number of new staff required each year. (The notation "^" stands for "raised to the power".)

You forced me to look up the relevant issue of the Economist (1955) to find the scary formula! And once I found it, the tears that I had carried with me dried up instantly and I began to smile, imagining of course that I have finally succeeded in fulfilling the task most economists dream of, viz. wiping out the smile from human faces forever. What else do you expect? I am an economist, am I not? Yes, I know, I know, they didn't offer me the Nobel Prize. And I told you why they didn't, didn't I? It's on account of this deadly disease I suffer from, the disease that prompts me to try and make people smile too from time to time.

I am wondering if a visit to Dr. Krishnamurthy is in order. Even if he is basking now in the warm sunshine in Paradise, or whatever it is that one basks in there, he may well have left the formula for his panacea in the hands of trusted descendants. I am not worried about the bitterness it will induce, so long as the final result is a release from the misery of my economist's coat induced misfortune!

And that misfortune consists of being tickled pink at the sight of others' tragedies! Indeed, look at the personal fortunes that India's well-known economists have made simply by offering more and more refined measures of the endless poverty in which millions of our countrymen remain submerged even today.

Despite all the talk about globalization and the super-holy growth rate.

Hee, hee, hee, ...

oj (on his way to the asylum again)

Jpatma · Jan 7, 2010

My dear teacher (Cheeniya)
A good student must read or listen to the teacher's lesson or post, ponder, ruminate, question the lesson/post and assimilate what is needed and excrete what is not required.

While by virtue of being your student, iam still in the early process, but i have found an answer to a nagging question that was in me. All by courtesy of your Parkinson law.

Well i was using size "s" sometime ago, slowly graduated to "m" and then "L" and now to size "XL". I was blaming it on to my sedantry life style and extra indulgence & a bit on my hormones. But now i know it is because of Parkinson law- my body expands to fill the size of the clothes i wear. Eureka ! All my guilt feeling is gone, and i can sleep and laze and eat anything i want. I don't want to go against the law. Ofcourse once expanded body does not shrink even if you wear smaller size. Here the law does not apply.

Thank you my master, now many of us can rest in peace abt expanding syndrome.
Jaya

Cheeniya · Jan 7, 2010

Dear Padmini

That cooking on holidays is a classic example of Parkinson’s Law! We observe it in every household. It is not as if cooking on holidays is any different from normal working days nor is it as though a holiday menu will be some 32 course lunch. It’ll be the same vatha kuzhambu and vendaikkai curry but still it will take twice the time! It may be even less tasty than when cooked in a hurry!

Your encounter with your Economics Professor which instantly drove you to a Chemistry class must have been really awesome. These Economics Professors always look stern and that normally sets off a thousand butterflies in our stomachs. They cover up their projections going awry by trying to look sterner unlike the meteorologists. If the latter predict sunshine and it pours cats and dogs, they just look silly. A few may look heavenwards in utter resignation!

It is a pity that the ‘Naakka neettu’ days of medical profession are over now. You can’t just blame the Doctors alone for it. If they ask us to ‘Naakka neettu’, we retort saying that the pain is in our ‘mookku’ and not ‘naakku’! We even suggest to the Doctor what would be the best treatment for our illness!
Sri

Cheeniya · Jan 7, 2010

My dear OJ,
This is the unkindest cut of all! Here I am just innocently running around your knees pulling your shirt for attention and what do I get by way of attention? You just slap a deadly ‘x = (2k^m + p)/n’ on me! It is a kind of lethal punishment SPS Rathore might deserve but do I, Sir? As if that equation is not enough, you twist the dagger deeper with a legend of all the letters and signs used in the equation!
When I opened your FB, my eyes fell first on this deadly equation by way of a response to Parkinson’s Law, and I started shuddering not only for myself but for the venerated Parkinson too. When I finished reading your FB, I was trembling like a tuning fork pulled by some fat fingers! What was the need for an ever smiling economist to bare his fangs at me for no provocation from me? I entertain a lurking suspicion that the said equation was meant to scare the wits out of me. But I’ll hold on gamely for I am on a Holy Mission now. I am out to drag as many economists as possible out of their "Gloomsbury" Circle into a world of laughter and mirth and I’ll bear all these bullets of equations on my chest!
That brings me to yet another point. Has the Nobel Committee had a change of mind about the awardees for Economics? I see that Amartya Sen never stops smiling these days and that alone should have instantly disqualified him but he went ahead and got the Prize.
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It is a question of conjecture where people normally go to bask in Paradise. An Eskimo might dream of a Paradise full of sunshine, but someone like me from Chennai or worse still Trichy or Madurai may dread a Paradise of sunshine. Who wants to get roasted alive even there? I would expect my Paradise to be some kind of Riviera!
“Indeed, look at the personal fortunes that India's well-known economists have made simply by offering more and more refined measures of the endless poverty in which millions of our countrymen remain submerged even today.”
I can’t agree with you more, OJ, my buddy!

Sri

Cheeniya · Jan 7, 2010

Dear Jaya
The teacher-student role never remains constant. Role reversals are always a distinct possibility depending on how the Teacher fares! Haven’t we seen Lord Subramanya assume the role of Teacher to His Father Shiva? I think you are already there ready to assume the role of the teacher!
It is awesome how easily you have solved the problem of the constantly worrying obese folks! It is only natural that the body should expand to fill the available cloth. Then why do we blame the ice creams, pastries and triple sundaes as the culprits behind the ever expanding bodies? Quite unfair, I would say! It is true that what has grown in economic terms never comes down like the rising prices for example. Parkinson talks only about the expanding work and never vice versa! So don’t worry your head about shrinking back to size if your dresses become smaller!
Sri