Yeah, that’s true

My theory of dealing with new joinees is simple. It is – Don't tell them the truth, let them discover it. When I am introduced to a new joinee I put on a smile as big as that of the Joker in Batman and say - Welcome to the organization. The truth is I always want to say - Welcome to hell. When new joinees ask me for help I tell them I am busy right now. Okay. That's not a lie. I am always busy in office. I tweet a lot. So what I am not working. I am busy.

Last Monday a new joinee joined my team. Since the team leader was absent I had to spend few minutes telling him about the awesome work we do and the not so awesome he will be doing for us. I showed the new joinee our products which he appreciated and told him we do such great work because we are dedicated, hard working employees and expect him to become one. Okay. That's a lie. We are not model employees but I was just following my theory of not telling the truth to the new joinees. Also it won't be nice for the new joinee to discover on day one of his new job that the job sucks.

After I had given the orientation to the new joinee I gave him the path where various company manuals were saved and told him to read them thoroughly. As the writer of few manuals for the company I know how dense they are and the only thing a fresher can do with them is to read them till he gets bored and then tweet – First day of the job and it has already started to suck. #FML

Lunch time came and I asked the new joinee to join my group for lunch. My lunch group is like mini India. There is too much diversity but there is one thing that unites us all. The great thought that unites us is that we all think our work sucks.

My lunch group consists of people from the Marketing to the IT support dept. We have nothing in common and still like each other. There is also minority representation i.e. their is one guy from production dept which is me. I think the reason I like the people in my lunch group is because I don't work with them. Once we will start working together on a project, we will start exchanging emails and then I will start hating them and they will start hating me. The email theory of the more work emails you exchange with a person, the more you think that person does nothing all day except forwarding you emails with the addition FYI from his/her side.

We had lunch and most of the people in my lunch group left. Only four people were still sitting. One from the IT support, one from marketing and me and the new joinee from production. The marketing guy was finishing his dabba and he asked me, "Oh….I heard you have quit."

There was silence for a moment. The new joinee was sitting next to me. I couldn't have said the reasons I resigned in front of him. There are some things which are better if the new joinees discover them by their own reasoning instead of someone telling them in advance for example cubicle blues. So I said, "Yeah, that's true" and left the table.

To sum up

I have quit. I won't say I don't have any regrets because I have one. I should have done it much earlier.

Mind vs Heart

I don't hate Mondays. I only hate working on Mondays. I spend every Sunday watching movies, drinking beer and every Monday morning my mind spends few minutes convincing my heart that I am not sick and must attend office.

One of the biggest tragedies of my life is that every Monday morning I wake up and find myself not sick. I believe I have fever, common cold, body pain or any possible disease that will allow me take a sick leave and will disappear as soon as I call my boss and say, "I am not feeling well, Can't come, have a nice Monday. Bye Bye." 


Unfortunately, my mind knows that my heart is a coward and can easily be conquered with fear. The fear that my boss will catch my lie just because he too might have done the same on few Mondays when he was not a boss is good enough to make my heart surrender to my mind and take me to office. I know it is a long, stupid and grammatically  incorrect argument but it always works.

Every Monday my mind conquers my heart and takes me to the place which I hate the most, my office. Okay that's not true. The place I hate the most is Pakistan but my office is also full of terrorists. A Pakistani terrorist's job is to drop explosive bombs whereas an office terrorist's job is to drop email bombs. Bombs of Pakistani terrorists kill you whereas bombs of office terrorists make you wish that you were dead. Murder or encouragement for suicide. End result is the same. You die.

Today when I woke up my heart said don't go to office and my mind said go. Before my mind could use its dirty trick of terrorizing my heart, my heart said to my mind, "You know what the cricket score is? Sachin is going to score his 50th test century today. Instead of watching it you want to read this historical moment on cricinfo. I feel so sad to be part of a body that has a brain like you."

My brain was totally dumbfounded. He just didn't know what to say. The heart had just pawned my brain with its awesome argument. My brain remained silent for few minutes and then replied, "STFU heart. Abhishek, get the beep out of bed before the beep heart beeps your beeping life." My heart asked doesn't beep means fuck and my mind replied, "Yes and you are the one who is to be blamed for all the beeping. It is you who instead of downloaded pirated movies made Abhishek watch Big Boss 4. Now suffer. Beep you heart and you lazy beep ass still in the bed, start getting ready for office. Beep Beep Beep. We are going to get a late mark today."

This was a complete role reversal situation for me. My heart was using logic to convince my mind and my mind was beeping to make my heart shut up. I knew my heart was right. I also knew my mind was asking me to do the right thing. Mind vs Heart. Cricket vs Work. It was simple decision. Cricket is what I love and work is what pays my bills. Money cannot buy happiness but……..as part of the great young Indian generation driven by consumerism I know one thing – No money, no happiness. So I got out of bed and reached office hoping Sachin won't mind one less fan cheering him today.

To sum up

Heart vs Mind = Cricket vs Work = Story of every Indian = Cricket rules my heart and work my mind.

One blog for the MBAs

One of my colleagues had coolest life ever. Since he graduated from a decent college, he got a decent job with a good pay. Not only that he also had a girlfriend. Decent job, good pay and a girlfriend, this guy was practically living my dream life. However, this guy thought, “Fuck…who needs all this…..I don’t want people to be jealous of me living their dream life so I must get married.”

I am not a misogamist which means I don’t hate marriages. In fact, I would like to put on record that I like marriages. I have spent a good deal of my life in hostel and I know the importance of good food. I love marriages for all the free good food they bring in my life.

Unfortunately for my colleague his marriage didn’t turn out as he had planned and he was still happy. So he decided to do the worst thing one could do to his life. He got himself enrolled for a part-time MBA course. Since he couldn’t become unhappy he decided to make others unhappy by becoming an MBA (Mean. Bastard. Arrogant).

Today during the tea-break I came to know his exams for the first sem of MBA had started. He told us that he appeared for a paper of MBA and was stunned to find people were filling supplements. I too was stunned. MBA means you must be able to speak crap at length without knowing a single thing about the topic and this future MBA couldn’t even write crap. I am scared to think one of my favorite colleagues is going to become an MBA which cannot talk crap. God knows who will hire such an MBA.

