THE UNCLAIMED BONUS
“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” John Steinbeck E mpathy, it is said, is not a noun, it’s a verb... It’s a word in action. As a teacher of college students, I tend to get impatient quickly... When students struggle to answer, yes, I tend to forget, that I, too, struggled to answer once; often, I was worse than how I find my students now... Ditto is the case when it comes to parenting. Do you and I expect too much and too fast – and too good – from our young children. And, how cooly we forget, that we didn’t live at all up to our parents’ expectations! And, yes, the same impatience is very, very visible at work place, even. When we be come bosses, we forget our days as beginners... Days as novice, filled with many mistakes... It’s often said, that employees don’t quit their companies; they quit their bad bosses – the ones who lack empathy, if I were to paraphrase that... W hen I migrated to Mumbai in October, 1979, I had carri...