And I ran away

One of the things I hate the most about deadlines is that as they approach the team has to sit late to achieve them. I hate attending office so sitting late in office to me is like watching a cricket match where India’s loss is a foregone conclusion. Nowadays I am working on a deadline so for the last few days I am sitting late in office and thinking about various ways to bomb my office building.

Today at around seven I noticed that there was only one person working on the deadline and since I am working on a deadline that person was me. I wondered what had happened to my team. Whether it had forgotten how sacrosanct deadlines are or whether they have forgotten we have a deadline. 

I opened the status chart and found the project was under control. I don’t understand how did it happen but when a change takes place for good, one needs to accept it.

I thought about doing some more work so that tomorrow I won’t have much work and will be able to tweet as much as I want. I thought about it and realized that I always tweet so much that people think i am a bot. Deadlines just increase my frustration level and the more frustrated I am the better cubicle blues I have.

Looking at the status chart I thought for a while what must I do now? There was no need for me to work anymore tonight. This meant now two options were available to me. I could either stay in office and tweet sitting under an air conditioner or go home and tweet sitting under a fan. I choose the latter one because as I said before when a change takes place for good, one needs to accept it.

To sum up

I am not afraid of deadlines. I am afraid of missing them.

Wednesday lunch

Every office has its own peculiarities. In my company all the employees are given a company sponsored lunch on the last Wednesday of the month. I have never bothered to know why it is the last Wednesday and not last Friday because I have spent enough time in my cubicle to accept that office is one of the places in universe that are not governed by logic.

The menu today was chana masala, paneer whatever (I have lived in Gurgaon for 2.5 years. I don’t care what sabji it is until it has paneer in it), dal, rice, roti, pineapple raita and jaljira. I think our HR dept is an ardent believer of the philosophy that says – Eat, drink and fart.

The HR informed us that lunch is ready and I dashed towards the terrace to refute the theory that there are no free lunches. I reached terrace and found that few of my friends were already having lunch. The HR had put some plastic chairs on the terrace so that we could enjoy the meal. I found it very awkward. The way my friends were sitting closely, chatting, holding their plate in hand made me remember of the few marriages I had attended. 

I took my plate and taking clue that this would be like a marriage reception I decided to eat my lunch standing. I had moved few meters away from the food stall that I heard one of my friends shout at me – Where are you going? We all are here. This was equivalent to an uncle you meet at a marriage who tries to become friendly with you so that he can know more about you and later say to your parents – Your son is a gem. I know few girls that will become perfect bahu. I will send you their photos. Meanwhile if you have your son’s bio-data please give it to me so that I can talk with the parents of girls that looking for ideal son-in-law. 

Uncleji that’s so 1990s. Get out of the time wrap. This is 2010. Today if I want to get married I will register myself on shaadi.com. and that’s not all. I don’t want to be marry someone who can be a ideal bahu. I want to marry someone who can be an ideal life partner. I have very high expectations from my wife and that’s why I am single.

I told my friend that I will be back in 2 mins and as I do with such uncles, I disappeared in the crowd. I took my lunch which was awesome and then tried pineapple raita. I tasted one spoon of it and decided the remaining will go in the dustbin. Lunch over it was time for a jaljeera. I tasted jaljeera and wished some HR guy was on the terrace. I am a foodie and I find great pleasure in castigating people who ruin the taste of a good meal.

I came back after dumping the pineapple raita and jaljeera in the dustbin and decided to have a Halls to kill the taste I had in my mouth. After all of all the pleasures in life having a good meal can be considered as second best to sleeping in office.

To sum up

HR you ruined a perfect lunch. I swear revenge. I will make you watch Kites.

Sometimes i like to work

If work is worship then I am an atheist. Today I reached office with the knowledge that I will be working on a new project. I reached office and found that a team has a deadline on the coming Monday, is short of resources and I have been allocated to them. I asked them what work I have to do and they told me that the work that is related to my expertise. I asked where the required files are and a team member gave me the location.

