The Man Friday at home who makes life comfortable for everybody

Every household has a person or a man Friday who will run around the house and do all the miscellaneous jobs. It can be like switching off the lights of a bedroom, responding to a doorbell, answering the landline which nobody is interested in attending. He is loved around by everybody at home and generally happens to be the youngest person in the family.

The jobs are mundane but still have to be done. A family may have 4 members at home -father, mother, elder sister, and the youngest son. But the burden of moving the wheel of all redundant jobs lies with the youngest. The others are obviously too occupied with important jobs. Father has his WFH; Mother is busy with the household chores; Daughter is busy with her online college classes. So, who is free? It’s the son whose online classes get over in a couple of hours.

Answering the doorbell

The first and the foremost job which nobody wants to attend is answering the doorbell. Whenever the doorbell rings, voices will echo from each bedroom asking the man Friday, in this case, the son, to check out on the visitor. Any delay on the part of the son results in harsh tones from each of the senior members in the family.

The son has to not only open the door for the visitor but also inform accordingly. If it is the dhobi or the sweeper his task is to inform mom. A courier guy from Amazon or Myntra then it must be for didi (elder sister). And last but not the least if it is the AC servicing guy or the electrician then dad gets the call. There is hardly any visitor for the man Friday but still, he has to attend to the doorbell promptly.

When the Man Friday has to respond to the ringing landline phone

Act 2 comes in play when the landline phone rings. These days a landline phone ringing is like a dinosaur getting awake after a long sleeping spell. But still, the phone has to be answered. However, most members of the family are busy with their mobile phones. Dad is busy talking to his office colleagues; Didi is talking with her friend for the last 45 minutes; Mom is explaining the recipe of Dum-aloo to her Bhabhi (sister-in-law). Guess then who will attend it. It’s the son who is playing a game on his mobile who has to walk up to the phone and answer.

And most of the time he gets irritated as the phone generally comes either from an Insurance company, a telecom company, or a credit card company. He gives a curt reply that none of the decision-makers is at home and that they should call later. To his utter surprise, this irritating lot calls again and try their luck to sell and the cycle continues.

The energy-efficient Man Friday

In a world where the carbon emissions are rising and the world is lectured by a 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg to reduce it, our man Friday plays the role of an activist at home. Dad has this tendency of moving from the bedroom to the living room and back. And every time he exits the room, he leaves the lights on, the fan running, the AC on cooling mode. It’s difficult to challenge a tiger in his den especially if he is on office work. Seeing no other alternative mom calls the man Friday to go and put the light, fan, AC all off. It’s not only mom who entrusts him with this job but also Dad and didi as he is the biggest energy saver at home.

When the e-commerce fails to come to your rescue

There are times when in the morning mom realises that she has run out of groceries. It can be bread, butter, eggs or the milk delivery guy failed to deliver the milk. The e-commerce fills up most of the requirements with their doorstep delivery. However, in case of last-minute emergencies, it is our man Friday who comes to the rescue. The son is ordered to visit the nearest neighborhood grocery shop to get the emergency supplies.

The laws governing our Man Friday

It’s not that the man Friday does all this smoothly. There is a lot of inertia and our man Friday follows the first law of Newton which says that “A body will continue to be in a state of rest unless and until an external force is applied to it”.

Mom has to cajole him a lot to do the last minute jobs and for this, she needs to incentivize. It’s here that Newton’s second law of acceleration comes into the picture – “ The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force exerted on the body and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. So instructions given by mom to go and fetch the supplies from the shop sets things in motion for our man Friday. The higher the pitch, the faster is the job done.

Every home has a man Friday and normally the youngest ones at home who is a darling of everybody becomes one. He has to follow everybody’s instructions. So just check out who is the man Friday at your home.

Read more such interesting stories on my blog. Click on the link below:

The Great Expectations: falling in love with childhood once again

Life Skills: The art of making your children street smart

The Blame Game – Who wins: Kids or Parents