The office

A lot of people have been complaining to me that I have become shockingly silent and less energetic. Enough to enquire if I am sick. I hope this post will explain everything and clear all doubts.

At the Cafe :

Halli Gowda: Maga, you know what?

Iceman: What? (Which actually sounds like - Do I have an option not to know?)

Halli Gowda: I have decided something.

Iceman: Hmmm. (Not again?)

Halli Gowda: (Now speaking to everybody at the table, who has become interested) I have decided to become a football fan.

Iceman: Must have been a tough decision.

Halli Gowda: No maga. Nothing like that. I was sitting at home yesterday, when the thought came to my head. What do you say?

Iceman (Rolling my eyes): You “decided” to become a fan? (Looking around to see if anybody finds this weird)

Halli Gowda: Yeah. Football…football fan.

Nobody seemed to find it weird.

Iceman: You do what your heart tells you. Go make us all proud. (Banging my head on a wooden table – in my imagination.)

During a net meeting :

This is the kind of meetings where your desktop can be seen and sometimes (depending on permissions) can be controlled by a person on some other computer machine far away. Then we also call each other up so that we can discuss whatever is going on, on the screen.

Voice at the phone: Open that excel sheet.

The leader opens the excel sheet.

Voice: Right jao (Go right. – Indicating him to  scroll right)

Leader scrolls right on the sheet.

Voice. Aur right jao (Go further right)

Leader scrolls more.

Voice: Aur jao (Go more)
This goes on for about 12-14 times and we are all standing and wondering what he might have written in that sheet so far right after all the empty cells, because in MS Excel, there is no outer limit to how far you can scroll, the sheet just keeps growing. This happened long enough to have a commercial ad in between.

Voice: Aur right jao

*Pause*

Voice: Sorry, I meant left. Go left.

Fail!

Another day another meeting:

Teammate: Hi, meeting eeej about tuh istart. Caam een.

Iceman: ok.

Teammate: You aarr presser no?

Iceman: No, coder. What is the role of a presser? (trying to sound all corporate and technical)

Teammate: No role. But someone told me you are presser.

Iceman: Who told? I am not so experienced to be put into such high level roles. You must be confused with someone else…?

Teammate: That only, no experience no? Presser, said like that manager.

Iceman (Seriously doubting my own knowledge about the industry): Manager told you that I have been assigned this ‘presser’ role?

Teammate: Arrey, you just phinissed your gra-ju-yesan no?

Iceman(Now, banging my head on a marble table – in my imagination):  Oh got it. Yes I am a presser. (Fresher).

The leader: Haha, you must be very absent minded, you phorgot that you were presser?

Iceman: Yeah. I’ll be forgetting more than that from now on.

At the room:

The Headless Horseman: I have decided to quit drinking.

Iceman: What?

The Headless Horseman: I know.

Iceman: When did you start?

The Headless Horseman: The other day I tasted a bit of that Vodka. My uncle thinks I am getting fat.

Iceman: Where do you guys come up with these life changing decisions?

Processes processes:

If there is one thing that people here complain about work around here, it is the numerous processes to be followed than actual work. Even farting requires a permission which has to be obtained by sending a mail to a certain so-and-so and CC to your manager and department head for approval and it doesn’t get approved for about a week by when you have got tons of shitty ideas and plots developed by holding back your fart.

I had to mail a certain Narnia (Of course the name is fucking changed. But it sounds close.), asking for access to a high priority code execution environment. She did not reply and nor did she do her side of the job, which got me into an online fight with her and well I never got access to the environment. Remember, the seemingly nicey-dicey but cut-throat world of corporate is not a place cut-out for people like me. I just had to be happy with cursing Narnia to be stuck to her seat for the rest of her life wherever she sat in any of the offices of my company in the world.

Cute girl:

Recently, I was given a task which had to be carried out on a colleague’s machine because of the favourable setup. She sat at the far opposite corner of the floor. As me and my teammate sat down to get down and dirty with the task, I noticed that her neighbour was pretty damn cute. Someone I had noticed a few times at the café. No make-up, pure cute. I couldn’t stop turning around to look at her and was pretty distracted. She had been noticing this too and I feared pissing her off. For the rest of the day I got busy on phone calls to the manager and other people related to the task and had no time be distracted (Yeah, I know!).

At the end of the day, as she (the cute girl in the neighbouring cubicle) got up to go home or the café or wherever she was going, she lost her balance and bumped into me.

Cute girl: Hey, sorry J

Iceman: That’s alright.

Cute girl: You seem to be having a hectic day?



Iceman: No, I guess it’s a simple job, but I’m new to this.

Cute girl: Ok. I have no idea what you are doing, but I can help..?

Iceman (Speaking to myself): “Fuck work, put your moves on her, this is your chance.”
(Now speaking loudly) Haha, that’s very nice of you, but no thanks. I’m almost done. And your name is?

Cute girl: I’m Narnia. And you are?

Iceman (Crash-Boom-Bang):  Never mind!
FML!

NOTE: I might and probably will lose my sense of humour very soon. Please bear with me then.