I completed the work on the files in two hours and asked the team member for more files. The team member replied that the new files were not yet ready. I told her so can I do timepass for couple of hours and she said – Sure. Enjoy. New files for you will be ready around lunch.

I said thank you to her and came back to my computer. I opened my twitter account and started tweeting. The only problem is that when you know that you are going to get lots of work after two hours, you don’t know whether you are lucky or screwed.

I had lunch, came back and found there were no files available for me to work.  I asked the team member what must I do now and she told me since new joinees were working on the files it might take about two hours to reach the stage where any work will be available for me. I asked her so can I go back to doing timepass and she said - I know work is piling up, you will have to work till late night to complete it and that’s all because of us. I am really sorry.

I wanted to say to the team member that don’t feel sorry, I love to do timepass in office but that would have gone against my reputation of being a workaholic. So I told her its ok. What can you do about it? The team member said I can shout at the new joinees to work faster because due to them you are sitting idle and I said, "Leave it. New joinees are just kids. Don’t scare them." I know I acted like a jackass but given a choice between work and timepass in office, I know where my loyalties lie.

I came back to my desk to begin another round of tweeting. Few minutes later I received a mail from another team. I am involved in a project where I work sporadically because that team has limited requirement of my expertise. I read the mail and calculated it would take me about four to six hours to do the work.

Now I had two options. The team with which I work sporadically told me that the deadline for my work is Friday and the team with which I was working had officially told me to do timepass. Common sense instructed me to ignore the mail and employee loyalty said you are paid to work and not being smart enough to say you are busy when you are not.

Instead of listening to common sense or employee loyalty I decided to take the middle path. I choose to tweet while I worked. After all I have a reputation of being a workaholic and a reputation can be built but cannot be sustained if you are fake.

To sum up

I love to work. I love to tweet. I must add ability to multi-task on my CV. I can tweet while I work.

I messed it up and I am sorry

Last Thursday afternoon I completed all the projects given to me. This meant for the next two days I would have to work on a new project. I really didn’t want to shift to a new project in the middle of a week. So I approached the VP (Production) and asked him can I have a comp-off on Friday and a leave on Saturday. The VP (Production) asked me the status of my projects and I told him all of them have been completed. The VP smiled and told me - Complete the formalities regarding your comp-off and leave and then you can go home.

I completed the formalities and walked out of the office knowing I will be enjoying a long weekend. Before leaving the office I made a very important enquiry. A colleague was getting married and I asked another colleague when the marriage is and he told me on Sunday evening.

I spend the Friday sleeping, drinking beer, reading novels and watching movies. I carried on the same routine on Saturday until 8:30 pm. At 8:30 pm my mobile rang and I saw a colleague's number being displayed on it. I prayed this may be call for a drinking party and not Abhishek we have a deadline and since we are short of resources can you come to office on Sunday.

I thought about disconnecting the call but my intuition told me that this was a drinking party call. Since drinking booze with friends doubles the fun, I decided to pick up the call. I said hello and my colleague at the other end shouted at me - Abhishek, where the fuck you are?

Listening to the tone of my colleague’s voice I knew this is not a drinking party call. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to trust my sixth sense instead of common sense and asked my colleague why he had called. In reply my colleague again shouted at me - Just answer to me, are you at home?

The tone of his voice tempted me to say I am at a movie and we can’t talk but I will surely call you back tomorrow. Unfortunately the colleague on the other end of the call is also my friend and there is no point in lying to friends because sooner or later they find out the truth and the later they know the truth, the bigger asshole they think you are. So I told him the truth that I am at home doing nothing and asked him does he want to come to my home to have a beer.

My colleague cum friend asked me what are you doing at home and I told him aren’t on a holiday, at 8:30 pm I am supposed to be at home. He told me not when one of your friends is getting married. I told him to calm down because the marriage in on Sunday and today is Saturday. My colleague told me to get my ass at the marriage venue within half hour or be ready to face the consequences on Monday.

I told my friend that I am not falling for such stupid jokes and my friend told me except you everyone in our group is present here. He then added with whom you would like to talk to confirm that you have fucked up big time. The seriousness in my friend’s voice told me that I had indeed screwed up. I thought for a while and said to my friend - Ok, I will be there in an hour and please don’t tell anybody about our conversation.

