Indian Wisdom in the Office

I don’t work in a corporation. I work for a non-profit, but sometimes the corporate connotations fit. I just tried to open the top drawer of my file cabinet, which contains the bulk of the information, outside my e-mail account, that I need in order to do my job. When I pushed in the metal notch that enables me to open the drawer, it popped off, nearly taking my thumb nail with it, locking me out. I went to the office manager of the Neuroscience department here who told me to tell someone else to call maintenance. That seemed rather inefficient, so I asked for the number for maintenance. When I called I got a woman who couldn’t understand my first name, as if I had said "Frxzihta" each time. She spoke in broken English about putting me on a list. Then, when I explained that it was very important, as I need in that drawer frequently throughout the day, she gave me the very same reply, indicating to me that she didn’t know what the hell I was saying and that this was one of the few English phrases she knew. I might as well have not called. Still, three hours later, nobody has shown up. However, the hand of magic appeared.

As I was beginning to type this, having all sorts of angry thoughts, the doctor who is my new boss walked into the room. Naturally my instinct reaction was to jerk around, startled and guilty as if I were doing something wrong, because I wasn’t doing work work (although I’ve come to consider this blog to be part of my job). He just came in to drop something off and left, so there was no cause for alarm, but I’d already mishandled that one, looking like I was involving myself in some kind of pornography here in my office. Now that would be cause for the guilty startle much more than writing this. Anyway, he came in later, and I told him about the goings-on with the file cabinet drawer. While I was talking he walked over to the file cabinet, picked up the broken metal notch, and jerked it around in the empty slot. Immediately the drawer opened, and he said, "The magic touch." I told him I’d been trying the same thing for a long time earlier to no avail—and that feeling like some sort of criminal I’d even tried using an untwisted paper clip. I added that I had been having some angry thoughts about the whole thing when he’d come in earlier and that was why I had looked so startled and strange. I also added that that was also probably why I couldn’t get the drawer open. Anger always keeps things from untangling themselves. He smiled, looking down at the journal article I'd handed him, and said, "Don’t you know that? Anger never gets anything done." I said, "I know. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now." Today a wise Indian doctor reminded me of the way the world’s internal energies work, and of the way I can work with them.