Ulterior motive

Every friday I get a mail from my I.T. head in colorful fonts asking me to shut down my desktop, monitor, linux servers and other equipment for the weekend. The reason cited by him, is usually to save energy and contribute to a greener world.. "Go Green", he says!!

N then there are occasional mails stating that the AC temperatures will be remotely controlled for power conservation purposes.. due to which we have to literally sweat it out in the office at times.. (because its summer...and the Gods have gone crazy this yr...)..but its all for the greater good!! and no one complains....

until one day......

Three months down the line, he shoots off a mail in even bigger and flashier font to the Company Heads, Directors and Managers with us in cc, stating that he has managed to save xx lacs for the company by taking these initiatives. The company's electricity bills have gone down by 30%..blahh...blah....followed by a bar graph showing the electricity usage per month!!!

To me this mail means the following "Respected Heads, Directors and Managers: Please make sure that I get some part of this green money (which the company has saved through my idiotic initiatives) as a part of my hike. Also...please...consider me a candidate for Grade A during my appraisal..Also please give me some real work, because as you can see I have loads of free time (The usage of different fonts, colors and cosmetic decoration in the mail proves this)."

Go Green....or Save Green??... and pocket some of the green too!! ;)

Work Experience

We have this guy in office. Lets call him X.

Mr.X holds a postgraduate degree (M.Tech). Mr.X has an overall experience of eight+ years in the telecommunication industry. But, he is the dullest individual in his team. His work output is the lowest, his grades are the worst, his technical knowledge is close to zero, his communications skills are sub zero. All in all he is a liability to his team.

Wondering why i am writing all this? What wrong has Mr.X done to me?

Nothing.... absolutely nothing...

Its just that he has two job offers in his hands right now. Both the companies have urgent openings. Company A badly wants him to join as a manager with a whopping salary package and Company B badly wants him to join as a technical lead with an even more whopping salary package. Mr.X has cleverly pitted A against B and I am sure that he will derive maximum possible gain from the duel.

This makes me think...
Do i really need to work in office and expand my knowledge in a country where only YEARS of EXPERIENCE is considered a benchmark while switching jobs?

Is being at the right place at the right time more important than being more competent?

Whay am I even asking this??? The answer is obvious!!

The answer is Mr.X!!!

Bad week

This has been one of the worst weeks of my life so far...the reasons being..


1. Withdrawal symptoms due to quitting smoking 6 days back.

2. TL(who is my friend) is not in town, so have to interact directly with the manager.

3. We have to deliver a product on 1st August due to which I am spending 11+ hrs in office everyday (this combined with point 1 makes the feeling worse. Combine this with point number 2 and you have a killer!! ).

4. Personal life has gone for a toss (due to point 3).



Two more days to go in this week....

As Sallu bhai says it....FANTASTIC!!!

DILBERTISM

Dilbertism is the ultimate truth. We live it.

Dilbertism is an integral part of every office. Rather, an office exists because of it. It comes across as strange that, though we experience and observe Dilbertisms in our offices everyday, we never laugh about them. The same incidents when read in the cartoon strip instantly brings a smile.

Indirectly we are smiling/grinning/laughing/feeling sorry/etc/etc on our own lives.

Maybe this is a Dilbertism too!

How was your day?

How was your day?

I wake up late today and miss my office bus. Then I take an auto and get stuck in a big jam. By the time I reach office, it was half past eleven. I open my mailbox and see that there is a huge amount of work already queued up. As soon as I start with work, I get interrupted by my boss. He wants me to attend this meeting with the clients. The meeting could have been shorter if the clients had brains. It literally took me one hour to explain what a child could have understood in ten minutes. I grab a mug of coffee after the meeting to soothe my headache. I start with my pending work while more work keeps pouring in. I have a quick lunch and I am back in a meeting which is even worse than the earlier one. After the meeting, my boss asks me to complete the whole work by evening and I am like “are you nuts?” How can he expect me to do my work while all I am doing is attending meetings? I try my best to wrap up as much as possible. Issues keep popping up and I am not 100% into what I am doing. Its eight already and all I want to do is leave office. I try to sneak out, but get unlucky and meet my boss in the parking lot. I assure him that I will finish the pending work tomorrow. I take an auto and get stuck in a traffic jam again. I reach home and all I can think of is crashing on the bed. How was your day?

It was OK.

The Gang - 3

Things got better with time. Thanks to a lot of pushing by Vikram and Adi, Kunal proposed to Arushi one fine day. It was done in typical filmy style. He had designed a love e-card for her, which looked like a movie ticket. It had names of all the movies they had seen together printed in it. The card page was then designed to fade as the words “I love you” printed in deep red appeared on the hazy background. They had even tried to include Arushi’s favorite song in it, but it had not worked out. So, immediately after mailing the file to Arushi, Kunal ran up to her cubicle and sang the song personally for her as she had opened the attachment. Needless to say, Arushi had acquiesced, impressed with his efforts.

