A "Bread and Toaster" Arrangement

HR of my previous company must have made a very wise move by keeping provisions for preparing bread toast in their pantry. When I saw it for the first time on my first day at office, I was elated - I could make a snack any time I wanted. And bread toast is one snack that I really love. Strange as it may sound, my loyalty for the company was strengthened by the presence of bread, butter and a toaster in the pantry!

Let us for the sake of this blog, call such irrelevant perks provided by the employer as "Bread and Toaster" arrangements. I recently was provided with a similar arrangement at my new position as Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) at Virginia Tech (VT).

I had heard that the Newman Library at VT stocked quite a lot of fiction books. This was in stark contrast to the Central Library at IIT Kgp, which stood by its resolve of not letting any fiction books enter its premises. (Of course, some friends at Kgp had mentioned that they had found some classical Hindi literature there.)

So one day, I decided to set aside some time to explore the 3rd floor of Newman library. This was where the fiction section was located. I was in for a breath-taking experience.

I started by asking a librarian where exactly the fiction books were located. He told me that I would find "light" reading material (e.g. Stephen King) on a popular reading rack in the 1st floor. He said that the 3rd floor housed a lot of material including a lot of "heavy" literature. If I wanted to find some particular author then I should look up the web-based catalog. However if I just wanted to browse through books to get a feel of the collection, then I could scan the racks. And this is what I decided to do.

As I started my walk , I noticed a few known authors and many others that I had not heard of. Here and there, I would notice a book that I had thought about reading for a long time. But I refrained from picking such books from the shelf just now. The racks went on and my mental list of "Must Read", and "Can Read" books kept increasing.

In certain racks, I found a concentration of particular authors. For example, Dickens' whole collection was supplemented by an array of biographies and critiques. There were Indian authors too. One of RK Narayan's books brought back memories of the time when I had bought and read it. And this time I did not have to see the price at the back of the book.

Overall, I realised that I could spend a significant amount of my Ph.D. tenure with these books. VT had provided me an totally non-technological perk and I was really thankful of that.