Monday

The week started with me drafting a report on the worst workshop I ever attended. After this I was asked to estimate time for a new project. Half-way through the analysis I was requested to became part of some other team because it was having its deadline on Tuesday.

In short, a perfect day at office.

Tuesday

Achieved deadline of the “I don’t give a damn to the SOB team or project” and moved out of office just after mid-night.

Another perfect day / night at office.

Wednesday

Got up and thought about the new project. Realised it is not such a nice thought and decided to call office and say ,”Hello. I am sick and I hate to miss deadlines. So will you request someone else to work on my project”. This thought made me feel so good that I decided to attend office. As I reached the last stair I realised that I can now apply for Ripley’s Believe or not. Instead of using my legs, I had just descended seven stairs using my back. Some how I controlled my urge to call Mr. Ripley. Though not having his number did played an important part. Since I wanted to talk about my amazing feat, I called office and said, “Hello, I am sick and hence I cannot attend office”. Climbing back the eleven stairs to my room gave me the exhalation to that climbing the Mt. Everest. As I opened my room, I realised that this day resembles to one best days of life. It resembled the day on which I got a break from school because the school bus failed to stop my bus stop.

Not a perfect day at office but definitely one of best day of my life.

Thursday

Reached office after putting a mix of Moov and Zandu Balm. The smell travelled to every corner of the office and informed people the reason of my absence from office. It also made a few pray for my absence from office.

The girl sitting next to me came dressed as Barbie. I tried to tell her that I have noticed her dress but she said if I even tried to comment on her dress, she will cut me into several pieces and eat them during lunch. Since Hannibal Barbie failed to acknowledge the humour I mailed the list of my comments on her dress to my other colleagues. Within next 10 mins she was on desk acknowledging the comments and asking me, “What on earth made you think that the ribbons of my frock resemble to my tail?”

A colleague and a colleague-cum-friend got fired.

A usual day at office.

Friday

India lost series to New Zealand.

A very bad day at office.

Saturday

One of the most brilliant persons I worked with decided to go maternity leave. The girls in the office decided to give her baby shower and invited all the guys to attend it. During the birthday shower I decided that I will adopt children. I just can’t withstand the idea of someone kicking my wife. Hannibal Barbie explained to me that the child may probably kick my wife whenever she will take the child in her lap. This closed the doors of me ever becoming a father.

To sum up

The last week was the worst week of life. This week came pretty close of breaking that record.

The last week was the worst week of my life. First, I was asked to review the work of a new joinee. There are few things in office which bring me pleasure. One of them is pointing towards others and telling them that their work is so poor that I must be allowed to handcuff them and bang their head to their desk. Her work made me do something different. I decided to bang my head to my desk. But I couldn’t do it. Reason - I can accept being a sadist but being a masochist is way out of my league.

This was just the beginning of the week. By Friday I had came over my feeling of killing myself and started looking forward to the ever elusive Saturday off. I checked - No deadlines for me, and then rechecked - that’s it no deadlines for me. This is it. I work late nights for 4 days in a week, comprise on my blogging and here is the reward. No working on Saturday. Yes, at last I love my life.

There is a philosophical saying - If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plan. Wait, this is not philosophy. This is a joke by Woody Allen. Oh no, what has happened to my life? Has it become important enough to attract Mr. Allen’s attention or it has became a joke?

On Friday, as I was busy completing my weekend to do list, the HR department was busy checking my schedule. They checked - No deadline for him and rechecked - that’s it no deadline for him. This gave them the licence to request me to attend a workshop on Saturday. And with appraisal approaching who wants to say no to the HR.

The workshop guy exposed my poor sense of humour. To prove this he sent a colleague of his to the back row. Now whenever I failed to smile at the end of his sentence, the back row guy roared with laugher and with him the room whereas I couldn’t even get the joke.

