My apprenticeship in the industry began with some unexpected help.
Within a week of emerging from the university, I went to work for a large European company and the Eurasian secretaries there played a large role in my life. They belonged to a community that was incorrectly called the Anglo-Indians, because their forebears were not just English, Scottish and Irish, but also French, Portuguese and Dutch. They spoke English, affected western dress and had a unique culture that melded Indian with occidental ways.
Mine was an affluent British firm and it hired only Eurasians as secretaries, probably a legacy of its colonial heritage. The Indian executives tended to look down on the secretaries because of their biracial antecedents; the secretaries in turn usually despised their Indian bosses, usually regarding them as uncouth. Fortunately, I was assigned Pamela, a pleasant elderly secretary who somehow looked on me as a wayward youth and treated me with maternal protective care. This proved a lifesaver, for I was young and totally unversed in the ways of a narcissistic bureaucracy. She saved me from a thousand pitfalls and a million gaffes.
I defied company tradition by inviting Pamela to an elaborate lunch the very first week. It was my idea of starting work with a person I considered an ally. She graciously reciprocated by inviting me to her home the following week and introducing me to her husband. Thanks to her I gained a sterling reputation among secretaries. In those pre-computer days, we dictated letters to our secretaries who then typed them out. I was aghast that most executives dictated a draft, sometimes a second draft, before signing the finally typed letter, forcing the secretary to print it several times. I disciplined myself to think ahead and dictate fast and only once, telling the secretary the paragraphs and punctuation. Result: I dictated only once, saving my time, and she typed letters only once, saving her time.
My reputation as a dictation wizard spread fast. Whenever the director wanted me to prepare a draft, Sharon, his secretary, would say, “Perhaps Mr. Nandy can dictate it to me, and I can get it to you in the next fifteen minutes.” I liked that because Sharon was the prettiest secretary in the whole office, and she had a great sense of humor. At our first encounter, she named me ‘Menace’ and claimed that my rapid-fire style reminded her of a hoodlum in a Hollywood movie. She mocked what she called my show-off erudition because I used words she declared nobody else knew and I also used punctuation marks such as a colon or semicolon that no other executive used. She was amazed but complied with my request for the Director’s last 500 letters, which I analyzed to work out the kind of letters he preferred, and, from that point, he never took issue with anything I wrote. Rather, he started sending me others’ drafts to change and improve.
Janine, an earnest Catholic secretary, wrongly inferred that I was a devout Catholic because a Jesuit priest used to visit me regularly and I occasionally took him out for a meal. He was my friend, not my cleric, and our common interest was literature more than religion. But Janine took our closeness as a sign of my piety and would invite me to all kinds of church events. I went to a couple of social events and even danced the whole night with her at a gala. She impressed me genuinely by her generosity, for I retained her high esteem – she even spoke well of me to other secretaries – despite failing to turn up at St. Thomas’s ever for a mass. When our company made a significant donation to Mother Teresa’s charities, she came breathlessly to hug me, not incorrectly guessing that I had something to do with it.
Within a week of emerging from the university, I went to work for a large European company and the Eurasian secretaries there played a large role in my life. They belonged to a community that was incorrectly called the Anglo-Indians, because their forebears were not just English, Scottish and Irish, but also French, Portuguese and Dutch. They spoke English, affected western dress and had a unique culture that melded Indian with occidental ways.
Mine was an affluent British firm and it hired only Eurasians as secretaries, probably a legacy of its colonial heritage. The Indian executives tended to look down on the secretaries because of their biracial antecedents; the secretaries in turn usually despised their Indian bosses, usually regarding them as uncouth. Fortunately, I was assigned Pamela, a pleasant elderly secretary who somehow looked on me as a wayward youth and treated me with maternal protective care. This proved a lifesaver, for I was young and totally unversed in the ways of a narcissistic bureaucracy. She saved me from a thousand pitfalls and a million gaffes.
