A Management course is one filled with subjects which can be full of learning! And then are some which one feels one would have been better off without. I am loath to criticise anything which goes on here(mostly out of the selfish motive of self-preservation). However, certain incidents force one's hand or rather keyboard. I am not going to rest peacefully till this particular post is done. I guess this like the proverbial tale about buses which never come for ages and then turn up all of a sudden in force(by the way i am referring to my posts on the blog). Those studying with me would guess what I am cribbing about just by the title. For those who are more fortunate, I will just give a gist of the situation before I launch into something totally random which I hope would extinguish my ire. Well, the outline without revealing too much details would be: we have a course, the objective of which is to enable us to do what the title of this post indicates.
While the objective might not be such a bad thing. However I have a problem with it too because it sort of vindicates the other measures which are followed in the course. How the world would be a better place for managers if all are shorn of style and made to write like 1st standard kids with their essay on the Cow, My Best friend, My father, My country, ...(I guess you get the idea). How anyone can judge a proposal for marriage on the basis of brevity is a matter beyond the comprehension of anyone who is not from the 'School for Uniform Blandness and Tastelessness'. To imagine that I had to write a brief proposal to marriage which is going to be evaluated for its brevity still gives me shudders. Some of the arguments against the established patterns of teaching make more sense(as they have always done).
Well here is a sampling of my first two lines:
Love is the basis of marriage. We love each other. ....
To think that I was made to write such banal stuff. Something totally devoid of any character, style and substance is going to be rated above eloquence. I pity the girl who even has to read such a love letter. I am definitely a crusader against lies but there has to be a limit to concise communication. The way people write is an indicator of the way they think. To limit that particular art even when it comes to everyday communication is to take away something substantial from people. To ask one to communicate clearly is one thing but to dictate the style and impose a particularly revolting type of blandness as the model for ideal official communication is definitely one of the symptoms of a professor who hasn't heard of mass-customization.
I can't continue much longer because I am not making much sense but let this just stand as a post in the fight against uniformity! Express yourself and don't be bothered by the word limit!
PS: This post is going to be edited(for better or worse) sooner or later.
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7 comments:
Shaant bheem shaaant....Nice too see you blogging...Reminds me of the typical eloquent Sajeev..
I totally agree with you and have the feeling that we are being fed baby food ! Although we have a nice time in the class....but the doubts raised in your mind are very genuine....And I didn't know that you had a great sense of humour !
keep wiritng Mickey Mouse !
The blog was perpetuated with characteristics like accuracy and brevity to mention a few, (didn't take any efforts to find any more words), but the basic idea for writing the blog was carried across and that too in style!!!
But you need not worry for long, once he reads my version of the love letter or the marriage prosposal as "He" would have liked to call it, "He" wont bother us with such shitty things anymore.
I hope you got the underlying epistemology of my comment, keep up the good work :)
i disagree wit part of it...i think official communication has to be devoid of floweriness n flourish...waste of time...i disagree when he says we shldnt use emphasizers but verbosity shld def b avoided in official commn...no matter wat ur style is...i wld hate to read an official mail written in eloquent language even if its john milton whos writin it...
but none of this changes the fact tat he is barkin...no doubt about of it...hehehe
btw...gr8 piece of writin tho...must acknowledge tat much...
can't stop laughing at ur (our??) situation...feeling talk...eh??
Even here the brevity is missing[:)]. Seems this word has taken off a lot of ur calories.I understand you can't maintain brevity in feeling talk n u shudnt. But as far as Rizvi is concerned he is trying to make the class a bit interesting n nothing else. U cant teach a bunch of Habshi!!! grown ups english, who already know it. Factual writings do need to be brief at times, so on that point Rizvi knows what he wants to teach us.Chill lets wait for his next class...yooohhhhooooooo.
epistemologically speaking... i agree with what u say simply because we seem to agree on a post modernist perspective, yet i find it hard to believe that u take a subject such as mwc lightly and mock at it while simultaneously mocking the very purpose the subject has been included in the curriculum itself, for nobody on the planet should ever write a sentence longer than 10 words at the max and it is because people write sentences that are more than 10 words nd that is indeed a bad thing, simply because its god damn f****** boring. The end. Now you will enjoy.
I agree with Sajeev on this post...official communication is not always measured from the brevity point of view. If you communicate to your team on the other part of the globe to start working on a particular stuff...following ABCD's of rizvi communication can lead to serious wastage of resources and time! For whatever years(arnd 4) of my f***ing experience, i can tell you that 80% of the stuff that you r goin to write afte ur MBA would not be ABCD; untill and unless u dont love ur job ;)
Though i agree with the fun part of the class...otherwise how u can get over-the-top lines like - 'i wanna spend my whole life with you, and most of it will be on bed' in a set of vanilla classes :)
~nitin
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