I keep the door closed in the office… which means I belong to the “pointy hair’ category of Dilbert and have a cabin of my own…
Anyway, when I say closed, I don’t lock it from inside or anything… in fact, I leave the key in the keyhole when I unlock the door every morning (some technical cynics would say “afternoon” but that's irrelevant in the context) and if someone is really up to playing a prank on me, they can lock me from outside (hope I am not inviting trouble here!)…
Anyway, more often than not, some joker (more often than not a guy named Sandeep) would pop in and grin into my face saying “why don’t you keep your door open? Haven’t you heard of open door policy?”… I have heard this comment so many times that I wonder now if open door policy is all (or also) about keeping the door open… I thought it was figure of speech but may be there is a literal meaning involved…
But there are intricacies involved… My cabin seems to be built of some material which is an excellent conductor of sound… what this means is that I am able to hear all the comments passed by people passing my cabin… what are these comments? No comments! May be keeping door open will help in this case…
But if I really keep the door open – which I am forced to in an unfortunate case of a power failure or something like that – it’s trouble both ways. Many of my conversations are loud and nasty and I don’t think they are really pleasant for my neighbors… And other way round, the stylish ring tones could really be distracting when in deep thought – the latest and greatest I heard most recently was a small child going “message aaya, message aaya, message aaya, message aaya, message aaaaaya” for incoming messages… God bless you my friend…
When I was in London till 2 years back, I had a cabin with no roof and there was an opening in the wall for coming in/going out (yeah, yeah, it was a cubicle)… There were times I would have very loud and heated discussion on the phone and after hanging up I would realize that there were some 10-15 pairs of bloodthirsty eyes staring at me…
Net-net, I think I know better than keeping the door open – whatever my critiques say…
In any case, i decided to look up for "open door policy" on the net to quench my thirst for the ultimate knowledge...
so what exactly is the open door policy?
The Wikipedia definition says -
"The Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs stating that, in principle, all nations should have equal commercial and industrial trade rights in China"
It talks about China in 19th century. Ha! I bet you did not know about this!
Even if you google for "open door policy", the number of links on management difinition is a poor cousin of the China thingy.
That brings me to this week’s poll (pretty abrupt end, ain't it?)–
(oh my gosh, how many times do i need to telll you to scroll down?)
Want to know of the writer in me? Buy my book - "Of A 'n' B"
Sunday, October 7, 2007
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Come to think of it, didnt this concept actually pop up first in hindu mythology.. ramrajya?!! but of course, people could keep their house doors open coz there were no baby voice ring tones around then! hah!
ReplyDeleteAfter building some great expectations, you seemed ended abruptly. Is a ODP Part II in the offing ?
ReplyDeleteLife too shall be smooth with an Open Door policy. However, at times it ends up in totally giving up. Though all are happy around you, you individually get affected a lot.
ReplyDeleteFrom Travel to astronomy to management was a great shift. Just nobel prize did not fit in. Probably can be interpreted as a reinstatement of what was said some years back.
Looking forward for your next post
Well picked up subject of Open Door Policy and well written as all of your previous articles! With technology getting into our veins and all gadgets we carry day and night ( thanks to blackberry) one really needs some time for self and hopefully closing the door could be a breather..
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