Thursday, August 17, 2006

All In a day's work- Episode 2

I promised a more detailed post bout my collegues. So here it is.

We are all of 4 people in the office. Well, that will be were, now that one's quit.(We belive in "chota parivaar, sukhi parivaar"). Before I crash landed, it was 2 guys and a gal (no pizza place, only one small idli-dosa place, and a bakery) Now that I made my magnificent entry, its 2 guys and 2 gals. (and still no pizza place, only an occasional biscuite and Kurkure). N then CC quit, so now we are back to 2 guys and a gal.(no pizza place still)

Having just 4 people means we miss out a whole lotta "employee benefits". We get only one measly Sunday off, as long as some sucker doesn't decide that he wnats to have his company's "fun day-out" that particular day of the week. We dont not have public holidays, 8 hours workday, or a pick-up bus/cab/bike. We do not get Sodex-ho! coupons that we can sell off to our friends for money when we are broke. And no we do not get mediclaim, PF and an HR/ Corporate Communications team that sends us bright happy mails every week to tell us what an invaluable asset we are to the company. We don't even get award for getting our ass to office on time or get our photograph pasted in the bulletin board saying "The most happening Employee of the day" Heck, we dont even have a bulletin board.

Instead, we get to fight for whose gets a desk next to whom, discuss books, movies, and each other's lives. We also get to ask THE Boss to give us some money if we are broke. *Please?Please Pretty please!!* We can all go out drinking and expect THE Boss to pay. We can play Harry Potter quiz, socialize on gtalk, blog, read Crime Library and The Onion, download about 15 MB of Calvin and Hobbes and not have a Firewall pop-up n say "busted!" or get dissaproving mails from the HR talking about the importance of "optimal use of time and resourses to maximize productivity and minimise employee fatigue" or other such vague statements found in MBA and Organizational Psychology books.

So much for my work environment, now to move on to my fellow-inhabitants in the workplace. I'll shall begin at the top of the food-chain.

THE Boss. Self-explainatory. He's the unquestioned caption of the ship. The Big Wheel. The Fattest Fish in the pond. So as to speak. His biggest worry in life is that we don not treat him "boss enough". He's the one man army, the guy who literally visualises the whole works, and then gets it done too. IQ of some 140, he believes that the weird lines that pop up his phone's display screen are part of secret transmissions for the SETI. ( search for extra terrestrials international...duh!) He also believes you should never refuse an offer for samosas. Whenver he says, "I'll be back in half an hour ok? I'll meet this guy and come back" it means that you will see him only the next day. He knows like 3 quaters of the town, and 4/5ths of the town knows him. Which means that the longest his phone goes without ringing is about 5 mins and 47 seconds. 6, if happens to be early in the morning. Quite a guy!

Caramel Custard. Second in command, she is the iron lady. Was, to be sure, coz she's quit now. She's been in the company forever. So she literally knows everything that is there to know. She's the practical one, even though she randomly makes statements like "I feel like a caramel custard.I feel like this giant piece of caramel custard!" The mamma hen. And she sure looks out for her pack like one too. "THE Boss Please don't pick up our cell while riding!" "LD eat your salad da, whats wrong with you? Look how much weight you have lost" "LD Stop smoking so much!" "Moontalk, stop with the junk food. Look at this gal da, she survives on biscuits and ice cream!". Thinks I am a total kid despite of my earnest efforts to prove otherwise. Keeps thinking our clients look, and act like various animals. So far we've had frog, mouse, and bat. :D She's my mentor, and to be honest, I feel a bit lost, now that she's left. And bored. :(


The Lost Don. Third of my wonderful team mates. Slightly lost in life, he suffers from a mild case of delusional disorder. Hates my guts. The feeling, of course, is mutual.
LD: "Moontalk! Call XYZ and ask him if he's free to do a polka dance for me on the 29th. Fast!"
Moontalk: " Can't you see I'm busy discussing how the frog acted when he saw water, with caramel custard? You do it youself, it's your project!"
LD: "I'm the KING. The master of the universe. You have to listen to me"
Moontalk: "Yes Your Majesty" *rolls eyes*
Caramel Custard: "You two make such a cute couple! Kids, you are so adorable" *sniff*
Moontalk: *Barf!*

