Work

During an (official) CNY gathering, I met H and L - both clinicians but worked in different hospitals.

"Hi, H, long time no see. In fact you seem not coming to our committee meeting for ages." L was usually the one who brought up a tasteful discussion.

"Uh huh ... Just too busy to attend everything," H murmured, "You see, many a time I am not even able to finish with the homework assigned by the committee ..." (Like the English cabinet, our committee regularly sends boxes of files to its members for perusal. To say the least, it is often a trying task.)

"Quite true," L remarked, "By the way, why don't you bring home those boxes so that you could finish ?"

H turned his head away and looked into my eyes in horror. I was lost in the smell of the atmosphere and the flavour of the words.

On my way back, I could not stopped thinking of Ronald Reagan's story when he was the governor of California.

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One day, when Reagan was about to off work at 4:45 PM, he met one of his juniors - who was hurrying to a meeting.

"I need to stay late. The meeting is very important, and we have lots of urgent matters to take care of." The official explained, with a hue of dissatisfaction to his boss.

"I think both of us should go home early rather," the later-to-be president was unmoved, "If I have to work for 16 hours a day to be a state governor, how could I take up a higher post in the future ?"

PS. I told this story some two years ago in this blog. It doesn't matter. As Andre Gide pointed out: Everything has been said - but nobody was listening.