While talking about his exams he told us that something very stupid happened during the exam. The invigilator told the class that mobile phones are not allowed. I would say it was a smart move by the invigilator to stop cheating. You don’t think so. Go and watch Rajni Sir’s Robot now.

My colleague followed the invigilators instructions, switched off his mobile and kept it in his sack in a corner of the room. With fifteen minutes to go the mobile started ringing. My colleague full of embarrassment immediately submitted his paper and ran out of the classroom with his sack.  

I was relieved to hear this story. My colleague (who by the way is an engineer) by the end of first semester of MBA had become incompetent enough that he couldn’t even switch off his own mobile. I am sure by the end of his MBA course he would be competent enough to talk crap as if he was born to do so. This will ensure that as soon as he completes his MBA, he will be flooded with job offers. By the way I have one wish to make…….God help the engineers who will be working under a Team Leader that cannot switch off his own mobile phone.

To sum up

MBAs are the James Bonds of India. They have license to kill people with crappy talks.

FML

I think the reason deadlines are called deadlines is because they turn the people working on deadlines into Zombies. People working on deadlines have no social life. They don’t log in to facebook, don't read newspaper and come to office with a mood to kill their boss. The only thing on the mind of the people working on a deadline is work. This turns the employees working on a deadline temporarily into workaholics which is a good thing for the company and bad for the people interacting with the Zombies in office.

It is a well known rule of management that for better management people must work in teams and for a cheerful atmosphere in office some people who are expert in giving unwanted, irrelevant and stupid comments must be hired and allowed to interact with other employees. The expert commentators being hired to reduce tension in office try to be funny by enlightening the Zombies with their expert comments. This leads to the situation where you will find someone laughing on his own jokes and the other person in the conversation with a look on his face that he wants to jump on the expert, bite him and turn the expert into a Zombie like himself. Don’t blame management for it. It is a well known problem associated with Zombies. They have no sense of humor.

I told you that working on deadlines is a bad thing. However, there is something which is worse that than working on a deadline. It is working on a deadline that doesn’t belong to your team.

For the last two days I am working on a deadline that doesn’t belong to my team. The deadline belongs to a team that is headed by a Very Senior Manager (VSM). The VSM being a Very Senior Manager is working on more than one project and has asked me to do some work that she is supposed to do. Since it is a request from a VSM I cannot say your deadline is not my problem and have to work on the deadline.

Today I received an email from VSM that she has been checking the work done by me. The email started with Hello Abhishek and told me that she is extremely impressed by my work. The quality of my work is awesome and I have done few things which she might have overlooked. I read the email, then read it again, decided that I am taking the print out of this email to my next appraisal meeting and then instead of replying to the email went back to work.

After lunch time I received an email from our COO.  The email was a reply to the email send by the VSM to me. The email didn’t start with Hello Abhishek. In fact, it didn’t even have a single line. It had just one word. The word was ‘Great’. I read the email by the COO and immediately checked the CC field. I found out that the email send by VSM to me was marked to few people in senior management.

If I had read the CC field before I would have replied to the email with a thanks you note, a smiley or just few lines like - it is is my pleasure to work with you and I am always ready to work on deadlines because I am a dedicated employee and also I love being a Zombie. However, now I am an arrogant employee who doesn't have the common courtesy of saying thanks when someone appreciates his work. Don’t blame it me. I am working on a deadline and hence turned into a Zombie and as you would have learnt by watching several Hollywood zombie movies, Zombies don’t reply to emails.

To sum up

Every dog has its day. I had my day and totally ruined it because I was not a dog on that day but a Zombie. Also that, I love the element of surprise in my life. Just when I think things cannot get any worse, I find out they can.

The two Abhisheks

I learnt about Dissociative personality disorder from movies. It is a situation where a guy has two personalities. Hyde and Jekyll type. One guy is like your colleague next cubicle and another is a killer. In the end the bad guy takes over, there is some maar-dhad and we all know what happens next. We all have been there. We all have walked into a cinema hall with a Pepsi and popcorn and came out with a splitting headache.

The two parts of my personality are visible at work and home. At work I am the good guy. I do my work, I give pravachan to people that this work sucks but you need to do it because it pays money with which after work you can buy cigarettes, beer and pizza. I also keep myself pretty nicely organized. I have maintained my MS Outlook in such a way that I once opened it front of one of my colleagues to show her an email and she said , “Abhishek, you are a genius. I have never seen such a well organized Outlook in the whole office.” Sometimes I feel so disappointed that my company doesn’t have a best organized inbox award.

At home the other Abhishek i.e. the awesome one takes over. There are clothes that are unclean and I intentionally keep them on floor so that I won’t wear to them to office by mistake. There are wrappers of biscuits and Maggie on floor which must be in dustbin but are not there because I stay miles away from my parents and hence not afraid of a surprise cleanliness inspection by my mom. The best part of Abhishek at home is the way he handles email.

At office when I receive an email I always mark it according to its importance, give a prompt reply and move it to the relevant folder. At home when I receive an email, I read it and then forget about it. I am always sure that the sender would have asked the same info from few more friends and some sucker would definitely reply. My philosophy about emails at work is don’t allow anyone to complain and at home is don’t reply until they complain.

To sum up

The biggest difference between office and home is that in office you do what you are supposed to do and at home you do what you want to do.

Comics

I grew up in a town. A place where the medium of instruction in English medium schools is Hindi. During my childhood there was no Cartoon Network in India. The only TV channel we had during those days was Doordarshan and the only cartoon show I got to watch was the one after the morning mythological TV serial. Today when I see children watching several cartoon channels in high definition TV, I feel jealous but still somehow I feel all these super cool cartoons are no match to the time I had reading Hindi comics.

When I was a child, Hindi comics were a very big industry. Today as far as I know only Diamond comics and Raj Comics are the two active Hindi comics publisher. I was fortunate enough to read comics by Manoj and Tulsi publications. Unlike today’s children who get to watch only funny cartoons, I got to read a whole genre of comics ranging from comedy to action to horror (Raj Comics once upon a time published few comics under the series Thrill-Action-Horror or sometime like that.)

Today when I walk into a bookstore I find all the big comics. From Calvin, Asterix, Tintin to Superman, Spiderman etc etc and I buy them. Unfortunately, all the big bookstores located in the big malls have no space for my beloved Hindi comics. The only reliable space where I find them is the railway station and there also I have been unable to get the latest set of Raj Comics (If also like me you grew up reading Hindi Comics then you know the meaning of set and the eagerness with which we waited for it every month of summer holidays.)

