Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Cat

Once upon a time, there was a Guru, who was the head of a Gurukulam. He had many student disciples who learnt spiritual lessons from him. The Guru also had a pet cat, which wandered around in the gurukulam.

One day the Guru was teaching something very important in the lessons of spiritual enlightenment. By then, the Guru's pet cat strolled nearby. This caught the attention of one of the students. He started to gaze at the cat rather than listening to what his Guru said. The Guru noticed that and warned the student, in addition, he asked one of the other students to tie to cat to the mast outside and also instructed that cat should be tied to the mast to avoid his students gazing at the cat when it strolls inside.

From then on, when the class started, one of the students would tie the Guru's pet cat to the pole outside the class. A few years passed, the Guru died and the next senior person became the Guru of the Gurukulam. But the practice of tying the cat to the pole when the class started continued.

A few years passed, the cat also died. And in the next day, when the class was about to start, the new Guru shouted. "Where is the cat, don't you guys know that a cat should be tied to the pole outside before the classes start?"

The other students got afraid because the new Guru got angry, found another cat, tied it to the pole and then the classes started for the day.

These days, organizations getting the ISO/CMM certifications do such acts without meaning or purpose. Maybe, the processes recommended in those certifications are to streamline the functioning of the organization in a smoother way. But, many organisations start preparing the laborious and monotonous documentation only at the end of the project/cycle, rather than having them prepared during the course. Reason for preparing at the end - Come on, everybody is busy at the other times :)

So long until the next post...

1 comment:

ThndrKiss said...

I know how this started . . ha ha ha