They were always seen together after that. Seeing their intimacy, Vikram who had never bothered to think about girls and relationships suddenly found his own life empty and lonely and dull. Till then love for Vikram was restricted to pairing friends and teasing them.
“My landlord is such a pain in the wrong place” exclaimed Kunal during lunch one day.
“What did he do now?” Vikram asked.
“He is increasing the rent again. He had just increased the rent six months back. He knows I won’t be able to afford the apartment now. Basically, he is harassing me, so that I leave and make way for new tenants. That ways he would get a higher deposit and better rent” He sighed.
“Why don’t you move into my rented apartment? It’s a two BHK and I am staying alone” suggested Adi.
“Why don’t all you guys stay together” recommended Arushi.
“That would be great. Vikram, you could join us too. It would be fun. Why didn’t we think of this earlier man?”
“Let me think about it. I have no reason to leave my current apartment” Vikram said.
“Come on Vikram. We could share one of the rooms. It would really be fun.” Kunal added.
“I ll think and let you guys know” he said.
“You guys start packing. I am expecting you by tomorrow evening” concluded Adi, before he had a chance to say anything else.
The next night, they moved into the flat. The flat was much bigger than the ones they had been staying in. In fact the place reeked of richness. TV, fridge, music player, computer, washing machine, microwave oven…there wasn’t a single thing missing. They were amazed and realizing their dazed expressions Adi just shrugged his shoulders and said with a smiling face. “It’s because of my mom. She wants me to lead a comfortable life wherever I go.”

The following weekend was one of the best ones of their lives.

p.s: Apologies, if the story has started sounding like one of Ekta Kapoor's soaps.

The Gang - 2

For some of you who wanted me to continue this story.

Warning: This one will run long, if at all..

“Lets go for a movie tonight” said Arushi. Arushi was cute, petite and childish. She was from Bangalore. She considered herself lucky to land up in the job, since she was average in studies and took time to grasp things. Her habits and attitude were those of a typical middle class girl, something similar to Monisha from Sarabhai (not to that extent though). She had only one hobby. Cinema! She made it a point to follow her hobby to the fullest by watching every movie, good or bad. Many had suffered in her company watching boring, mind-numbing movies. But she seemed to like every movie, as if though she lived her dreams in them.
“Its Friday! It ll be impossible to get tickets” exclaimed Adityaman before anyone else could even consider the idea. Adityaman was impulsive and spontaneous. There wasn’t a thing about which he didn’t have an opinion. It was either a yes or a no for him…no sticking in between. He was also very firm. He never used to back off from his decisions even though he knew that sometimes his wrong decisions landed him in trouble. But he chose trouble over retreat. Adi hailed from a rich business family in Delhi. He was handsome, dynamic and hence popular amongst girls. He was a good friend most of the times, but occasionally his ego and pride prevented him from acting judiciously, thus leading to spoilt relations. After completing his engineering in Delhi, he had taken up a job, against his dad’s advice, who wanted him to go abroad for post graduation. It wasn’t that he was passionate about doing a job; it was just about his craze to be against his dad in every matter.

“Lets check the websites if tickets are available. Which movie, Arushi?” asked Kunal, who had already started typing in the address of the website which offered online movie ticket booking. Like Arushi, Kunal hailed from a typical middle class family. He was originally from Pune, but he had studied his engineering from Jalgaon. Four years of hostel life had made him more mature and practical than the others. He was average looking and his dressing sense was bad, to be put mildly. But what he lost out on looks, he made up in wittiness and charm. He was friendly, smart, always neutral and came across as sort of a problem resolver. This is why Kunal would always steal the center stage from Adi, which made Adi a little jealous of him at times. One more thing about Kunal, who was purely a guess at that time, was that he had a soft spot for Arushi.
“Any! If it’s Arushi, any movie would do!” joked Priya. Priya came from a well to do family in Nasik. She was a no-nonsense, silent girl, who was an introvert. She came as a puzzle to him then. Priya revealed very little about herself and her past and her talks were mostly restricted to work and day-to-day happenings. She did this with such proficiency that hardly anyone noticed it. Work wise, she was bright and her share of work was usually completed before anyone else’s. She shared a room with Arushi and they seemed to get along well.
“I think I ll skip the movie guys. I have some work to complete by tonight” he said.
“Vikram, don’t act nerdy. Its Friday and you want to spend the evening in office? Give us a break!.” It was Arushi.
“Hmm..fine.” he said.
After some more chitchat, it was decided that they would go out for a dull Hindi flick, which no one else in the city would be interested in watching.

