Mothers - The Natural Managers!

I was preparing to get back to work after a long leave of more than two weeks. Office restarts the next day and I thought of refilling the empty grocery stands at home by paying a visit to the hypermarket. I knew it’ll be a bulk purchase and it made sense to go there. The visit was initially planned for during the day but having a little one at home does not always help with sticking to the plan. It was close to 8 o’ clock in the evening by the time we decided to go out. The kid was given a bath and was dressed up to go out. I then went in for a quick bath and by the time I came out the little one was leaning to his mom and had started to doze off.

My sweetheart asked me to reduce the volume of the TV where she was watching one of her favorite shows. As a pseudo time conscious husband, I promptly switched off the TV asking her to go ahead and wash herself so that we can leave without much delay. Guess that’s the moment when she promptly switched over to her management hat.

I was all set to go out as soon as she was ready so that we can return early after finishing the shopping. That’s when she asked me a seemingly innocent question. “What exactly do we need for tomorrow?” I started with a list I had in my mind. Milk, bread, fruits, juice, eggs, vegetables… By the time I finished the list, as if using a magical wand she had already prioritized the items as, critical to have, should have and nice to have.

She identified that there’s one apple left in our fruit tray which I could take to office tomorrow. She could have a pomegranate that was still there or watermelon in the fridge. She promptly remembered the idly batter that was also chilling out in the fridge and mentally mapped her breakfast and my lunch to that, solving that question as well.  A couple of eggs that remain will do for tomorrow just as the case with some of the left over dishes that she can have for lunch. The only thing that remained and critical was milk.

Hypermarkets obviously take longer time with the variety of options they offer that make you drag through the store as well as the long queues awaiting you at the cash counter. Round-the-corner supermarkets always offer a warm welcome for quick buy and it is no surprise that she could visualize the milk cans sitting nicely on the refrigerated shelves of the nearby supermarket.

As I was ready to go, the most natural thing for me to say was, “Ok then, I’ll go and get the milk from the supermarket”. She thought for a moment and said, “If it is only for the milk, why don’t you just give them a call and get it delivered? We can get the rest of the stuff tomorrow either on your way back from office or we can go together”. 

A whole day of planning to go to hypermarket was reduced to a phone call in a matter of couple of minutes. Oh yes, she promptly put the baby to bed and switched on the TV. Her favorite show was still on.

I bowed to the brilliance of the natural born management genius and I knew for sure that it is not the B-school where she had gone that taught her this!