And, he also thinks THE boss is his "god father" (right!), which is why I call him the Lost Don.
To be fair, he can be quite considerate when he wants to. Like the time, he quitely bought me lunch when I said I don't wanna eat (truth was I was broke, and I didn't wanna say that!). In fact he gets me lunch all the time, when I feel too lazy to walk up till our regular eating joint. So, well. He can be nice too. Comes up with the crrraziest of ideas all the time. Thinks office of profit bill is the same as out of office bill. Says, "I got fully psyched" some 56 times a day. Oh did I mention that he's a karake champ (which is why I don't really push my luck too much in arguements!) and smokes like a chimney?

Alge Eyes. Our resident sound enggineer. Technically he's not part of the team. But he's more or less always there, so it more or less, qualifies him to be an employee off rolls. He and THE boss are till- death- do- us- part buddies, much to the chargin of CC, who happens to go around with Alge Eyes(so naturally she thinks that he should be till-death-do-us part with her, and NOT THE boss :D). He and THE boss have once picked up a stop sign off the road, just like that. "That thing was so irritating da!". He's also the sweetest thing! Has eyes in some weird shade that alters between green and brown. Loves music, and everything that's gotta do with sound.

So there! That's my happy family there! Ours is an office where people can whistle at work(that's me), read Crime Library(thats CC), hide ciggeretts(wrong spelling?) in weird places(no prizes for guessing it LD), and generally be happy. All in a day's work!

Monday, August 14, 2006

I'm SO lazy! I'm SO lazy!

Height of laziness is what the last post was! SO I deleted it. It was irritating to see something like that on my blog! Not that I dont have anything to write about, there's plenty of stuff, as always, running through my head. But well, its quite simply is laziness. Pure undiluted laziness

Sigh! May be its the strain of turning 21 (yeah right!!). Or maybe it's just that there is so much indecision around me that I'm not quite sure what take precedence over the other. Sigh again!

Independance Day today. I woke up at 5.30 a.m, after sleeping at 2.00 in the night. Went to the station to see off a friend. Waited with 2 others, for another friend. This time, she was getting me goodies from home. Had breakfast at the railway station with 2 people I love spending time with. Got back, slept till a health 11.30 am. The got up, and rushed for work. It's 8 in the evening, and I'm still at work. I always said we were a dedicated bunch in office , didn't I? :)

This post...it took me 2 days, and 3 sittings to finish it.

But this is what I pretty much what I wanted. Hardwork. Busy schedules. Being so caught up with stuff that my stupid over-working mind doesn't get the opportunity to work me into psychosis!

So well, this is great. It's not perfect. Life never is. But this is just right. It's wonderful! :)

Current mood? Contentenment! Uneasy, but happy!

P.S. I don't think I can ever be happy if I'm not busy. Well, not that I dont like a break, I do! When it is well deserved. When I have worked for it. Like today!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

All in a Week's Work

The week just ended.

And what a week!]

I got my first pay cheque. * finally! something that I really did earn.*

I pledged my eyes. *now I can live on forever. in parts. right!*

My boss decides to quit the job she's been at, and loved for the past 4 years. For another one that pays double the money. *wow. will I have to wait that long?*

I joined a month ago, am still learning the ropes. I still am a bit lost. N now my mentor, so as to speak, quits. *how could she?*

I decided to stay on, tackle the work head on. So I've to learn faster. But it'd be more fun. *aint I such a fighter*

As I said, all in one happy week's work. Seven days. World does a turn around 7 times. *SO?*


Monday, August 07, 2006

One Weak Slap!

I've always maintained that we live in a very funny world, with some very funny people in it, who have a very funny way of dealing with the problems that life throws them into.

