The power of good cheer

I guess anyone reading this post is well aware that I'm not the kind of person that gets up in the morning thinking, "Oh boy! I cant wait to get to work." Infact work is about the last thing on my mind when I get up in the morning.. and that too only because try as I may, I cant banish it totally from my thoughts. And when I get to work my philosophy is: The pretense of work is more important than work itself.. or some like that, and to that end I always try to create an illusion of working hard without actually doing anything spectacular. In the mean, I do a whole lot of non-work that keeps me happy and cheerful, with the result that I always have a goofy smile on face and am always in mood for small talk and banter. Consequently, I have an excellent rapport with all my collegues who, I suspect, regard me as a bit of goofball who's fun to have around. So, thats about things at work... Now there's an old Chinese saying that goes, "Man that pretend to do work sometime need to do work." ... ok, I made that one up, but I'm pretty sure the Chinese did have something to that effect. They have wise sayings for all conceivable... and some inconceivable.. situations. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that this man.... er, me in this case... realized the truth in the saying a couple of days ago... and not in the most pleasant of circumstances either. A day before a key deadline someone discovered that my component was refusing to work in harmony with the rest of the product and my manager almost had a stroke. All this, while I was having a peaceful cup of coffee in the cafeteria. Emissaries were despatched to far corners of the building to locate me and not long after that I found myself rushing to the scene of the disaster. When I got to the S of the D, I found that a couple of my colleagues were already on the case. I just stood by, making knowlegible sounds and nodding my head solemnly from time to time, as I stared at the monitor with no clue about what was going on. In about an hour's time my colleagues managed to isolate the problem and suggested a solution to me. It was then that I realized that I would, by myself, have taken substantially longer just to identify the problem. Armed with the knowledge of how to proceed, I proceeded to my desk to be productive for the first time in a very long time.... and boy, it was tiring. I did manage to get the fix in just before the deadline, much to the delight of my manager who commended me for my efforts. And I had my colleagues to thank for that. For all I know they might have taken up the task of identifying and isolating the problem because they had nothing better to do in life but I'd like to think that they did it because they genuinely wanted to help me. And they probably wouldn't want to help me all that much if I were a taciturn chap who kept to himself and made for very uninteresting company, which I probably would be if I buried myself in my work. So, if I were a diligent worker I probably wouldnt have got the help I did, and would most likely have been in some really hot water by now... wow... Is life ironic or what... 8-) .. until later... cheers..