The library I have joined in Pune doesn’t store Hindi comics. It has got dedicated shelf space for English comics that must cost more than Rs 200 per copy but you won’t find a single Hindi comics that costs less Rs 50. I once asked my librarywala, ”Uncle why don’t you keep Hindi comics” and he replied ,”Bcoz there is no demand for them”. I wanted to tell him that is not true because I spend the summers of my childhood reading if not tons than kilos of Hindi comics but then as far as I know none of the children in my family know much about Nagraj, Dhruv, Parmanu or Doga. Their day starts with school, after that tuition and ends with doing homework. Forget reading comics it is wonder that they even get time to watch Cartoon Network. Unfortunately they know nothing about the great Indian comic book superheroes and since I do, I will end this blog by writing few lines in the memory of those I remember.

Chacha Chowdry: It will be wrong to call that the man more intelligent than supercomputer is the only hero of this series. It's not only him but his sidekicks Sabu, his wife and their dog Rocket are equal fun to read. The best comics of this series are those where Raka, the villain who couldn’t die appeared. Believe me even if you are not a comic enthusiast still buy those comics that have Raka. You will not regret that the money that you earned by slogging into an AC office got wasted.

Billo: His hairs were long enough to always cover his eyes. As a child I thought he had the coolest hairstyle and I still believe so.

Raman: I don’t think anyone remembers him. He was a middle-class middle-age guy with a family. His problems were the problems of our daily life. If there has ever been any character that could portrait the true life of an Indian then it was him. Another comics I remember like this was Shrimatij in which a housewife was the central character.  

Tosi: An action hero. He was actually an Ichadhair Nag. As far as content goes he was most genuine action hero I have ever read. This could be because it was written by Ved Prakash Sharma, Hindi’s bestselling author of thriller novels.

Nagraj: Hssss…..the Snakeman. He started off as a globetrotting warrior against terror but nowadays resides in Rajnagar and has a dual identity like Marvel comics characters. The transition from the traveler to one city man had destroyed the charm of Nagraj.

Super Commando Dhruv: My personal favorite. Dhruv’s initial comics were good enough to make hardcore sci-fi fans appreciate it. Personally I believe the stories of his first few comics such as Pratishodh ki jawla, Roman Hatara, Mahamanav are good enough to beat the western comics. Dhruv doesn’t have any superpower except being able to talk with animals but beats villains who are vicious, intelligent and loaded with superpowers with his common sense and athletic ability. Unfortunately all his new comics I have read during the last few years lack common sense and are complete crap.   

Parmanu: Mr. Superhero. Always fun to read.

Doga: If you want to read an action comics then read his. He is only the genuine action hero Indian comics have right now.

Angara: He was created by a scientist who gave him the strengths of several animals like skin that bullets cannot penetrate. He commanded a loyal army of wild animals. The antagonist of this action hero was a dwarf robot who got his energy from Sun.

Krukbond: James Bond ka chela. He and his sidekick Motu not only solved mystery but also made you laugh. He was the best comic action hero I have ever read.

Halwadar Bahadur: His comics were written in the language I spoke with my friends. Funny enough to make you sometimes stop reading the comics so that you catch a break from laughing.

Bakelal: Hehehehe…………….. even the mention of his name makes me laugh. Shivji has cursed him that all his schemes to do bad of someone will turn out to be good for that person. He works as a minister of Raja Vikram Singh and wants to become the King but due to the curse his every scheme to kill the King solves the problems faced by the King. His comics end with him explaining the King that what he did was pre-planned by him to help the King and the King with big moustache kissing him which he hates.

Fighter Tods: Very funny but I have always felt they are rip-off of Teenage Ninja Turtles

Gamraj: Son of Yumraj, the God of death. Munna Bhai of Indian comics. Reading the adventures of Gamraj, his bull Yamunda and his sidekick Shankalu who always made wrong predictions always made me laugh.

Yay!!! We won

I am an average Indian cricket fan. By average I mean I am not one of those guys whom you meet and they start talking non-stop about the latest Indian victory but if I ever meet such a guy I don’t ask him to shut up. Today I reached office with the determination that I will not type cricinfo.com in the address bar of my browser. I knew the score, I knew the score day before and thought a draw is bad for test cricket and after reading 55/4 felt a draw which is bad for test cricket is much better than India losing the match.

I reached office. Checked mails and went to cricinfo. Call me a person with weak willpower but I grew up in 1990s and for me as long as God is on the crease, there is hope. The God got out and my colleagues asked me would I like to join them for a cup of tea. The conversion during tea didn’t revolve around cricket, no one wanted to discuss it because we all had pretty much resigned to the fate that Australia were one-up in the series.

I came back, checked score, got the information that we were indeed going to lose and went back to work. After working for some time I logged onto to twitter. Twitter told me that Sachin is God but against Australia Laxman is the real devil. He always sinks the Australian ship and this time it was not gonna be any different.

I started tracking the match again on cricinfo and was happy to get ball by ball updates of what­ all the tomorrow’s edition of every Indian newspaper are going to call as the one of the best innings of Laxman and Ishant’s careers. India was on track to register a victory which every average Indian fan is going to remember for a long time and I was happy because thanks to my weak willpower I was watching history being made.

As the match progressed some more average Indian fans in my office opened cricinfo and then Ishant got out. Most of my colleagues considered it as the end of the Indian innings and went for lunch. Few asked me do I wish to join them and I wanted to throw paperweight at them but unfortunately the admin dept never issued me one. Lucky for my die-hard pessimist colleagues.

As India reached near victory cricinfo died. It was one of the moments in life when you wish you had plan B ready and I had one. I shifted to cricbuzz and it due to the heavy traffic from several average Indian cricket fans who crashed the cricinfo servers also died. This was the moment I wished I had a plan C ready but unfortunately I didn’t, so googled for cricket score, found few websites and settled for Yahoo cricket because it was still alive. 

At the end of the match there was some drama but it was nothing compared to what was happening at my desk. Me and one of my colleagues were refreshing the yahoo page again and again trying to get the latest score but even after refreshing it two to three times we were seeing the same number of balls being bowled. Either Australia was blowing in slow motion due to which each ball took 2 minutes to deliver or the commentary on yahoo was slow. 30 years back my father used to beat his radio to get the score and I felt I too needed to so the same. Unfortunately, my father owned the radio and I don’t own the office PC so I decided to check the score at cricinfo, cricbuzz, yahoo, rediff, indiatimes etc etc simultaneously only to hear a colleague shout Yaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy, WE WON.