Read this article in The Times of India the other day. About this new buses that the BMTC is planning to bring out. Check it out. These are gonna be 2 new 'prototypes'. One is gonna be exclusively for women. And its gonna be painted, yup u guessed it, in a happy shade of pink. Wonder if it'll have some fancy mirrors attached to every window that the women can use to touch up their make up too.

The other one is even better. This is gonna be this ultra progressive bus, that's gonna have a partition in the middle. The seats in the front are going to be for women, and the one in the back for men. The bus will also have 3 doors- one in the front, one in the back, and another in the middle (u'd wonder were they are gonna put the seats). Men and women are gonna enter thru the middle doors, which are of course gonna have a partition, so that there is no contact between the 2, and for exit, men use the back door and women use the front door. Pretty neatly done huh?

This is how the govt, And the BMTC react to the endless complaints by women of harrasement n molestation. I travel by these BMTC buses...every single working day. So I know what it means. In the past one month that I've started working, in an office far far away from my place, taking 2 diff buses back an forth. And quite honestly, travelling by bus is no joy ride. You gotta travel with sexually frustrated assholes who think because the bus is crowded, and there's hardly place to breath, its a happy opportunity to feel up women, grab watever part of their body they fancy and do all other kind of pathetic assholery. These Sick morons make my blood boil. The worst insult is that there little you can do about. The only revenge u get is a pathetic attempt at counter attact...I use my nails to maul their skin away. Make sure that they need shit loads of anti-septic when they get off the bus. N pray that it becomes septic. I have punched these on their stomachs, stamped their feet before as I get down. But what use are these, when you can't even see the freakkin face of the jerk?

It pisses me off. This "chaltha hai" attitude. This pawing. There's no point trying to complain to bus conductors. They will yell, create a scene outta it, then the entire bus will leer at you, and you end up wishing you had just kept your mouth shut in the first place.

But still when I read bout these proposed remedies, I was more amused than relieved. I have never considered myself a feminist. I don't think all women are "abala naaries" who need to fight for their rights. And no, I don't think all men are jerks either(they are just li'l stupid :D) . Which is why this move amused me so much.

The way I see it, it's a pretty big insult to a man's intelligence, and his ability to conduct himself. It like telling the whole mankind (and I mean only man-kind(!)) that you do not know how to behave like mature adults, so we are gonna deal with you the way we deal with pre-school children. We are gonna set the rules of conduct for you which you will not question, but will only follow like a bunch of imbeciles, incapable of rational or intelligent thought. Period.

When there was this furor with the burkha deal and Sania Mirza, there was this very sensible comment that I heard someone make. It was by Mr. John Thomas, the editor of the Vijay Times, B'lore, who was talking to us in our journalism class. He said that he objects to the imposition of the burkha on women, quite simply because it preassumes guilt on his side. "It is saying that I cannot control myself when I see a woman, and I resent that."

So the men of B'lore, the way I see it, these new buses are quite a vocal insult to your sensibilities. You can keep yourself from feeling up a woman, when you stand next to one. You require a physical barrier to keep your slimy hands to yourself, so that is just what you get.

My comment one the move? One word! Pathetic!

Friday, August 04, 2006

All In a Day's Work- Episode I

Heard in the offices of a very enterprising event management company, in a very enterprising city.

Caramel Custard: "Finally! I got him!"

Alge Eyes: "Sure he's dead?"

CC: "Yeah...now I'm feeling all guilty bout it. What if he's married? What if he came out to fetch lunch for his wife??? What if she's pregnant??? What if they have twins? Gulp!! I orphaned them da! How will they survive??"

ME: "Sigh! CC, they will just drink ur own blood to suvive. And when they do that, we'll just squish them too. Or maybe now that you've killed the dad, the pregnant female will just committ suicide out of sorrow and save you the trouble. Don't give it another thought. After all, who's gonna miss a mosquito???"

PS. This post was so long due. Joined work a month ago, and since then, crazy conversations keep happening. Guess my worthy crazy collegues deserve a proper introduction. Well! Next post!!