I defied company tradition by inviting Pamela to an elaborate lunch the very first week. It was my idea of starting work with a person I considered an ally. She graciously reciprocated by inviting me to her home the following week and introducing me to her husband. Thanks to her I gained a sterling reputation among secretaries. In those pre-computer days, we dictated letters to our secretaries who then typed them out. I was aghast that most executives dictated a draft, sometimes a second draft, before signing the finally typed letter, forcing the secretary to print it several times. I disciplined myself to think ahead and dictate fast and only once, telling the secretary the paragraphs and punctuation. Result: I dictated only once, saving my time, and she typed letters only once, saving her time.
My reputation as a dictation wizard spread fast. Whenever the director wanted me to prepare a draft, Sharon, his secretary, would say, “Perhaps Mr. Nandy can dictate it to me, and I can get it to you in the next fifteen minutes.” I liked that because Sharon was the prettiest secretary in the whole office, and she had a great sense of humor. At our first encounter, she named me ‘Menace’ and claimed that my rapid-fire style reminded her of a hoodlum in a Hollywood movie. She mocked what she called my show-off erudition because I used words she declared nobody else knew and I also used punctuation marks such as a colon or semicolon that no other executive used. She was amazed but complied with my request for the Director’s last 500 letters, which I analyzed to work out the kind of letters he preferred, and, from that point, he never took issue with anything I wrote. Rather, he started sending me others’ drafts to change and improve.
Janine, an earnest Catholic secretary, wrongly inferred that I was a devout Catholic because a Jesuit priest used to visit me regularly and I occasionally took him out for a meal. He was my friend, not my cleric, and our common interest was literature more than religion. But Janine took our closeness as a sign of my piety and would invite me to all kinds of church events. I went to a couple of social events and even danced the whole night with her at a gala. She impressed me genuinely by her generosity, for I retained her high esteem – she even spoke well of me to other secretaries – despite failing to turn up at St. Thomas’s ever for a mass. When our company made a significant donation to Mother Teresa’s charities, she came breathlessly to hug me, not incorrectly guessing that I had something to do with it.
Perhaps the most remarkable was naughty Crystal, an attractive short-haired minx, the cynosure of all the bachelors in the office. She had shrewdly determined that I was the most accessible – and probably gullible – young man in our department and would discreetly play all kinds of flirtatious games with me. On the stairs or in the elevator, she would deliberately brush past me, or, coming to deliver some urgent message, would softly whisper, “When will you invite me for a drink?” When I felt emboldened enough at last to invite her for tea, our conversation was a modest session of covert signaling. I am not sure what prevailed at the end, wisdom or cowardice, but we parted as good but unimpeachably chaste friends.
It is my perverse belief that I learned from these encounters as much as I ever did from any of my bosses or colleagues, let alone the myriad conferences and training sessions I suffered through. They taught me that little gestures and signals often mean more than your words, spoken words deftly spoken could convey more than looks, and a little care about how you present yourself might count more than the appearance you were born with. I learned to deal with different types of persons, respond to their preferences and aversions, and enjoy the whole darn learning process.
A decade later, when Pamela, who never stopped causing an irrepressible throb in my heart, left the company and immigrated to Australia, I knew the time had come for me too to look for another job. My days with Eurasian secretaries were over.
It is my perverse belief that I learned from these encounters as much as I ever did from any of my bosses or colleagues, let alone the myriad conferences and training sessions I suffered through. They taught me that little gestures and signals often mean more than your words, spoken words deftly spoken could convey more than looks, and a little care about how you present yourself might count more than the appearance you were born with. I learned to deal with different types of persons, respond to their preferences and aversions, and enjoy the whole darn learning process.
A decade later, when Pamela, who never stopped causing an irrepressible throb in my heart, left the company and immigrated to Australia, I knew the time had come for me too to look for another job. My days with Eurasian secretaries were over.
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