To sum up

Every Indian loves cricket and loves it even more when India wins and for our love of the game cricinfo needs to buy few more servers. 

Oops

I work in Production dept. Yesterday I received few emails that were sent to my departmental group discussing few productions issues. The email thread was started by the Chairman by sending a mail to the COO and the COO replying to the Chairman with CC to my departmental id saying it will be better if we have a meeting on these issues. The Chairman said 2:30 tomorrow will be fine and someone send request through Outlook to everyone in the department for a meeting with the Chairman and the COO at 2:30 pm.

Today morning I received a message on the company's internal chat messenger from the person scheduling the meeting at 2:30 whether I had accepted her request for the meeting. I closed the message because I had accepted the meeting request and she should have received the message of my acceptance in her inbox. The senior manager sitting next to me shouted what is the need to confirm we will attend the meeting when our accept or reject decision would have been lying in her inbox.

After lunch the person scheduling the meeting came to the production floor and asked the senior manager had she accepted the meeting request. The senior manager said of course, I have and the person left. After the person scheduling the meeting left, the senior manager told me something really bad is going to happen in the meeting. I told the issues in the mail were not serious and she asked me then why is the person scheduling the meeting asking us again and again are we going to attend the meeting. Her comment made me nervous and till 2:30 all I did was to track the India v Sri Lanka watch on cricinfo.

We reached the conference room at 2:30 only to find it was occupied by the COO and few marketing people. As we waited for the meeting to finish, the person scheduling the meeting asked the COO for how much more time the current meeting is going to continue and the COO said 5 more minutes. We stood in front of the conference room for 15 more minutes discussing why the Chairman had called meeting of my whole department and were relieved when we got to know the Chairman yesterday had asked the person scheduling the meeting what was the need of sending meeting invitation to so many people.

After waiting for 15 minutes in front of the conference room we all came back to our desks and after 10 minutes got the message the Chairman and the COO were waiting for us in the conference room. We reached the conference room and the first thing the COO said before we could sit was, “Sorry. We need inputs only from senior managers.”

Happily we all left the senior manager sitting next to me in the line of fire and went back to our workstations. Few hours later the senior manager came back to the production floor and gave me a piece of paper. The paper contained few issues that my department was facing and after reading one after the another issue I started suggesting the solutions. I stopped while reading the second last issue and told the senior manager I don’t know what does this means. I really can’t fathom what they want to do with an internal software that we are using. The senior manager said the VP(Production) will send a formal mail regarding the issues raised in the meeting and by the time we received the mail she had left for the day.

I read the word again, scratched my head and realized the person who had developed the internal software was still working with us. I reached to his desk and found he had left for the day. I went to his assistant showed him the word and asked him what does this means. The assistant smiled, told me give me 2 mins and reached to the mouse of his computer. I told him you are not allowed to google in such a tone that people working near him stopped working and started looking at us. I was feeling like a jackass when the assistant touched his mouse because I had forgotten google has all the answers and for the answers it doesn’t have, the management will never ask you to work.

The Assistant told me then I must contact his Sir and I went back to my desk and called his boss. The boss said he was driving and will call me back soon. He called me back and asked me what the problem was. I said I want to know the meaning of this word and he replied, “Huh!!! Abhishek, really, can we talk about it tomorrow?” I said ok and the call was disconnected.

Now my only hope was google. As I said before Google devta knows all the answers and so I googled the word. Google told me this word belongs to the field of pure mathematics that deals with shapes, also known as geometry. As I was trying to understand how geometry will fit into our internal software a colleague passing by my desk asked me what you are doing.

I told her I am unable to understand how geometry can improve our internal software and she replied, “Abhishek, don’t worry. Even I don’t understand this word. You know, I am sure tomorrow the VP(Production) will send a mail clarifying the confusion that this word has caused and it will say – Sorry for the typo. The correct word is ………”

To sum up

Thanks to everyone that is making mistakes at my office. Without you this blog post wouldn’t have been possible.

Caught in office reading cricinfo

I am an Indian. This means I am in love with the game of cricket. Whenever India plays and I am in office, I open cricinfo and track the whole match. Today India was playing against Sri Lanka. It is one of those test matches after watching it children say I don’t want to become a bowler. I was tracking the match since morning and forget all the work when Sehwag reached 99.

Sehwag got out at 99. I had already forgotten work and reading Sehwag got out forget that I was in office and shouted Oh nooooooo………..Damn it. Most of the people working around me have got used to me talking to myself whenever India plays and ignore my every high pitch cry thinking this guy is just overreacting.

Unfortunately this time a very senior manager was talking with a senior manager that sits next to me. Being a very senior manager he immediately came to my desk and asked what happened. Before I could reply, “Nothing Sir….just a small problem. No worries” he was looking at my computer's screen.

I froze thinking the very senior manager will now ask me do you come to office to read cricinfo. I was planning to say - No sir….I just opened it and Sehwag got out….and I am really sorry…To ensure that India doesn’t lose any more wickets today, I will not open cricinfo again.

However, instead of that question the very senior manager asked me is that cricinfo. I response I nodded like a child who after being caught cheating in the exam has been asked don’t you know it’s wrong. He asked me did someone just got out and I realized the very senior manager is also a cricket fan and with all the seriousness I could muster in voice said,”Sehwag got out.” This was now the turn of the very senior manager to say, ”Oh nooooooo…..”

The senior without taking my permission read the bowl that dismissed Sehwag and said,”Did he got out on 99?” I wanted to tell the very senior manager that Sirji check the url. Its cricinfo and not fakingnews but the senior manager had just caught me reading cricket score and ignoring work so I said,”Yes Sir.”

The senior manager again looked at my screen and said,”What is the name of the bowler? I have not even heard it. He got out to such a bowler. This is bad, very bad.” I wanted to say to the manager you don’t play international cricket if you are bad bowler but then the senior manager would have proved me wrong by saying the names of the Indian bowlers playing the India v Sri Lanka test. So I said, “Yes Sir. Bad, very bad.”

