I have had the fortune of studying under some of the finest teachers. Totally selfless and sincere to the boot. I often recollect what one my school day teacher once told - "Your Efforts. Your success. We are just tools. An assist, like your book. Use it wise, you succeed. Use it bad, you lose out." Even today, I reiterate this point to my own students. A good majority of my own learning I can trace it back to specific teachers from my school. College was good. The teaching personnel bit more friendly. But nothing matches those teachers from my school days.
This post isn't about my school teachers or college teachers though. This is about those peer group teachers, who teach you something which you'd be using it day in and day out. Something that would have made you a far more better person or improved person, with that extra skill or knowledge. They patiently would have trained you or taught you all those little things, which may not seem bigger or better, but you'd realize later how much those small teachings have helped you. And I can stick my neck out and say that, for most people it is these peer group teachers who would have taught them the most!
Some of the people from whom I have learnt things and what I learnt from them is the crux of this post. The list below is in no particular order, either chronologically or alphabetically or whatever. Just the set of teachings that I can remember, and my way of saying thanks to them -
Arun Manjunath R
He was my fellow articled clerk during my articleship. My first brush with MS Excel happened primarily due to him. We were, at that time, the keenest and most tech savvy articled clerks in our office. We did have some secrets to share on our "LAN Experiments" at our office, which often left some of our friends clueless.
Though I was generally good at typing fast, thanks to my attending typewriting classes earlier, I still would be struggling big time when dealing with MS Excel. Especially the formula, and shortcuts etc. The most notable short cut that I learnt from him was the "Ctrl +" and "Ctrl -" to insert rows and columns. And the "Ctrl Shift" and "Ctrl Space" for selecting the entire Column and Row.
These might sound trivial, but only when I started using it day in day out that I started realizing how useful these tools are.
Sundar Raman S
The list of learning is quite long. He was not even an Articled Clerk at that time. I was a CA for two years then. We used to discuss and talk a lot. And the first thing I remember learning was the difference between "Ordinary Items and Extra Ordinary Items", as per AS 5. Shocking but true. I didn't know even this for good five years, and yet I had completed my CA.
From him I had learnt the usefulness of "Macro" in an Excel Worksheet. Together we jointly explored Access and Excel, and created some small utilities for our office, which was well received by our office. We were disappointed when these utilities were later discarded owing to some ridiculous reasons, but we were still proud of our little creations. Even today, when I don't feel like an ass when discussing some technology stuff, I should owe it to him.
Rajesh Kumar C
Babu Garu, as I used to call him, and do that even today, was the one whose inputs helped me a great deal at later stages of my academic life and valuation assignments. The simple tool - Goal Seek and Data Analysis in MS Excel. I have used this tool endlessly in my own experiments and simple review of concepts, trying to understand various ideas in Financial Management, I simply owe some of "enlightenment" in Finance to this tool, and indirectly to Babu.
Shravana Deepan JR
Articled Clerk, Student, Partner and now Teacher! Two things stand out among the things that I have learnt from him - One a Tool, and another a Philosophy. The "Snip" Tool that I have learnt from him, I have been using it generously for over a year now. Be it designing for our Website or FB Uploads, or for my classroom interaction, when I can capture some live data and past it on to the Excel Workings. I still recollect the first reaction a couple of students had, and the feedback that I had received then. They were simply floored, and kept on enquiring on the tool.
The Life Philosophy was simple - Don't take too much stress and don't say yes to any unreasonable timeline. This was something that I never did in my life. Though over the past two or three years, there is very little work related stress, the acceptance to unreasonable timeline was something that I never realized till I started noticing it consciously. Life is all the more better because of that.
Krishna Prasad A
I have blogged before on him, and I can do it a dozen times again. I have learnt lot of things from him. Among the first and foremost was the habit of referring to Dictionary. He used to carry one and constantly say that I should also carry one. These days with a Smartphone in hand and a "Free Dictionary App", carrying a physical dictionary may not make any sense. But during my school days and college days, it surely did.
I used to carry a pocket dictionary, just to ensure that when in need, I don't miss out on the understanding what someone says or what an article reads. This did have on my comfort level with English, which improved from being pathetic to something better. How much better, I don't want to guess, but it surely improved.
And then there are a lot of other people, who have taught me many small things, and to whom I owe a lot. There is Ganapathy S who was taught me so much on "Networking" and "Security", which helped me manage the Office Server for couple of years. There is Balaji, who has among the bluntest critics and often tell me point blank for whatever I am or an issue is. There is Balaji R, who literally made me look at the world outside Office in the days when I never bothered about anything else. And there is Pradeep, my go to many on Statistics and Maths. I would have bugged him more than Google on trying to learn. The list is quite endless. I hope to write something on each of them some day.
Happy Teachers Day Folks! Thanks for your teachings!
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