In short, life was not going exactly as I had planned. I was sitting in an important workshop and contemplating on the worst week of my life. It was at this moment I understood God’s design. He was planning to fire me from earth by killing me. I decided to retaliate by quitting. But unfortunately no one can beat God. With heavy heart I have to tell you guys that I have failed.

To sum up

Last week was the worst week of my life. It was so bad that I tried to commit suicide and I am still alive.

Cartoon Link:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/c/commit_suicide.asp

Excerpt from a mass-forwarded mail by my colleague:

A Word to Husbands by Ogden Nash
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

My reply:

To keep my conscience clear

I decided to speak truth to my dear

If bachelorhood is my reward

Then my lord is kind, just and fair.

Valentine day has got strange powers. It can make a perfectly sane human being to do absolutely irrational things. People exchange chocolates, gift flowers and dine with someone whom they are going to hate after six months. In fact it makes people believe that they are in-mid of a Mills and Boons novel. I find it pretty strange because in my case, on valentine day I have always found myself in mid of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Its not that I hate being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He is one of my favourite directors. It’s just that I find the idea of being a part of a movie directed by a dead man a bit spooky.

Looking back at my college days, I felt that valentine day was a sign of voodoo’s victory over logic. This logic explained the reason behind the girls going out only with jerks. In fact, the desire of girls to celebrate valentine with jerks also explained why I never had a valentine date.

Looking at today, my colleague’s cartoon explains everything. This cartoon took him more than an hour to prepare on valentine day. This proves that my friend has got lots free time and no girlfriend.

Looking at the future, I can’t see anything. It is so sad. I have missed some of the most important things in life due to my failure to learn voodoo.

To sum up:

Valentine day has got strange powers. It can turn a perfectly sane person into a whiner.

Every office has ground rules. The ground rule of my office is to make sure that I get material for my blog. They started providing me material on valentine day by sending me a mail that on valentine eve I must come to office wearing only red or white dress with a tie. This mail brought the Indian out of me and as a protector of Hindu culture, I turned up wearing grey t-shirt and jeans. This incident proves that the closest link between a man and his religion is poor memory.

Anyways the mail informed me that we must not worry about deadlines because we have got a fun workshop. This is so cool. The next time, management threatens me with recession, I will ask them to stop worrying because we have got a fun workshop.

The fun workshop started by informing me that we are going to play games for celebrating valentine day. If you ask me, valentine day is not a good time to play games with a single guy. Anyways the highlight of the workshop was the round where my group was asked to make a greeting for his/her valentine. My company’s equal opportunities practice made sure that my group got divided equally between the two genders. This brought us to a deadlock. With the time ticking, I decided to bring the group to a common ground.

I asked “Can we have a unisex card?” and thank God, they accepted my suggestion. The reason - the only thing which would have beaten my pain of being single on valentine day eve would have been making a valentine day card for my boyfriend.

To sum up:

Today is valentine day eve. Today is the best day for a single guy to look for a date and write blog about his disappointment.

Today one of my colleagues looked at my Outlook’s Inbox and informed me,”600 unread mails. Man. I don’t even have so many scarps.” I replied him that I have got 600 unread mails and zero scarps. He rolled up his eyes as if I belonged his father’s generation. Well I didn’t because I have got 600 times more mails than scarps. Wait 600 into zero is zero. Duh!!!

Anyways, knowing that I have got a vast treasure of junk mails made me remember the opening of my first email account. I still remember the sweat on palm as I typed my username. My friend who had ventured into cyberspace a lot before me told me that the username has to be unique. There must be noone else with the same user name otherwise the computer will reject me. He passed on a tip to me: choose a one in a million username. I quickly made the calculations and discovered that even if I used one in a million username there will be 1,000 Chinese with the same username. Hence I decided to use something unique. Something which is more than one in a million. This brought me to my first user name i.e. oneinabillion123456

The username was instantly accepted and the computer asked me to enter password. My learned friend told me the password again has to be unique. Again one in a million question. Along with being one in a million it must be hard to guess otherwise someone else do will something which I really don’t know what he will do.