The very senior manager said, “This really reduces our chances of a draw” and I said, “Yes Sir, this reduces our chances of a draw”. The very senior manager said, “I don’t understand it. What was the need to play such a shot at 99? and I replied, “Yes Sir, I also don’t also understand it. There was no need to play such a shot at 99”.

I think the very senior manager understood that he is not going to have an intelligent cricket discussion with me. All I was going to do was to say Yes Sir and then paraphrase whatever he had said. So the very senior manager smiled and left leaving me happy as a child who after being caught cheating during the exam has been told by the invigilator, “Beta, be careful. Enjoy this time and don’t do it ever again.”

To sum up

In India, everybody loves cricket. Irrespective of whether India wins or loses the match, cricinfo always does brisk business.

My dream job

I am an average Indian guy. When I was studying my dream was to get into a good institute, study hard, get placed on day one of placements, go to USA on an assignment and settle their within the next five years. Unfortunately I am an average Indian guy. I went to a decent institute, watched all the movies released during my college days, prayed to God to pass me, got rejected from couple of interviews, got selected in an interview, left the company ASAP when I realized I was doing only donkey work and now hold a job that pays enough to make my parents think that I must get married.

Steve Jobs said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Hence, my dream job is to do what I love to do and being an Indian I love cricket. Unfortunately I am now too old to play cricket and hence, my dream job is to own an IPL franchise.

According to BCCI only four types of people can own an IPL franchise. You must be either a bollywood superstar, worked in bollywood and right now wife/girlfriend of a business tycoon, son of a business tycoon or a business tycoon. Being an average Indian I don’t fall under any of the categories reserved to own an IPL team and hence, since I am not eligible for my dream job, I have decided to hold on to my current job.

It is not that I have given up hope of ever having my dream job. Steve Jobs also said, “If you haven't found the job you love yet then keep looking. Don't settle.” I am doing the same. I am waiting for the day on which a real fundoo IPL game will be available on X-box.  This way I will not only be able to own the whole IPL but also play an IPL tournament every night without being bothered by Pawar, Modi or the mess they have created.

To sum up

I don’t want my dream job. I don’t want to work in my dreams.

What wrong did he say?

If you work in an office then you know what does the dialogue, ”We have an open communication policy” means. Theoretically it means you can criticize your boss, tell him only a jackass will take such a decision and expect an A grade for being a team player during your appraisal. 

Now we all know good theories never produce the intended results and hence to get an A grade during appraisal we always need to say to our bosses that we are lucky to gain such a valuable experience by working under them.

Today I attended a staff meeting. In small companies staff meetings mean a meeting where all the employees assemble in a hall and hear the various department heads say the company is growing by leaps and bounds, then come out of the meeting and say what a waste of time.

In today’s staff meeting after we had clapped through the presentations of various managers, the COO took the stage. He started giving a presentation and suddenly in the middle of the presentation asked us what is our goal. I don’t know what he was talking about because I was bored of the presentations given by various managers and only the presence of the CEO in the room was stopping me from yawning.

A person sitting in the first row heard the COO ask what’s our goal and replied, “To finish the meeting and get back to work.”

It was not a smart reply to give to the COO in front of the whole company but this guy had just done that. I am sure after the meeting some guys would have congratulated the guy for being so straightforward and the guy would have ran to catch the COO somewhere alone to say, “Sir, I am sorry. It was just a joke and…..I am really sorry”.

The most important thing this incident taught me was a method through which we can use the open communication policy to obtain grade A in our appraisal. Here it is:

1. Don’t criticize your boss in front of him.

2. Find someone who will do it.

3. When he does it, make a face that says this guy is a complete jackass.

4. Ensure that your boss sees this guy is a jackass expression on your face.

5. After the meeting shake hands with the guy and say you loved what he said. You were thinking the same but didn’t have guts to say it.

6. Collect your grade as A during appraisal for being a dedicated sincere employee.

7. During the farewell party of the guy eat the cake, drink Coke/Pepsi/Fanta and don’t speak stupid words to the guy in front of your boss like we will miss you.

8. Find another idiot that believes everything which management says such as, “We have an open communication policy. You are welcome to give us feedback and constructive criticism.”

To sum up

Follow the following two rules for getting A grade from your boss during appraisals:

Rule 1: The boss is always right.

Rule 2: If the boss is wrong, rule number 1 is applicable. 

Thing have changed

I did my graduation from Pune, moved to Delhi, switched job and it has been eighteen months since I have been back to Pune. During my graduation I used to spend a lot of time at Deccan (Let's just say FC road and JM road because they had the coolest outlets where I could eat and hottest babes to stare). Anyway that was long time back and during the last eighteen months I have visited FC and JM road two or three times.

Today I had a day off and was bored at home. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to visit the place I love the most in Pune i.e. Alka talkies. Alka talkies is my favorite cinema hall in Pune. During my graduation days I have spend more time in it than attending college lectures. It is my favorite cinema hall because it always screens English movies and hence, so few people watch it that every show is like a private show.

I reached Alka talkies and found the next show was after one hour. This meant I had lots of time to walk around my favorite area and check what changes had occurred. The first thing I noticed that the Maharastrain restaurant in front of Alka talkies had closed. It offered one of the best Maharastrain thali at a very reasonable cost and so my plans for having a good Maharastrain lunch were destroyed.

Few steps away from the Maharastrain restaurant was an Iranian restaurant. Its food was ok but it served one of the best Pineapple juices in Pune. I had a look at the restaurant and realized it was no more an Iranian restaurant. Dejected, I decided to walk more to find out how many more in-the-budget-of-a-college-student eateries had closed.

I looked at few places and found out indeed Pune had changed a lot since I completed my graduation. Although I didn’t found any newly constructed mall, I found out that most of the big brands were now present on the roads that once offered value for money food to a college student. The only thing that had not changed was Amrutalyas.

In Pune, Amrutalyas mean tea stall and I spotted almost most of them still existed and were doing business. This was a surprise after seeing that my favorite Maharashtrain restaurant had shut shop and an Iranian restaurant had changed itself to become a just another restaurant.

However, the biggest surprise I had was when I a spotted a Ras Kendra. In Pune, Ras Kendra means a shop selling sugarcane juice. This is not a season when sugarcane is available and here, right next to Vijay Talkies a Ras Kendra was offering sugarcane juice during an off season.

