Pax

It has been brought to my notice that the earth is a little tilted off its axis. I think I shall use it tomorrow as my excuse for why the world is out to get me and why I need a nice long rest from work.

Well don’t blame me for sounding a little desperate. I have just got off a client call where 15 voices were all hanging on to one telephone line and not saying anything. I was tempted to whistle “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in between just to set the mood.

I found that people listening to me not talking is more scary than people listening to me talk. Am I breathing too little? Too hard (perv caller hard)? What if a sudden sneeze shows up? Am I contributing enough (No.) ? Am I contributing too much (As if!!) ? And then MANNA…I have a question to ask! There is a purpose to my whole existence… I ask it… Deathly silence…Did anyone hear? Anyone understand? Was I speaking Swahili, HELLOOO? Then a faint voice in the shadows murmurs something

Is there a ghost in this conf call?? How come there never are?? I would seriously dig a ghost that showed up in a conference and asked the coordinator for a Functional Specifications Document Template. Worse luck, it ain’t no ghost. So what now? Do I follow polite Indian conversational etiquette and go “HAIIIIIINNNN???” or polite English etiquette “WTF??”

The drama unfolds. There is a sudden roar and clatter…. PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE …. I jump...Somebody forgot the mute button in the middle of his missile launch…But no complaints, I’m saved by the shriek…People have forgotten the Answer-That-Never-Was

Is there anything more exciting than a conference of this type… Try “security audits”… Halloween has nothing to it… There is a breezy gentleman doing an “audit”…Quick… run the batch scripts to rename all the music/movies/etc and put it in the windows system directory… My windows grows by 2GB with every “audit” …

Did I hide everything? Palms are sweating! Ouch, he found the barely appropriate cartoon sitting on my desktop (At least it wasn’t my wallpaper anymore)… You really know its not your day when an auditor is sitting at your desk and an email pops up “Fuck – the most versatile word in the English Language”

To top this off we have a meeting to discuss the 1 hour long silent call. Another half hour of waffling to figure out no one got nothing…Head is starting to pound in earnest.

This is when everyone decides this would be a great time to attend a seminar on appraisals (compulsory)… WAAYYY BELOW THE BELT… People who shouldn’t be let out without nannies asking questions about “fairness of procedure” and “uniformity of pay hikes”. I got fed up…Every one has a breaking point…

I asked “How much will the pay hike be this year?” The presenter was arrested…He began to dodge like a Marine Commando… I tortured him for a few more minutes with direct questions that no corporate body in their right mind would answer… He began to look hunted and finally let us off for lunch. Mission Impossible Done. Ha Ha!

So there I am considering a long hibernation from work…Only way out I see is to fake a pregnancy…Paid leave… Will show up one day with a pillow and waddle around the managers. Peace and quiet.