On Being Tagged!

When Kasabian Girl number tagged me, I broke out in cold sweat. At first, I froze and then went into a nervous frenzy. At a particular point, I even contemplated killing my blog altogether! Yeah, that’s how daunting the task seemed to me!

Then, I decided to face it all, what the heck. So here goes nothing.

1. Let’s see now. Err…the beginning of it all…including impossible lists like this one here.

2. That’s how many siblings I have. (And, we’re always warring!)

3. Email ids. I have 3 of them for…just for kicks.

4. This is tough…my multiple selves. (I am a little like Sibyl…she of the 16 (split) personality fame.)

5. The number of bedrooms I’d like to have in my house.

6. This is how many times I munch on food, on an average day! (Drat!)

7. The day I get my salary! Damn! This one’s enormously boring! 7..7…ah! The number of lives I’d like to have before I get liberated!

8. Different kinds of rides I’ve taken: Bullock cart, tricycle, horse cart, cycle rickshaw, scooter, car, airplane, donkey (yes! This, too!)

9. Favourite characters/people, fictional or not: Lawrence Olivier, Shylock (no, Kasabian girl, I ain’t borrowing. He’s my fav, too!), Rhett Butler, Calvin & Hobbes, Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth Bennet, Iago, Anne of Green Gables, The Cheshire Cat, Bertie Wooster…errr…I think I just exceeded the list.

10. 10 movies I like: Life is Beautiful, Death at a Funeral, Shawshank Redemption, Sound of Music, The King & I, Pride & Prejudice, Mackenna’s Gold, My Fair Lady, The Scarlet Pimpernel(the Anthony Andrews version), Dial M for Murder.

Wait. There’s more. I know it ought to stop at 10.

11: The number of times I have taken a resolution in the last one hour to not go deranged and loony making lists like these! I swear you’ll have to take my pulse to check if I’m alive, such is the vacant, glassy & cold look in my eyes.

Here are some of the other people I’d like to tag(why should I leave them in peace?): Eternally Distracted, Saad, Distant Reflections, Indian Pundit, Jeannie, Arjun, Freelancer, Queen’s Reveries, Rare Sparks, Lorrin, Rohini Prashanth, Sourav, AD, Snapping Panda, kaka.

People, please carry on the tag!

{Psst: K Girl: I really had a good time doing this!:)}

Read more...

Why is a Boss the Boss?

I don’t know what to do about my boss!

Of late, I’ve become progressively clueless about how to deal with my boss. You see, of late, she has become increasingly, impossibly, forgetful and difficult to figure out.

Boss, looking at her laptop, furiously typing away: Who the hell approved of this newsletter? It’s outrageously gross!

Me, shifting the shocked eyes from her to the wall: Don’t you remember?

B, spreading her palms heavenwards: Am I supposed to?

Me, diplomatically, failing miserably: Not unless it’s you.

B, smiling: Oh! Change the designer, darling. He’s got no sense of colour or design.

Moi, sighing: Err…ok. (Here, I must mention I'm a poor little writer.)

Now, this kinda stuff happens at least twice a day. Formats are thoroughly approved. Once filled in, they're sent right back. They suddenly make no sense. Eventually, after a frenzy of to and fro, what was dismissed 2 months back will need to be redone to suit the current needs. Can you imagine what kind of time we are wasting? At the end of the day, it ought to be ‘met/not met deadline.’ Maybe someone worked until they went comatose trying to work at night, maybe not. Who cares as long as your targets are spot-on?

She does. She-who-should-not-be-named.

You see, here’s the logic: if you are someone who performs, you’re good to perform in all other fields as well. So, there’s a poor team member who is punished for being bright. If she can write, she can research. If she can research, she may as well find out what the competition is doing. And, while she is at it, she should also find out which PR agency is the best. Here, I am told to pitch in my expertise. I should find a printer. Oh! She forgot, I first need to do a couple designs to show the publisher what goes where. Could we please decide upon a new marketing brochure? She’d like to see it on an urgent basis. And, it slipped out of her mind to tell both of us to hire a new graphic designer. This is too much, I say! Ok, I’ll tell her HR woman to look for new people. “Oh! Heavens, no! The poor HR woman is too busy with other paperwork.” Hadn’t we seen her go dotty already? My colleague and I exchange looks and are both about to say something when she adds, “And make sure this new bloke has common sense. I don’t want another fellow who confuses blue with brown.”

Right!

The thing here is this: the logic provided is so complicatedly confusing and convincing at that time, you find yourself staring ahead, certain it’s your job and no one else’s! The most you can muster, then, is a duh-I say-duh-course-yeah! And feel jolly good about being the chosen one.