I went to the washbasin and found myself to be completely wasted. I thought about washing my face to become presentable and brushing my teeth to kill the smell of beer but realized it is a stupid idea. I love my friends but attending a marriage in a drunken condition where more than have of my office staff will be present is stupider than missing a friend’s marriage because I had screwed up the dates. Damn even SRK of MNIK wouldn’t have done that. So I went to my bed, took a beer and started watching a movie hoping that the bride develops cold feet and runs away before marriage. 

To sum up

Dear colleague I couldn’t attend your marriage, I am sorry. I wished your bride runs away so that you won’t be able to embarrass me in front of everyone during few lunches, I am sorry. What I am not sorry is that I didn’t call you to apologize for my mistake because I have no desire of writing a blog about calling a friend to apologize and he angrily disconnecting my call after saying - Abhishek, Shut the fuck up. I am on honeymoon.

Office Romeo XI

We live in a small world. Hence, there are few things that are found in every office such as HR dept that makes you jealous for doing little work and consisting of more girls than you have talked in college, admin dept that teaches you at some places arguing is useless and office romance that makes you wonder how did your colleagues got so much free time.

Flirting in office is like a cricket match on a flat pitch. Whether you like it or not depends on which side you are supporting.  It is turning out to be a great game if your side is batting and a disaster if it is bowling. Same goes with flirting. If you are flirting then there is nothing wrong in having a little chit-chat with a colleague and if you are not flirting then you are pissed off every time you find a female colleague chatting with a guy and smiling.

I have spend few years in my cubicle watching and listening stories of office romances and have reached the conclusion that office romance is the proof that there is no correlation between education and wisdom. It also shows that I am a member of the team that denounces flirting in office and whenever a female colleagues tries to talk with me on a matter that has got nothing to do with work I start thinking – Abhishek, say something funny, now, just say it, ok not funny just say something, stop nodding and saying ya ya like a yankee monkey but say something. The end result is usually the girl concludes I am a workaholic with little social skills and me tweeting – I am not a workaholic nerd. I am just a nerd.

I think flirting is like cricket. There are bowlers that try to confuse batsmen with googlies and there are batsmen whose sole aim is to score as many quick runs against as many bowlers as possible. I don’t know much about bowlers because I don’t know much about girls and with the knowledge of batsmen I present to you office romeo XI.

1.       The Sanath Jayasuriya types: These are the guys with fabulous track record. Everyone is office is of the opinion that they can pwn any bowler. There is only one problem. Whenever they come to bat they are out in the first over. The bowlers castle their wickets and send them back to the pavilion aka cubicle with as ease as deleting a mail that says your uncle has died in Nigeria leaving you a fortune.

2.       The Mathew Hayden types: Innovative, brilliant and don’t realize they are too old to play. My only advice to them is uncle you are married and have kids then why the fuck do things that make you a laughing stock.

3.       The Rahul Dravid types: They are really the wall. The bowler begs them to get out but they keep on playing nonchalantly even on deadlines as if they have all the time in the world. They don’t score any runs but ensure that next time the bowler seems them in a mall, she runs for her life.

4.       The Andrew Symonds types: They have the reputation of being a bad boy, they know it and intend to keep it. They are believers of big hitting and I think the sole aim of their batting is to tell people like me that no guts, no glory, no girlfriend.

5.       The Virender Sehwag types: They don’t care at which juncture the match is. All they want is to play glorious shots. Usually they are victim of soft dismissals (in cricket playing a stupid shot and in flirting getting out because they put their foot in their mouth) and come back to their cubicle with the resolution that they will never act so rashly ever again.

6.       The Yuvraj Singh types: I am strictly putting Yuvi in this list because I remembered a tweet by @eyepeeyell that said the reason Pritey Zinta is pissed off because Yuvraj Singh has bigger tits than her. These are the cute guys with tormented past because the bullies in college frequently posed awkward questions to them to find out whether they are really lesbians trapped in male bodies. Nothing can be done about them because nobody knows when they will hit six balls for six sixes and when will they get out so stupidly that you will want to strangle them for ruining the reputation of every guy in office.

