Life goes in a full circle...

“Aalia”… “Present Teacher…”

“Anahita”… “Present Teacher…”

“Ashwin”… “Absent…”

“What? Ashwin is absent again? I am going to call his parents. Enough is enough.”

You would have thought that Gone are the days of those big fat attendance registers, school will be the end of these compulsions, and you were right to some extent. Come college, and welcome the bunking days! Where sitting for lectures and attending college is considered foolish and such behaviour will surely get you labelled as a ‘Nerd’ for the lifetime…college life is probably the best period!

But it is also college life which spoils us for our future working life. Now once we are out of college and we have completely lost touch with the terms “on time” and “attendance”, we are again bombarded with warnings and punishments, reminding us of our school days. And to make things worse, the work scenario is stricter than the school scenario (after all at work, they threaten you with cutting down your salary).

But, true it is, when they say that- Life always comes back in a full circle!

And funny how it comes back even in terms of technology…!

Now the reason we are discussing so much about time and attendance is because, no matter how much ever we progress in terms of technology a point comes when we again tend to go back to the age old methods (back in a full circle!)

As a child, I used to often go with my uncle to his office. There used to be a huge Grandfather clock, and each employee was given a clock card. Every time my uncle entered or left the office, he had to pull a lever, and the time, the day of the week and month used to get punched in the form of holes at specific places on the card. I used to love pulling the lever; later I came to know what was amusing for me as a child, was one of the most dreaded instruments in my uncle’s office. It was the elders’ attendance record book.

Now this was the case, some 15 years back. The first of these devices was designed in the late 19th century by Daniel M Cooper. But, this concept of maintaining a record of one’s employees’ attendance has been around even from before this invention. Prior to this device, there were large registers where each time the employees came in, they had to write down their name, their time of arrival and sign against it; and before leaving they had to write down the time of their departure. Now, apparently, the famous college “proxy” system (or the buddy punching as they call it in offices) started even in offices, where colleagues asked each other to sign for them, or record the time as per convenience. (That’s what one of my uncle’s colleague said but I am not sure if this prompted the need for newer ways to record the attendance or whether some genius and overly punctual person just decided to invent it)

So, soon after the clock punching system, companies took this idea and started to develop smaller and less complicated machines. One such machine was where the employee had to insert his card or the receptionist will enter the data manually and a printed slip with date, time, and name will be given to the employee. But then suddenly, there was a cry to save paper and these paper slips were replaced by plastic cards. All you had to do was just swipe the cards and voila your attendance is recorded in the company database. But this too was not universally used. Biometric or fingerprint record machine was another device used at many work places. A very effective method, but also expensive and according to many quite a faulty device. “After a few months, the device just stopped recognising people, maybe its censors had become weak,” said Mr. Chitlangia, a sales executive from HCL, whose company had installed this device. So, many companies again turned to swiping cards.

So anyway, last week I had the opportunity to go visit my uncle at his office after almost 10 years. I knew that me, being a visitor, will either have to enter a register or will be given a visitor’s pass. But, I was super excited (maybe even hoping to find the Grandfather clock) to see how my old uncle adjusts with these swiping card machines (like most old people, he hates change). To my surprise, what I found out at the office was totally beyond my expectations. Neither was there the Clock machine nor the swipe card machine, not even for the employees, all I could see was a big fat register with rows and columns, and names and signatures.

That was when it dawned upon me; maybe in the wake of technological advancement we are going back to tracing the old paths, and will end up using the age old methods again. No matter how comfortable or efficient or advanced the newer technology is, the oldest method is always more reliable. It is like a trend, a fashion, where we go back to where we started from…and complete a full circle!

(So if you are an inventor, it is a wake up call for you to discover something better and if not, start selling registers, who knows you might become the Ambani of the register business)