Later, you can fume or spew fire or froth at your mouth in revolt, but the harm has been done.

I am going to go looking for tutorials on how-to-hedge/hypnotise/fox-your-boss.

Any ideas?

Read more...

Facebook Status Madness

A new madness has erupted on the scene: Facebook status updates. (As if the very in short-forms-(ab)use wasn't enough to drive one mad!) Looks like it has taken over the common sense and minds of a lot of people, some of them dear to me, yet others mere acquaintances. Even while holidaying, their status will change on an hourly basis, vividly describing whatever it is they may be doing. A coupla instances: “In Paris, enjoying the most delicious champagne and eating the best sizzlers in the world!” Hmm… well, if I were really enjoying all of that, would I be FB-ing my status thus or just getting soaked in that feeling? Here’s another: “Amazed by the way Italian people build their bathrooms! There are mirrors on the ceiling and placed in a way your lover can see you taking a shower from the bedroom!” Or this one here: “Going to get my son potty-trained. Any suggestions?” (!!! Why would anyone want to put up their son’s toilet-training rituals on FB?) What do you think of this one: “Losing at chequers!” Is it any wonder you’re losing, says me…you’re busy facebook-ing! Another one: “Waiting to soak myself in my fiancé’s parent’s hot water bath tub!” Wow! How exciting!

Come on! I mean there are limits, you know, to what you will put up as your STATUS! On a freaking HOLIDAY, what’s more! It’s as if you’ll gasp, choke, faint or die if you didn’t let it all out on FB.

I have tried and tried and tried some more…and yet, any kind of sensible explanation for all of the above continues to elude me. The only conclusion I can reach to is that it is an obsession. Had such status updates been done by someone unknown to me, I’d have reckoned they were trying to brag and showoff. But, no, this is pure and simple addiction, mania or a compulsion…and, at worst, a need to communicate to anyone out there.

Wonder how Freud would have interpreted this fixation. Would have blamed this, too, on the Oedipal complex, maybe!

Read more...

10 THINGS TO DO AT WORK TOMORROW

For all youse folks wanting revenge at work, at the cost of whomsoever-you-may-come across :-)

1. Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.

2. To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.

3. While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

4. When in elevator with one other person, tap them on the shoulder and pretend it wasn't you.

5. Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy..."

6. Don't use any punctuation.

7. Interrupt your conversation with someone by giving a huge Dejected sigh.

8.Use your highlighter pen on the computer screen.

9. Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

10. Every time you get an email, shout ''email.''

Read more...

Of Secretaries and Receptionists…

Have you noticed how receptionists and secretaries have a way of being a really annoying species? Except, of course, to the boss.

I know one who is perpetually on the official phone through the day, gossiping and back-biting about anyone she cares to tittle-tattle about. Low voice, head turned towards the wall, looking serious…you get the picture. You tell her to hang up (partly because everyone around is sick to the bone transferring calls for her) and you get scowls, frowns and intense hate vibes…if looks could kill, you’d be burnt to ashes – and charcoal black ones at that! This one is very clever. You see, she doesn’t know her job. And, so, before anyone can point a finger, she goes on the offensive and reports it all to the boss, giving a real sob story. Wait, there’s more: she seems to be organizing people, giving them a dressing down each time the boss is in the hearing vicinity! What would the honcho think? That the woman is a conscientious, hard worker and the rest of the pack is like rats jumping around when the cat’s gone out.

Groan! The way everyone suffers! The phone is never available, her reports are done by another (tis easier to do them yourself than chase her and ask her to do them), she comes in late and alters the attendance time, calls are connected (if at all) to the wrong person, you want to be connected to so and so and that’s exactly when the person to be called will not take the call or his number would be busy, people calling in are treated like pests (they’ve disturbed her personal call, you see), their phone call is transferred without as much a please-be-on-hold-while-I-transfer-you to them or an xyz-has-called to you…the list is endless! Would you believe she deliberately makes mistakes so you don’t ask her to do the same work again? Oh! You are also asked deeply personal questions, rather nonchalantly in a group that could leave you redder than a beetroot and squirming and writhing in your chair. Worse: if you don’t answer, it’s repeated with a different style. THAT is something she never runs out of. Her love life is extremely happening and I doubt if there is anyone from the cantankerous errands boy to the dull accountant who is unaware of that!

The worst was last week when a manager was rudely told to “shoot me a mail” beforehand if they wanted to be connected on the phone to anyone! I wonder how much bigger this milk and food guzzling organism will become for her boots.

Sigh! The future sure looks bleak…

Read more...