I walked into the Ras Kendra, ordered a jumbo glass, took a sip and felt this is one shop which should have closed down. I don’t know how this shop is surviving because when I paid the Ras Kendra guy Rs. 10 for my jumbo glass, he signaled towards God as if he was saying thanks for the  first customer of the day.

I had spend the last 45 mins on my favorite streets finding out none of my favorite things existed anymore and decided to head towards the Alka talkies to enjoy the day as I did during my college days. I entered Alka talkies and found it was showing Knight and day. I am not a fan of Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz but I am an Alka talkies fan and hence I decided to watch it.

The management of Alka talkies had put posters of Knight and day opposite to the ticket window. I had a look at the posters and realized the movie being screened was a dubbed version of Knight and day. Fuck. My favorite English movie theater to survive was now showing dubbed movies. Pune had definitely changed a lot in the last few years.

I reached the ticket counter and bought a balcony ticket. It was priced Rs 45. I don’t remember the earlier tickets rates but I am sure the first movie I ever saw in this theater’s balcony was Terminator 3 and after that I had decided it will be my last movie in this theater’s balcony.  It was not that I couldn’t afford a balcony ticket; it was just that as a student you really don't care how comfortable the seats are.

I took my ticket, went to the canteen, bought an overpriced Thumps up and started watching the movie. I was not at all nostalgic. It was the same old bad theatre but I was not the same guy. Things had changed. The price of the ticket was Rs 45 and the auto in which I had come had charged me more than double of it. As a student you just want to have fun but as a person with a job, you want the best want can come in your budget.

I watched the movie, came out of the hall and checked time. 4:00 pm. This meant I still had lots of time to kill. As I was going out, I saw the poster of the next movie. It said – Disney Jadogaro ka Sangram. Nicklos Cage hai jadugaro ke jadugar. With a title like this, I had to watch the movie. So I bought another balcony ticket and watched it.

To sum up

Balcony ticket = Rs 45, one Thumps Up = Rs 18, watching movie in your college days favorite fatichar theater = priceless. 

College lecture moment in office

Yesterday a colleague who sits behind me gave me a piece of paper and requested me to explain its meaning. I read the first para of the paper and returned it to her saying this is outside my domain, I have no idea what it means and the only person who can help you is VP (Production).

She told me that it was VP(Production) who had given her this paper and asked her to prepare few slides for a presentation. I told her in such a case VP(Production) is the right person to contact and she pointed me towards the chair of VP(Production) and said, “But he has left for the day.”

I told her then she must call VP(Production) and ask him to explain what in the name of God is this stuff. She said yes and few minutes later I heard her discussing the piece of paper with another colleague.

Since I was not working on a deadline and couldn’t control my urge of telling my colleague that my solution of the problem is right and she must call VP(Production) for guidance, I asked her to show me the piece of paper again. I read it again, figured out that the reason our VP(Production) is VP(Production) because he can easily decipher things that look like an extract from a textbook which according to us must be ignored while preparing for exam because there is little probability of the examiner being a cruel bitch at heart and asking such tough questions.

The three of us started debating the piece of paper and another colleague overheard us. He too was not working on a deadline and couldn’t resist his urge of proving he can do what none of us can. He read the piece of paper and told us what it meant.

There was silence when our colleague finished. The colleague had just acted like a college professor that practiced the maxim if you don’t understand anything then just read whatever that is written in the textbook and if anyone asks a question reply, “That is a good question. I will get back to you later” and move to something that you know.

Finally the colleague that was given the work of preparing presentation spoke. She said,”Sirji, even I was able to understand what you said. My problem is how I must put it in the ppt.” The colleague who has potential of becoming a college professor replied, “I told you what I was able to understand from the printout you have given me.”

We all nodded our heads and thanked him for the help. What I loved the most about my colleague's reply was the tone in which she replied. She made it absolutely clear to the colleague preaching what he didn't know, that we were not duffers who were incapable of understanding what was written on a piece of paper. Our only problem was we were not smart enough to convert an extract of an textbook into a ppt and neither was he.

I don’t know what the colleague with the soul of college professor replied. I had turned around and was pretending to check mails until he left. I think after hearing the tone of my colleagues reply he would have said something like if you need a detailed explanation then you must ask for guidance from VP(Production) . I think so because when I turned back after the colleague who had made us all remember our college lectures had gone, both of my colleagues were still discussing the same piece of paper.

To sum up

Thanks for the unsolicited advice. We appreciate your help and next time if you want to feel superior kindly talk with someone else.

College Days by Gaurav

Dabbawallas are shrewd businessmen

Being a bachelor, single and away from home life gives me several privileges. There is no one who ask me to clean my room or wash my clothes. No one says that you are a nutcase just because I play loud music while drinking beer and think if my mom ever came to know about this she will have a heart attack and hence I must always deny to that I drink, smoke or wear the same jeans to work for the whole week or two.

The only problem I face because I live alone is dinner. I have stayed in a hostel during my graduation and my life improved a lot after I got a job, but sometimes I feel that I am still eating food from my hostel’s mess. The food my dabbawalla supplies sometimes makes me wonder whether my dabbawalla has got a hidden agenda of making me go on a diet.

My dabbawalla doesn’t supply bad food always. He specializes in supplying insipid food and makes an exception when his payday approaches. I have analyzed his business tactics without Microsoft excel and concluded that he is a shrewd businessman and as is the case of every shrewd businessman his customers hate him.

It is not that I have not tried different dabbas. Lunch is the tool through which I have experimented with a few dabbas and found that in Pune every dabbawalla is a shrewd businessman. I think the dabbawallas are like American MNC’s. They all supply goods that have been outsourced from the same factory. Unfortunately, unlike American MNC’s ,,they don’t have a corporate culture. Hence, they don’t have a call centre outsourced from Gurgaon or Bangalore that I can call to vent my anger. Hence, I am writing this blog.

I once cancelled my dinner dabba and resolved that every night I will eat at a restaurant. This plan worked successfully until a few deadlines in the office started approaching. I don’t have the energy to go to a restaurant or order food when after I leave office after 9 pm and so after spending a few nights eating Maggie and biscuits, I was back to dinner dabba.

The only good thing that came out from my failed resolution was that I became aware of the reason due to which dabbawallas supply food that ensures you will never have to visit VLCC for weight loss.  The reason dabbawalla don’t care for their customers is because they know the customers have no better options.

