VT’s blog

Office Cubicle Decoration Contest. This guy rocks!

Picture courtesy: a forwarded mail

 

Yes folks, I was on TV the other day, let me explain the fun.

I fancy myself as a goddamn 'good manager' at work. In other words- I care. One such 'team building exercise' prompted me to take my team of cyber coolies to a Friday evening team party. It was quite a packed affair. Leaving office early, catching the Friday evening 4 PM show at the local rat house of a Multiplex. The movie was to be followed by an evening of booze and dinner. All company funded. Not bad at all, it pays to further spoil the already over-spoilt cyber coolies.

The movie in question was something which went by the name of Cash. No one knows what more to talk about it, even I don't.

 

The team of over excited cyber coolies, which includes quite a few potential lovie-dovie-wannabe-married ones too; did the needful by entering the theatre as soon as it opened. Except me.

 

I had made a maha grave mistake. I carried my laptop along. These momentary lapses of reason can kill you sometimes.

 

I don't know if such rules exist elsewhere in the country, but in saddi Dilli is absolutely prohibited to carry to stuff like laptops, helmets, carry bags etc inside a movie theatre. The rule becomes even stricter just before the Independence and Republic Days. We all know the reason: those sickening jehadis and the likes, folks who derive cheap thrills out of planting bombs all around. Sickos, they seriously need to go get a life.

 

So, there I was. All other cyber coolies inside the theatre, and I was running pillar to post trying to keep my beloved laptop in safe custody. I spent about 20 minutes talking to the theatre manager and stuff, but to no avail. I had given it up by that time.

 

Suddenly a sweet looking babe stopped me and said, "Excuse me, Sir.  Do you have 2 minutes to spare?"

 

"Well, I have more that two and a half hours to spare. How can I help you, madam?" I was glad to know someone wanted to talk!

 

She went on, "Can you please tell us what you think of the movie, Gandhi My Father?" I looked around and realized that the next theater in the Multiplex had just finished featuring that movie.

 

"But madam, I have not even seen it!" I confessed.

 

She said, quite matter of factly, "That’s okay Sir, I am from Suck-All TV*. I am a trainee and I have to carry live feedback of Gandhi My Father. I have already interviewed about half a dozen people and they all say it’s a very good film. Can you please say something about it? Please sir, I have a target. There is no one else around."

 

She was honesty personified. I had to say something and boy, I lied big time in front of the camera and all.

 

I said a lot of great stuff about the movie I had not even watched. I said it rocks likes hell, Akshaye Khanna, Shefali Shah and all included. I even had the balls, galls, cheeks and everything to compare it with Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, thanks to all the movie reviews I had read.  

 

The interview got over. The young journalist who interviewed me was honest and innocent enough to tell me how much she hated her boss; who, she said, was only interested in Masala News. She even confessed that this was her first job so she had to compromise and she would like to join a 'respectable' newspaper or TV channel someday. Her honesty killed me.

 

Anyways, by that time, about 45 minutes had passed and finally I did manage to enter the cinema- I had to use a few Dilliwala jugaad tactics.

 

I thank my stars I was late for Cash. It was supposed to be an action flick, style and all. It turned out to be about as racy and action packed as watching a few snails race by. No one was amused. Needless to say, the movie sucked big time. The rest of the evening, I mean the booze and dinner part, went fine.

 

By the way, I appeared on 'Breaking News' TV for the next 24 hours of so.

 

They kept repeatedly flashing my screwed up face and equally screwed up opinion about a film I hadn't watched. As usual, no one watched that too.

 

PS: * As far as I know, no TV Channel by the name of Suck-All TV exists. I have changed the name of the Channel for no particular reason, not that it matters much.

Sometimes I miss those days when I used to be a rookie techie. A small-time Cyber Coolie, that is.

Time passed and they tried to make me a big-time Cyber Coolie and a bloody not-exactly-Holier-Than-Thou 'Senior'. Now, being a wannabe-big-time means one needs to have truckloads of communication skills. That is a problem area, because Cyber Coolies as a breed are not programmed to be great communicators.

All the Management gurus want us to believe that the folks who fancy themselves as great managers need to spend almost all of their time doing just one thing - communicate.  It’s official - I have no life.

Imagine the pile of bull-crap I am into these days!

I reach my workstation and open the screwed up mailbox, it says, downloading 40 New Messages. The crafty anti-span software neatly moves 36 of those mails to the Junk-Mail folder. I open the Junk-Mail folder first and scan through the subject lines - some of them are quite innovative. Samples like:

Some Julie sends me a mail with Subject line: Thanks for the great Night.
A certain Joe says: Latest Viagra prices you asked for
Barbara says: Here is your Edited Document
SmartMed says: Medical discovery reverses age effects

Total Time-Pass stuff! I love these spam-mail artists, they surely rock.

Let us move to the real e-mails. The first one. Okay, this is from the boss.  Short and not-so-sweet, as usual:

VT,

FYI & A. Please see attached document and reply ASAP with the info asked for.

Regards,

TheBigOne

Wow! The attached document runs into 150 pages and I am supposed to read the damn thing through the day. Yippee!

Move on to the second mail. This one is from AK - the rookie programmer. I am jealous of his command over the C++ language; I wish I could say the same about his command over the Queen’s language.

To: The Network Admin

CC: VT

Subject: no any receive official mail

Hi,

No any received office mail in my id. Please tell me what reason is. My id is xxx@WeSuck.com. Hope you consider my request as soon possible

Reply soon

Many Thanx,

AK

Phew! I hope the poor Network Admin manages to decipher that coded message. Thank God I am only a CC to this.

Next one. The third mail is from a pissed off customer, an Australian. He is fiercely proud of his up-your-face abusive skills as any self respecting Aussie ought to be.

To: VT

CC: TheBigOne; TheBiggerOne; TheSalesBigOne

Subject: Status Review

VT,

I can’t emphasise enough how critical it is that we achieve as much as we can over the next month or so. Our arse is in a sling over XYZ deliverable, and we're late with 9.09.12 release.

I am getting pretty frustrated by a few issues over the last couple of weeks.

1.      We have SmartAss in Sydney this week trying to fix some long outstanding issues with the XYZ mods. No one has a clue what is going on there.

2.      I understand that no changes have been made to ABCD ver. 8.122.22.  This is not what I understood we had agreed.

Should I be getting pissed off, or am I missing something?

Please reply in detail, in the meanwhile, we are in the process of getting our arses kicked.

Cheers!

TheGreatAussie

I hate it when this bugger takes me from all sides and then signs off with that sickening ‘Cheers!’

Look at all those biggies on the CC list. Heck, he even makes sure TheBigOne and TheBiggerOne are kept updated with the current progress on the arse kicking front.

Anyways, finally the fourth mail from an old school buddy:

Hey VT dear,

The Alumni meet is scheduled for Friday at the BigBooze Pub. Guess whom we traced? Our old cutie pie TheBombShell!!! She will be joining the party too. The other attendees will be the same as planned.

Confirm presence. Catch ya at the venue, Friday 7 PM.

Cheerio,

ThePallyGuy

Yess! This is what I was looking for, at least one mail I can reply right now; short and sweet reply - ‘Sure thing, mate.’

All in a day’s work, eh!