7.       The Kevin Pollard types: These are the prize catch. They work as much as anyone else in the team does but being graduates of some big college their salary cheque is good enough to give us an inferiority complex. There is never a question regarding their ability to win the match on their own. The only question is of when. Sometimes they can take so long to deliver a match winning performance that you come to know about their feat from your ex-colleagues.

8.       The Kevin Peterson types: The bowler slayer type. They have the class, they have the talent and can destroy any bowler at whim. That’s why bowlers are extremely wary of playing against them because when such types are in form and in mood, they really get to the nerves of the opposition.

9.       The Joginder Sharma types: I really feel sorry for such batsmen. They really don’t play. In their entire life they have performed one unintentional miracle in the field of flirting like going to a movie with a female colleague and the whole office never allows them to forget it. They know their talent and whenever given an opportunity to bat surrender their wicket without any resistance.

10.   The ICL types: They don’t have the talent or the skill to flirt but being ardent of believers of Chance of Dance philosophy they don’t allow any opportunity to slip. If they don’t get an opportunity then they scowl for being treated unfairly. I think the best thing one can do instead of asking them to shut up is to encourage them. There is no fun in working if you don’t have an idiot in your team.

11.    The Pakistani types: These are the matchfixers type. The outcome of their matches is decided even before the match starts. They pretend in office as if they are just carrying out their flirting duties whereas in reality they have made the bowler biased by being friends with her on facebook.

To sum up

My theory of flirting if simple – If you can’t beat them, if you can’t join them then write a blog making fun of them. 

Chetan Bhagat rules

If you are reading this blog then I am sure you are a part of modern India. If you are a part of modern India then I am sure you have read a Chetan Bhagat novel. In fact even if are not a part modern India, you may be at a place where six hour power cut is a norm but if you are young I think you might have read a Chetan Bhagat novel.

If you are on twitter and follow more than 50 people then I am sure you would have read a Chetan Bhagat joke. Not a joke by Chetan Bhagat but a joke cracked on Chetan Bhagat saying that now Chetan Bhagat will demand credit for it or he will block it.

When Chetan Bhagat was listed among 100 most influential artists by Time, the Indian twittverse decided not to congratulate him on his achievement but went into a shock. Yes they were shocked because they couldn’t believe how come Time can even consider a person who is the owner of most hated handle in the Indian twittverse, the writer of crappy books which by the way are all bestsellers, the guy who single handedly ensured books by Indian writers get stacked next to western writers at Crossword as an artist.

The problem with Chetan Bhagat is that he does not write on Indian poverty. He doesn’t write about the sorry state of Indian villages where people starve, child marriages take place and Khap panchayat rules. He is the writer of modern India. The land where people go to office, earn a decent amount of money and dream big just like me and you do.

I think that if you have read up to here you are saying this guy is Chetan Bhagat bhakt. Ok that’s true. I have read all the novels written by Chetan Bhagat and I think all of them are good. I love Chetan Bhagat because he doesn’t write great books but because he writes books that are funny and I can enjoy them without referring to the dictionary.

To sum up

Dear Chetan Bhagat, you rule. Not the Indian twittverse but the place wherever in India books are sold.

Daru party with colleagues

My mom always said that those who drink alcohol go to hell. I think she is right. Those who drink alcohol go to hell after experiencing heaven on earth. Tonight I drank whiskey with my colleagues. I know its Tuesday, tomorrow I have to work and a hangover is the last thing I need while working on a deadline. But the point is that there is no point in working at place where you have no friends. 

One of my colleagues yesterday told me that few on my colleagues are planning to have a party tomorrow. I told that colleague that it is a great idea and I won’t be able to join them because I prefer to drink only on weekends. He said ok and I said to myself I have made the right decision. 

