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07:33 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
March 24, 2013
This is one of those once upon a people of this world time stories. Like the pests in the household got together one day and decided to hold a major meeting to discuss their survival problems.
The roaches, the flies, the mosquitoes, silverfish, fleas and wasps arrived on time and the meeting was called to order.
Someone said, one second, where's the gekko lizard?
They all looked up and saw the lizard on the ceiling.
Come on down, they said, we are waiting for you to get started.
Can't, said the lizard, you'll have to do without me.
But we need you, said the group, get down now, this very instant.
Are you all blind, snapped the lizard, if I come down now, who will keep the roof up, fine mess you'll be when it comes crashing down.
There are people like this lizard. People we meet every day. Indispensable people. Believing that without them things won't work, things will come crashing down, systems collapse. And you look at them and say, the first lesson you learn wherever you are is that no one is indispensable. There is always someone ready to take over...at less cost and probably with better result.
Now, there is nothing wrong in having our illusions but so many of us stick to the ceiling in our upside down fashion and actually believe we are holding up the roof.
All too often the position we hold or the wealth we have accessed or the meaningless designation some idiot owner of a company has bestowed upon us for caprice leads us into even a deeper delusion about our role in the great scheme of things.
You hear people giving themselves away.
I have to attend the dinner, they'll be so upset if I don't fetch up (they won't even notice, brother).
My boss depends on me, he values my opinion (how can anyone be so unutterably naïve).
My friends are always asking for my advice, any problem and I get called (yeah, sure.
As usual, I had to save the situation; they were stuck without me (probably created the crisis in the first place).
It’s late to teach the newbies, the chief said he couldn't trust anyone else (sucker!!!).
Then the acolytes join in:
Sir, you are the greatest, nobody can do it like you, where would we be without you, this company runs because of you.
And the lizards, they believe this drivel; they absorb it and use it as fuel. They become the glue that keeps things from falling apart.
And it never strikes them that all the evidence points in the opposite direction.
You just flit onto the stage, my friend and then you flit off it and no one gives a toss after the first few days.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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