Monday, January 12, 2009

Mr. Systematic

If there is one thing in the world I want, more than low triglycerides, is to be Systematic. Methodical. Organized. The kind of guy who would know where his '02-'03 TDS Certificates are . Knows precisely, not the "in that bin, I think. Wait, I think we gave it to the raddiwala last week" kind of knowing.

You guessed right, folks. I have just been reprimanded for losing papers. The missus is a wee bit upset with me for not being able to find a paper that dates back to King Tut's reign.

Luckily, it is not important. When I told my accountant, after searching high and low, upsetting several families of spiders and at least two creatures which had 12 legs each, that I could not find them, the least I had expected was "Get ready to join the Rajus in prison". He gave me the "boys will be boys" look and said "That's ok. Don't worry about it".

"Excuse me!", I wanted to ask him, "If you didn't want it in the first place, why did you ask me to look for it?" But I didn't, of course. Because I was weak kneed with relief.

A lesser man would have peed in his underpants. I of course gave him my nonchalant look and said "Rate! I'm gappy. I mean Hate, I'm grappy". He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and resumed his telephonic conversation where I could hear him asking another client to produce his assessed balance sheet from the Indus Valley Civilization period.

I know Systematic people, of course. One of my friend's dad is like that. He has every paper he has ever used, on file. Income tax returns, of course. Property papers. Train tickets. Vehicle Insurance. Even, though I have not physically verified this, every piece of tissue he has ever used, on various parts of his anatomy. All neatly filed.

That is the guy I'm going to emulate. And when my accountant asks me for the paper with which I had wiped my butt on the evening of October 13th, 2001, I will have it ready. In triplicate.

21 comments:

Sowmya Srikrishnan said...

OMG....does being organized make me ancient! Henceforth you dont go about quoting friends' dads and all....when the young and chirpy (ahem!)yours truly almost fits the description too (sans tissues though)

And sirji, would be honoured if you could join the gang too :)

Cynic in Wonderland said...

amen to that i say. also suffer from the same problem. sigh.

Sarsij said...

You belong to a gang of guys who are very much like you.......so no need to worry.
And coming down to your wish to replicate someone, inorder to be a more systemic person......well, take it in written - Its nothing more than a wish.
So enjoy the chaos man! Its fun to be this way :)

Shilpa said...

Ewww, Mr. Shenoy.

Trust me, no accountant is ever going to ask you for tissues.

maxdavinci said...

My frnds dad filed almost everything for 10 yrs and on the new yr holiday each yr he would throw away the stuff from the year that is at the bottom of the stack!

Anonymous said...

Systematic ≠ Methodical ≠ Organized. The husband will comb through annals of neatly organized documents filed away 'systematically' & methodically and swear he left it there.

I, *ahem* on the other hand, have my own system. I can precisely tell him where the tiniest particular receipt is: crumpled in the left hand corner of the brown bin under a bed-sheet about half a foot behind the laundry heap. Or in the ashtray in the shotgun armrest of the car under the candy wrappers. Works without fail. All you do is remember were you casually toss it ;)

-g

Anna Bond said...

I'm extremely curious to know how you're going to triplicate that tissue from 2001.
you know what.. don't answer that.

Anonymous said...

First time commenter. long time reader.

As Holden Caulfield would have said, "You kill me!":-) Really.

Rock on, Naren.

Preeti said...

I'm somewhere in between my dad and mom...My dad's the super organized type with 'files' for everythin (nope, no tissues!) whereas mom everything 'flies'.....im organized when i want to be and as chaotic as ever otherwise!

Preeti said...

^ meant 'with' mom...

SRK said...

we are of the system-attic kind... our system of storing papers is to fling 'em in the attic!

Anonymous said...

Aha, now I can truly bathe in the bliss of being the 'better half' (?) of one Mr.Systematic .Thanks to him, I don't bother about any papers..including the oh-so-important-butt-wipe-tissues ..hehe

BTW, Rate post! Narenji..I mean, Hate Post! Uff.. Great! Post, as always :)

KD. K Bodhi said...

My dad has a file that is labeled Vishvesh's teeth. One labeled Vishvesh's knee.

He has some school feed bill that I paid when I was in UKG. Seems for income tax purposed;)

My mom keeps shouting at him to clean up that shelf.

P.S. I am also called Vishvesh:)

Anonymous said...

So this is the real (psychological) reason why you have been having a craving for paperonni pizza!
Accountants will ask you for papers you do not have, and will secretly trash or misplace the ones you submit with due diligence. And then they will ask you for those same papers, leaving you knee deep in cobwebs and cockroach shit.

Unknown said...

Ahem. It seems if somebody in his 40s (yes, I'm back to pointing out your age to you) can be like that, I'm not so bad after all. After all, I can still find my college notes just a day before exams... after a thorough search of the store room, though... but that detail is trivial.

Anonymous said...

damn shenoy! i just remembered i have jack squat in place.... i don't even remember where my pan card is or my 10th mark sheet...jeez thanks for reminding me man.. now i gotta be worried sick till i find all of em...(till i give up looking, that is)

Anonymous said...

damn shenoy! i just remembered i have jack squat in place.... i don't even remember where my pan card is or my 10th mark sheet...jeez thanks for reminding me man.. now i gotta be worried sick till i find all of em...(till i give up looking, that is)

Maddy said...

First you consign things to your able memory, then you realize that it is no good and you start the filing and archiving process. Shenoy saab, there is a third and penultimate stage - when you start to forget filing or forget what should be filed and not filed and are in a bewildered stage like me. I dare not think of the next stage...

Anonymous said...

You can archive all you can, but the great thing about documents is that when you actually need one, you will not be able to retrieve it.

This from my personal experience.

Anonymous said...

My 15 yrs old son's table is always in mess like all youngsers. It is full of papers, books, comics, cds popping in between, with chocolates wrappers here and there. How much ever i tell him to keep it tidy and organized , there is no effect at all. But interestingly you ask him to bring a particular document from his table given to him three months back, he will take it out in a jiffy from in between the heap. He says it suits him to be disorganized as he is able to find his things faster like this. I wonder how? http://sujatarajpal.blogspot.com/

DeeplyDip said...

this post was hilarious...and i am so unsystematic! organised people give me shudders!