As I tried to understand what he meant the cyber cafe guy asked me that my 30 minutes are up and do I want to continue. I checked the money in my wallet and said no. Can you give me 5 minutes? He said there is long queue outside his cafe to open their email account with one in a million username plus password. He gave me two minutes. I quickly typed the password, told it to my friend (what if I forget it?) and came out of the cafe without logging off. (My geek friend had not mastered internet enough to teach me to log off at that time).

To sum up:

All the mails in my inbox are not junk. Some of them are crappy too.

Today one of my colleagues gave us an interactive presentation. The presentation was about the new time keeping policy. The speaker grabbed my attention at the beginning by pointing towards me and saying,”You are not paying attention” and suggesting that I am the only one in the group who is not excited about the new time keeping policy.

As the presentation went on, I felt I was back to my MBA days. MBA colleges prepare students for professional life by making them give presentations. The students learn lots of important thing about corporate life through these presentations such as completing assignment for the next lecture, watching movies on laptops, taking and making calls on mobile, and most important - day dreaming.

As I started implementing my most important presentation skill, I heard the room roar in laugher. Hoping for some material for my blog, I quickly came back to the office and the asked person sitting next to me, “Why is everyone laughing?”. He proved that he is an MBA by replying,”I don’t know”. I inquired then why is he laughing and he muzzled me by saying,”Because everyone else is”.

Anyways as the presentation continued I discovered the poor reporting standards of our newspapers. By the middle of the presentation was I trying my level best to avoid treating the speaker as Mr. Bush. At last I asked my MBA friend,” Would it be OK if I threw a shoe on the speaker?” He informed me that if I do so, I must not expect my shoe back. I quickly used my MBA skills to do some cost-benefit analysis and decided that from next time I coming to the presentations wearing worn-out loafers.

To sum up:
The easiest way to became popular is to make friends.
The easiest way to became immortal is kill those friends by giving bad presentations.

A day before yesterday, after exchanging the usual mourning pleasantries I realized that something has changed about the next person sitting next to me. I tried to figure it out: her hairstyle, her lipstick or her. I don’t know but she looked different. As I continued the daily routine i.e. to check my mails, do my work, get my work quality checked, bang my head, check my mails … I realized that there comes a day in every man’s life when he has to choose between his work and his colleague. I mediated for a while and realized that she is my colleague because I work here. So to enjoy her company I decided to concentrate on my work.

Yesterday I looked at her and I became sure that she looked different. My heart told me that she had a botox shot and my mind told me that she too young to think about one. So what the hell had changed?

Today, after working for the last five weekends I decided to rearrange my priorities and found that my primary target is to not work on the next weekend. In fact my only priority today is to make sure that I achieve my primary and only goal.

I know that some of my fellow ilanders will be disgusted by my indifferent behaviour towards her. But dear friends, let me tell you that the pressing recession and deadlines have made me a feel like a saint. I have achieved detachment to the things of the world. My next goal is to detach myself from my office computer (ASAP).

To sum up:

You know you are in school when you want the person sitting next to be absent.

You know you are in college when you want the person sitting next to change.

You know you are in office when you don’t give a damn to the person sitting next to you.

Our management has come up with a simple idea to solve our production problems. It has created a simple LEAN map which incorporates six sigma, Just in time and several other management terms. This simple LEAN map is supposed to serve us as a guide to solve our complex production problems. This so called ultimate weapon is gifted to us so that we can stop destroying value.

I have only one problem with the simple LEAN map. The simple LEAN map runs over six sheets and is complex enough make me believe that it is easier to understand nuclear physics than the LEAN map.

To sum up

No problem is complicated enough for the management to make it more complicated.

I achieved a deadline after putting my professional life over my personal life. Visibly impressed by my work, my boss decided to reduce the budgeted time of my next project by 20%.

To sum up

My life is like that of a cricketer. Yesterday I was paid to score a century in 50 overs. Nowadays I am paid to do the same in 20 overs.