To sum up

Dabbawallas are like cellular service providers. You switch hoping better service and after a few days realize that everyone in this business promises great service but rarely delivers.   

Newspapers will survive

During my graduation I formed a habit of reading the Times of India. I used to come back from college and read all the cartoons and solve Sudoku before dinner. After dinner I used to read the part of TOI that contained news and think I was improving my knowledge of current affairs. Although till date I have never got a chance to demonstrate my knowledge of current affairs, I still read the Times of India. The only thing that has changed is that I now read TOI on my office computer.

I have stopped reading the newspaper ever since I got a job. I still subscribe to TOI only to find it at my door every morning and depositing it in the heap of raddi after I come back from office because there is no need for me to read newspaper anymore. When I come home, I have already read news from google news, laughed at cartoon thanks to my subscription to cartoon websites that deliver cartoons in my inbox and don’t have any interest or energy to solve Sudoku.

When I was studying TOI was my primary source of news and today it is google news. Many people say and few believe that the newspaper industry is dying. The newspaper companies are either setting websites that offer plethora of useless content (you don’t believe me, please visit TOI’s homepage) or becoming bankrupt.

The biggest difference between yesterday and today is the way I get news. Yesterday I used to read newspaper and wait for one whole day to get the update. Today I read google news and get updates as events take place. Today I not only read stories from TOI but also New York Times and don’t ever pay a single buck for it.

I think the web has made the world smaller and more competitive. The web is ensuring that only the fittest survive when people have access to the best news sources. It is a bad news for newspapers because now to know what is happening on the oil spill I am no more dependent on TOI or Dainik Bhaskar.

However, although I don’t read TOI’s print edition anymore I still subscribe to it. Every month the newspaperwala collects Rs 120 from me and after paying the subscription I say what’s the point in buying newspaper when you are not reading it. I guess old habits die hard even if they are useless.

To sum up

Save paper, read news online. Good slogan but will not work because I still cannot read news using my laptop while sitting on the toilet seat.

I am a chocoholic

I am a foodie. I love every type of cuisine and my belly is the proof of it. However, my all time favorite dishes are ice creams and chocolates. I have spent few Sundays eating nothing except ice creams and chocolates and telling my mom that the dabba today was ok and I ate it.

Today a colleague who had spent the last month in Europe came to office. The chaiwala came to my office with the morning tea and I received an IM that she has got chocolates for us and are kept on terrace.

Being a chocoholic I rushed to the terrace only to find my colleagues were swarming over the chocolates like bees. I wanted to shoo them away saying that’s my job but before I could do anything to cement my reputation of being a jerk I realized that I am not the only chocoholic in the company. Hence, I decided to follow the cardinal rule of chocoholic’s club that states whenever chocolates are being distributed kindly stand in queue and wait for your turn. Thank you for your patience and for not being a jerk.

I waited and waited for my turn sipping tea. People were chatting near the chocolate bag and I was losing my patience. Come on guys, move on. Its tea time. Don’t you have any work? Please. I promise I won’t eat enough chocolates that will make me skip lunch but double breakfast, come on I deserve it because I am a chocoholic.

As I finished my second cup of tea my turn came. I went to the chocolates bag and found few chocolates were left. I decided to eat all of them as my second breakfast and when people will complain about it I will say,”I have done enough to become the President of the office’s chocoholic club, haven’t I?”

After picking my first chocolate I felt there were few chocoholics in office who have not yet received a single chocolate. So I picked up one more and left. After all I am planning to run for the post of office’s chocoholic club President and every politician knows if you want to win an election then don’t things that will piss off your electorates.

To sum up

Chocolates are bad. They ruin your teeth. They make you fat. Chocolates are yuck. Give me your chocolates.

Working on a deadline

The last few days have been the best days of my life because I have not worked on any deadline. No one said to me that we are short of resources and we need your help and no one told me that if we don’t achieve this deadline our performance appraisal is screwed.

During the last few days I have been doing my eight hours of work and going home. This has made me believe that God exists, listens to my prayers and has told Satan to leave me alone. I was working yesterday after lunch that suddenly a senior colleague told to me that she has work for me that I love to do.

I wanted to tell her that if its work then I am the most unromantic person in the world. However she is a senior colleague and giving her an idea that I hate work is equivalent of telling a cop that you are kleptomaniac. I looked at her and asked her what does she think I love to do. She told me there is a deadline and I need to support her to achieve it. I asked what about your team and she said the guy who was supposed to do the work that you are going to do has said he is uncomfortable doing it.

I wanted to tell her that I have my own project and it also has a deadline but then that senior colleague few days later is going to work with me on my project. Also I am sure that my senior colleague attends many more we-can-do-it strategy meetings than me and has a better knowledge of our organization’s priorities than I do. So I asked her when do I need to shift to her project and she said immediately.

I told her to give me the necessary files and went to work. While working on deadline I realized this was not the work that could be done within the time allotted. I thought about telling the senior colleague that the deadline is not tough but impossible to achieve. However, she was busy managing the project like an Indian batsman who knows although the test cannot be saved we can avoid an innings defeat.

Looking at the way she was trying to achieve deadline I decided to do what every Indian bowler tries to do when the batsmen have failed. I decided to support her as much as I can because we were now a team and no one wants to be part of a team that can play but cannot win.

To sum up

The number one thing deadlines teach us is that never give up unless you have couple of job offers in hand.  

Watching Magadheera

I am not a movie buff. I like to watch only action and horror movies and that’s all what I watch. However, being an Indian whenever I want to watch a good movie I have to watch a Hollywood one because forget watching Bollywood movies in theaters, they are not even worth the bandwidth spend on downloading. Few months back I went to the guy living next to my room and asked him if he had any English movies. I don’t remember what he said because of my poor memory but I remember he gave me few mallu movies saying you won’t be disappointed.

I am sure if you are a North Indian you may think South Indian movies are all about Rajnikant or Chiranjeevi or heroines that are working in South India because Mallika Shewarat and Rakhi Sawant still don’t reject movies because of date problems. If you are a South Indian you may be saying that the North Indian perception of South Indian movies shows eating only paneer and chicken can make a person fat and a bastard and I support you.

