People nowadays are in the business of minding others business.
-Kartik Mehta
It was the first week of January, a cold windy day. I was sitting in one of the computer rooms at the World Trade Organization headquarters based in Geneva, Switzerland. Time was running out and I had exactly five weeks to complete the collection of data for my Ph.D research. With all excitement, I settled down on one of the chairs with books piled up in front of me. I glued myself trying to focus looking out for content that would be useful. I caught the book in my tiny hand and happily marched toward the Xerox machine in the hallway. Lo and behold, there stood a magnanimous printer. It was the largest machine I had ever seen in my life! In fact, this giant machine was taller and wider than me too! Placing the book on the scanner, I started xeroxing. I was nearly done when an elderly lady came with a massive book of around 500-pages. Both of us tried to be courteous to each other - I smiled; she smiled back.
I was in my 20s and she was in her 50s. I spoke English and she spoke French!
The only way that we understood each other was with gestures and facial expressions.
I finished xeroxing, collected the papers, and shifted to my right to make space for the lady. I was standing a few steps beside her trying to sort out my documents just to ensure that I had everything I needed.
Suddenly, I noticed her pressing buttons on the printer and struggling with it. As any normal person would do, I thought of helping her out. She had to xerox a few pages of the massive book in her hand which weighed around 2 kilos. I saw tiny paper flaps inserted in the book to mark the exact pages that needed to be xeroxed.
Do's And Don'ts of Giving Adivce
This story is from the June 2024 edition of Woman's Era.
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This story is from the June 2024 edition of Woman's Era.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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