Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Of Wardens, the Queen's English, and Irony all over.....

Below is an actual sequence of mails exchanged between me the three wardens and the rest of the HEC, HEC for the uninitiated is the Hall Executive Committee the body of elected students in a hostel which govern it, with ofcourse due "advice" from the wardens......
The backgroud : A HEC Meeting wanted soon.

My First Mail:

Respected Sirs,
we would like to have a HEC meeting with you and the new HEC so that it may be easy for them to dispense their duties for the next term.Please let me know your availability for 6pm on Friday the 18th.

Thanking you

Afroz Mohiuddin

--
We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know.



The next mail came as shock for some one with "..over 35 yrs of experience in the professional industry..."

The Warden's mail (all details leading to the discovery of his identity have been curtailed form the mail;lest he be passed of as a man from some Dharm Satsang Sabha with a blind faith luck, charms etc etc(in short all crap which science squarely dismisses) and not a man from the IIT)


Friday is a bad day. I suggest saturday any time.
--
Dr **************
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Kanpur-208016 India


My next mail (after recovering from the shock of the above mail, quite literally:

Saturday 3pm how would that be ?


.....normally a mail in reply to the above means unavailability on somebody's part ...then happens the Mahabharata.....as it happens no one replies back and none of the wardens turn up.....the warden who in all earnesty had quite something against me right from day 1.....

Look at my next mail framed to be Algorithmically compact, to-the-point, dealing with all cases, no loopholes left, no chances taken, "ab to meeting karvake hi chhodunga"

My mail:
Sirs,
we would like to have an HEC meeting at 5pm on Sunday the 20th of May. If anybody has any objections about the time and the date please mail me at the earliest failing which the meeting is scheduled for the above mentioned time and date.
The agenda is as follows

1)regarding proposal discussion
2)water coolers of B-mid and E-mid
3)permission to photocopy vendor for stationary items
etc.
4)mess coolers
5)any other matter with the permission of the chair

Thanking you
Afroz Mohiuddin

--

We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know.

Afroz Mohiuddin


You bet i patted my back after writing that one(ke isse to nahin bachega kalia)

The reply from the warden was a shocker, was a reply to all, (as was the "Friday is a bad day")

Warden:

Dear Afroz,

I think, 5 PM is okay but the tone of the email reflect arrogance on your
part, possibly unintentionally. I think, as a professional, one needs to
be more courteous.

Best wishes,
--
Dr **************
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Kanpur-208016 India


:( <-ME plus the smiley (what have i done ??!!) (i am bad at smileys, help)

My next mail was a toned down version of my angry self, framed in beautiful Queen's English which has caused quite some problems to us poor indians

Sorry Sir for the perceived impertinence on my part, but i think you read a bit too much into the mail, I only think that tone could have been a byproduct of writing a crisp and to-the-point mail in order to compensate for the folly of my last mail, and the confusion caused due to it.
Thank you for correcting me, and i hope you continue to do this in the future

Thanking you
Yours Truly


After that the fellow shouts at me in the meeting, which i don't attend due to this anti....some crap and some irony.

I leave you to judge whether i was rude and unprofessional or he was being uneducated and high handed.

Comments are Invited !!

2 comments:

Piyush said...

The second mail was a bit too arrogant, and why are you so sure that "Friday is a bad day" does not mean that he is too busy on Friday?:-)
(Normally, I suppose, that's what it means)

Ashish Bhatia said...

Just an advice,
If warden ever reads it you (campus) life could be in jeopardy.