I told you before I like to watch action movies. Hence, believe me Bollywood movies with their awesome starcast and bad stories can ruin your Sunday. However, South Indian movies with their at par with Hollywood action techniques are not only fun but also teach us that if you want to enjoy your life then you must always subscribe to the unlimited downloading plan.

Few days back one of my friends in office told me to download Aayirathil Oruvan. I asked him why he is telling me to download a movie whose name I can’t even spell and he told me because it is one of the best movies of this year. Being a friend I know his taste and that when he gives 3 stars to an action movie it is a five stars movie for me. I downloaded Aayirathil Oruvan and found that the torrent didn’t have a subtitles file. I googled for its subtitles but couldn’t find it.

Disappointed I said to myself this movie is going to the recycle bin. However, before deleting it I decided to have a quick look at the action scenes and this movie is still sitting on my hard drive.  

Few days back the same friend told me to download Magadheera. After watching Aayirathil Oruvan I have stopped questioning my friend why must I download a movie. I downloaded the movie and found it is a good movie. There are not many action scenes in it but whatever it has are very good. There is a good action sequence at the beginning but then you have to fast forward the movie for a long time to reach at the next action scene.

I reported the same to my friend and he told me so what, the heroine is cute, isn’t she. I wanted to tell my friend I had only watched the actions scenes in the movie Magadheera and didn’t take a single look at the heroine but I didn’t say so because I know my friend and his next question would have been, “Seriously dude, are you gay or something?”

To sum up

Dear Bollywood, spend half of the money you do on marketing movies on the movie’s story and there would be no guy who doesn’t understand Tamil or Malayalam watching a South Indian movie.

I wish I was not such a nice person

My first job was in Gurgaon. The person taking my interview told me that the company has a cab service and hence although I lived far away from the office, there was no need for me to worry about the chaotic Gurgaon traffic. After joining the company I realized that due to the the chaotic Gurgaon traffic I had to spend one hour sitting in the cab while going to the office and one hour sitting in the cab while coming back from the office.

Spending two hours everyday in a cab meant that when I worked for 10 hours in office, I was effectively giving 12 hours to my job, when I was working 12 hours on a single day, I was giving 14 hours to my job and when I worked 14 hours on a single day I wished if I could sleep in office.

After Gurgaon I shifted to Pune. During my interview with my current company's CFO I told her that I wanted to delay my joining by ten days because I wanted to search for a room to stay near the office. The CFO asked me what is the guarantee that you will find a room near office in ten days and I told her if I cannot find a room near office in ten days then it would mean that there were no rooms available near our office. I think my reply satisfied her because she granted me the much needed ten days delay in joining the company.

Within a week I found a room that is five minutes away from my office and have been staying alone in it irrespective of the number of suggestions I have received that staying with me will halve your rental cost. This also means one of my colleague who doesn’t stay in Pune whenever he misses his train spends the night at my room.

Tonight at around 10:00 pm I received a call from my colleague who doesn’t stay in Pune. I guessed a call from him at this time meant that he had missed his local and wanted to spend the night at my room. I thought about ignoring the call and asking him tomorrow,” Hey buddy, what happened? I saw your name in the missed calls today.” But that would have been a lie and as someone who has spend few months sitting for more than one hour in a cab wishing his room was nearer to office I had to pick up the phone and say, “Sure buddy, you are welcome. After all a friend in need is a friend indeed………ha…ha…ha”

I told my friend that he can spend the night at my room and he was in my room within five minutes. I welcomed my friend in my room and he saw a pen in my hand. He asked me what are you doing and I told him I am trying to write a blog.

My friend told me if you are trying to write a blog then shouldn’t you be sitting in front of your laptop. I wanted to tell him to stop talking like an MBA because MBAs are people who have never done any work but believe they can improve efficiency by giving suggestions that are full of jargons and never work.

I wanted to tell my friend that when I don’t have any ideas to write a blog I like to scribble something on paper. However, my friend was looking at me as if I was an uncle who regularly used stairs to reach flat no. 701 when the apartment had elevator because he wanted some exercise.  I don’t contest the argument that climbing seven floors using stairs is good for physical health. I just want to add that if you climb seven floors using stairs then surely you will get a good workout and you also need to get you head examined.

Since my friend had talked like an MBA I decided to use the time tested trick of diverting his attention so that he won’t bother me anymore. I asked him since I was not using my laptop to write a blog so would he be interested in watching a movie on my laptop.

To sum up

Dear friend, I am a nice person. Don’t do things that will make me feel that nowadays being a nice person is a mistake. 

What the Indian cricket team needs to do now.

An Indian who says that he likes cricket is a lair. No Indian likes cricket. We love cricket. Cricket is the passion of every Indian and we don’t love our cricketers. We worship them. Hence, today when I read on cricinfo that India lost to Zimbabwe I said WTF and that was not because we lost. As an Indian cricket fan I know my team always bounces back but the way we lost I had to say I feel being let down.

Tonight I am not sad because we lost. Tonight I am sad because the way we lost. We lost because our team played as if it had no desire to win. We were playing against a team that doesn’t even have money to buy good cricket kits for its players and we lost. I know we all have bad days and then we have good days in office but failure and lack of effort are two absolutely different things. You can justify failure to me by saying all days are not same but refusal to give 100% effort in the field is completely unacceptable.

Losing to Zimbabwe doesn’t mean that I will not support India anymore. It just means the next time I see an ad featuring Indian cricketer on TV I am going to say the reason Australia is so successful is because its players do not get any ads. The biggest difference between Australia and us is not that the Australian diet consists of a secret ingredient that produces legends. The difference between Australia and us is of attitude. When Australia is losing the players are not giving their 100%. They are giving 110%. They know that their defeat in this match is inevitable but they also believe that what is inevitable can be delayed.

Our guys gave a target of 195 runs to be chased in a 50 overs match. Nowadays even in a T20 this total won’t guarantee us a win. The match was over even before Zimbabwe batted. However what was not over was the fight for the bonus point. As far as I see it the reason we lost so poorly was because none of the our bowlers bowled with the intent of picking five wickets. We said to Zimbabwe that we hope you guys make mistakes so that we can put up a fight. Sorry guys but in international cricket a man who is proud to wear his nation’s cap is not the one who capitalizes on the mistakes of opposition but he is someone who gives 110% when he has no hope of winning.

To sum up

What Indian team needs to do is to hire me. I hold a Phd in not doing my job and blaming someone else for my failure.