The Gang-1

This is the first part of a yarn which I may never complete. Even if I try and complete it, it may take some time. So proceed at your own risk.:

It was Friday night again. Why did the week always go by in a flash? Unlike his other friends, who longed for the weekend, he usually waited desperately for Monday to arrive. Strangely he loved office. Office was where he didn’t have to think about “what should I do next?” It was the only place where he robotically performed his tasks without giving a thought to anything other than the assignment at hand. He wasn’t a nerd though he looked like one in his glasses and ill-fitting formal clothes.
He was on his way to house. He preferred calling it a house and not a home, because it was a rented apartment where he stayed alone. The music was playing in his car stereo, but it wasn’t getting beyond his ears. It was like he was subconsciously listening to the music playing in the background, but his mind was busy with something else. He was getting nostalgic again. He shrugged off the feeling and concentrated on the dark road that lay ahead. Yeah, it surely was a dark road. He parked his car in his regular parking slot. He turned off the ignition and waited a full two minutes before stepping out.
A nod of the head served as an acknowledgment to the security guy who saluted him and a raised hand served as a casual hello to his neighbor whom he bumped into on the stairs. Once inside the house, he switched on the music player and inserted an Engelbert Humperdinck CD. Soft melodious music filled the room. He opened the refrigerator and took out a can of beer and made his way to the balcony. Once he was settled comfortably in his armchair, he lighted a Marlboro and stared at the empty sky. The night was dark and there was no moon. Only a few twinkling stars winked at him. Suddenly the feeling hit him again. Nostalgia! As he turned around and stared into the empty room, he saw himself with all of them. Three years back, in this very room, there used to be a riot every weekend. He still remembered everything crystal clear.
It was his first day in the new city. It was also his first day in his new office where he was introduced to “The Gang”. Adityaman, Arushi, Kunal and Priya. He was the fifth member of the team they were in. Vikram. As it happens to every new joiner, he was given hostile treatment by all four during his initial days in office. Nevertheless, he had gone about doing his job ignoring this and interacting with them professionally. Any help or assistance he asked for was met with upraised eyebrows and “Can’t you see that I am busy now” looks. But he was a lateral joiner and they were freshers and he knew that his experience of one year with his previous employer would give him an edge once he got familiar with the office product they were working on.
Two weeks into his job, he walked in one morning to see the gang huddled in Adityaman’s cubicle. It looked as if there was a problem and they were all trying to tackle it together, like a team. Not intending to intrude, he made his way to his cubicle and started with his work. Half an hour later, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Kunal who had a big smile on his face. He smiled back and asked him what the matter was. Kunal explained that Adi was badly stuck on some assignment that needed to be submitted by noon. They were unable to crack it and any help would be welcome. That was it! That was the opportunity he had been waiting for. It was time to pay them back by denying help. But, since difficult problems always intrigued him, he decided to have a look ignoring the evil thought. It was so typical of him, that he smiled inwardly.
C++ had always been his strong point. But this was a big program, the biggest he had seen till date and it would take some time to debug the code and find the problem. Ten minutes into the job and he had located a bug, which seemed to be the likely cause of the problem. Adi smiled at him, there were a few cheers as they removed the bug and ran the program. Strangely the program returned another error while running. It was a tricky situation and he felt that the code needed a few tweaks. A few changes and half an hour later, the program was up and running smoothly. Adi thanked him profusely and hurriedly checked in the code in the nick of time saving himself from a confrontation with the Boss. He was back to his seat after the celebrations were over. He had decided to skip lunch and make up for the lost time. Exactly at one, Priya was at his desk smiling at him.
“Lunch?” she asked.
“Sure” he nodded and smiled back.
As they walked towards the canteen he realized that he was part of them now. Part of the gang!

Boredom at office-2

Office sucks nowadays. Well, it always used to suck but its unbearable nowadays. Reasons??

- One of my good friends has taken a transfer to Bangalore.

- Another good friend has hurt himself and is on leave.

- Another good friend is busy with fun activities.

- Another good friend is running suites.

- Another good friend is always on the phone.

So, here I am all alone, getting bored.

Painting Competition-2

A few more entries:

1. The "yamdoots" dying due to pollution.

2. A solar heater, solar panels, windmills, cycles..all this is fine. But I dint understand what the car and the bus are doing here!!

Painting Competiton

We had a painting competition in our office today. The topic was "Go Green". Here are a few selected contributions by the participants (including mine)

. A few comments on each of these:

1. "You Choose". This was adjudged the winner.

2. "The Priceless Theme". Copied from Mastercard. This was me.

3. "The India-Pakistan Theme". This is my winner. The message is "Go back green (pakistanis)".. like "Go back Simon"

4. "Message from the God of Wisdom". This guys was expecting the theme to be "Lord Ganesh". He practised accordingly and manipulated the Lord into "Go Green."

5. The one with the rabbit and pig. I thought a lot and couldnt relate this to "Go Green". Kudos!! A Tarantino!!