Today while having lunch I got to know everyone with whom I have lunch is joining the TTMM (Tu tera mein mera) daru party tonight. I thought I had made the wrong decision yesterday and told my colleagues that I will be joining them. They asked me why the sudden change in decision and I told them I love alcohol more anything else in the world even my work. 

We reached at the desired destination at 7 pm approx. A colleague who had few times visited the bar told us to buy cigarettes in advance because the bar doesn’t serve cigarettes inside. We bought a pack of Goldflake and entered into the bar as if we were regular enough to know every waiters name.

We ordered the drinks and the conversation started flowing. There was nothing much. What new stupidity one is facing at work and trying to find out who finds which female colleague attractive. Nobody told that his boss is a real asshole and which is the girl in office that he likes. 

We drank a lot and then ordered dinner. I thought for a while and said one more 30 ml pls. My colleagues thought I am too drunk to realize my limit and said nothing because a man trying to argue with a drunk man that he must not drink any more usually gets punched in the face. 

As I sipped my drink I found my colleagues eating food without any conversation. Thought I must say something but realized anything I will now say will be used tomorrow as proof that I was full took drunk last night. So I decided to finish my drink and have dinner as quickly as possible so that my colleagues won’t have to wait for me after finishing their dinner. 

To sum up

Daru parties with colleagues is not a drinking completion. They are a competition of who can hold a drink and still speak everything politically correct.

I don’t want to become Dilbert

Last Friday was the best Friday of my life. Work sucked as usual but I got several #Followfriday recommendations on Twitter. Some of them were from people who put 5-6 tweeps with #FF in a tweet. I checked their timeline and felt they were giving #FF to all of their followers. I didn’t bother to thank such people.

Along with people giving #FF to all their followers I received follow recommendation from few people whom I consider the best tweeps in the Indian tweetverse. You experience sheer happiness when you receive follow reco. from a tweep whose tweets you admire and since I received several #FF from the tweeps I admire, I was very happy on Friday. 

I thanked every tweep that gave a #FF to me because they think I am either the desi Dilbert or the next Dilbert. I did that because I am sure the people who called me Desi Dilbert or the next Dilbert are the people who read my tweets. 

Dilbert is my second favorite comic strip. My favorite comic strip is Calvin and Hobbes. After Calvin, Dilbert is the comic character that I enjoy reading the most. I think the only way Dilbert can beat Calvin in popularity is by becoming a superhero. If Dilbert becomes a superhero then instead of dealing with the two pointy headed boss, he would be fighting crime. Unfortunately this will not be good for my ego because as a side effect of this change nobody will refer to me as a comic character. 

Ask me what you think of Dilbert and I will say he is damn funny and realistic. Dilbert is the guy who is working with the same bunch of eccentric guys for the last several years. I am unable to understand why does no one in Dilbert’s company finds another job or gets fired. Dilbert sometimes goes to job interviews but always gets rejected. He is stuck in a job that he doesn’t like. Dilbert fits in my definition of being a loser. 

The reason we all like Dilbert is because we all can relate with him. We all work with people who sometimes do things that make us wish to slash their throats with letter opener. The Dilbert character I can identify most with myself is Asok and that’s not because he is Indian or never goes on a date.

When I entered the workforce I was like Asok. I was naive and didn’t know anything about office politics. I thought the boss with so much experience is a genius and those who work hard always get promoted. However, unlike Asok I have not studied in a big college and hence even after graduation I am still able to learn. 

I found in office that people are inherently good. They were just like me. They want to become friends with their colleagues. They want to work, they want of deliver awesome results and they want to win. Unfortunately, God works in mysterious ways and management without logic. People know being good has no effect on their chance for promotion but impressing the management does. Hence, they do what is necessary and gives those who are still good cubicle blues. 

If you ask me,”Abhishek, how is that you are not Dilbert?” then my answer is simple. I plan to quit my current job as soon as I can find a better one and since I am not Dilbert, I am sure I will find one. 

To sum up

I am not Dilbert. My short term goal is to become Wally, the guy who does no work. My long term goal is to become the two pointed hair boss, the guy who does no work, is incompetent and collects the fattest check at the end of the month.