Parents in town and Wardrobe malfunction

My parents are in town. Yes, both of them. And the joy is that my mother has decided to cook for me. I dont think I ever really understood the meaning of "home cooked meals" until I moved to Bangalore. Not only do they not have the kind of food I would eat in Delhi when I would order out (NOBODY here knows how to make decent butter chicken I say), but I also have no idea how to cook. There are scars to prove my learning disability when it comes to trying to cook anything that .. well... requires to be cooked!

Meanwhile, my boss has been away for almost 2 weeks now and as a result, I have gotten absolutely NO work done. No wonder he says things like "we need to follow up with you to get work done... this is not right". Damn right, its not. I figure its his job to follow up with me. Otherwise, given his lack of chargeable time (what little he has is "stolen" from those who are over their chargeable limit- such as me) he would have nothing to do! I see it as a favour I am doing him.. he does not quite agree with me on that one. Lets just say its an opinion malfunction on his part.

While I am rambling I might as well move on to say how incredibly impressed I have been with the words "wardrobe malfunction" used to define Janet Jackson's boob display. Its in the papers again today that she said the "wardrobe malfunction" (I just love saying that) was an error. Here's what she means "I am sorry you didnt like the way my boobies look". Its really hilarious how display of the nipple has created such a furore in the states... people on tv wear clothes just enough to hide the nipples (sometimes not even that - watch Wild On! for more) and poor Janet gets the flak for showing her nipple to the world.. oops, I meant a minor "wardrobe malfunction".

Oh and then I remembered...

Well maybe not. So I wont try anymore and torture anyone with ramblings about how I forgot- just plain clean forgot - what I wanted to say. I had even though of clever things to write... and its all gone. Dammit!!

Forgot...

I had so much to say. And then I forgot. Just plain.. clean.. forgot everything that I was going to write in a highly entertaining fashion to become the most famous blogger ever with a book deal even....

Try to understand

A friend of mine has been trying to unravel the mystery of why men cannot understand women. Oh alright - its Neha!! She has been blogging away to glory about how men (in general) can be so ridiculous and how she does not understand why they dont understand women (?). The real question is - why bother? If you are a straight woman then you like the people with facial hair, adams apple and the ability to pee standing and if you are not, well then you know what you like.

Men dont understand women and quite frankly- women dont really understand how men can be so simple to understand (if you get what I mean). Men's lives seem to be about sport, food and sex (usually in that order). Womens lives seem to be about gossip, weight loss and sex (usually in that order). So lets put this in perspective for one and all now. Men dont really bother to understand a woman's psyche even though they pretend to when they say things like - "oh, i bet thats a women driver..*after overtaking from the left* seeee?? its a woman, told ya!! told ya!!" And women think they know all about psychology and hence dont feel the need to understand much of the gibberish men keep spewing at us...

Hence, the point I have been trying to make all this while. Dont bother with trying to understand why men do what they do, how they can pee standing or whatever else that may seem mysterious. Just adore them (not the ones that pinch you in the bus - slap those ones real hard please) and let them be. This is my theory on human relationships *to be read like Forrest Gump when he says "lai-ayf is lai-ayk a baux auf chocolates"* - Humans are like dogs. Give them affection and they love you too. Umm yeah... thats it.. you can leave a comment now.

Bullshit

There was a workshop yesterday, which is why I was unable to blog (dammit!). It was organised by a company's senior management for a "cross section" of employees for actiona planning to improve employee engagement. There were a whole bunhc of generally unhappy employees - their office location was not nice, they felt no pride in telling people they were working with that company, had no intentions of staying on and the CEO says to them - "lets correct this together... we would like to work on this with you." Everyone was appropriately wowed. But can we be honest for a moment?? I thought not...

Meanwhile in the 'core group' (read senior management and their honchos) meetings, it has already been decided what needs to be done and how much money will be spent to make the employees feel happier than they are now. This workshop is just one of the things they are doing. So as this cross-section of employees begins to present their ideas, gently the more tangential ones are shot down and the ones that are more in line with what the management wants are lauded for their sheer innovativeness. The consultants (thats us) are thanked profusely for their effort in making theirs a happy family... well happier than they were earlier. Such a load of crap I have never heard before. The good thing is that everyone in this company now feels like they have done something to make things better at the workplace - the odd demand for better catering and nicer smelling soap in the washrooms was discarded as hilarious banter.

This my dear friends is what strategy is about. One person (the CEO of your company) thinks of what might be a "reasonable target" for the year based on some of the most ridiculous assumptions like - if every middle class indidvidual used our toothpaste we would achieve a growth of 654% this year.. "which seems reasonable", the CEO thinks to himself. He then passes this message down to this direct reports who are thinking that they are strategic heads but are essentially now mean to justify this target for their individual product groups, so they come up with things like "its our vision to be number one in this segment by surpassing all other toothpaste brands and creating world records in toothpaste usage". The rest of the people just listen in awe as to how someone could spew so much bullshit and get paid the way they do. In the hope that someday they will also get to spew such garbage, everyone else gets to work trying to achieve the target the CEO thought up for the year.

Disclaimer: No offence to toothpaste manufacturers/CEOs/employees. The views expressed in this blog belong to noone in particular.

I succumbed

I succumbed to this book quiz. I am apparently a book I have not read yet, so this weekend thats my project - read Watership Down. Turns out, I am headed for greatness (but for my propensity to talk of rabbits)... watch this space!!

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Small Talk

So everytime I need to get some work done by someone else, I am always stressed out by the dilemna - to make small talk before asking for the work or not. Personally I prefer not to be asked various questions about my life and the weather in Bangalore before the real conversation actually begins. Maybe people feel like they need to warm up. Someone should break it to them (albeit, gently) that this is not physical exercise and the brain really does not need much warming up once its awake. In fact, if anything the small talk probably kills a bit of the brain, or such is my theory. So meanwhile, going by the "do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-them-do-unto-you' rule I try to follow in my life, I usually skip the small talk really fast. A typical conversation when I am about to ask about work looks like this:

N: Hey x
X: Hey.. hows it going?
N: Pretty good. Needed to know if.... (blah blah)

Once the work is done with then I usually progress to the small talk if the individual gives the impression he/she would like to get over the trauma of the skipped small talk by talking about various things like the coffee vending machine (and how it sucks) and the weather in various cities.. maybe even global warming for good measure if the person seems to have a lot of free time on his/her hands.

However, here is what the usual conversation when someone else needs some work done by me looks like:

X: Hey N! How are you doing?
N: Doing well and you? (this my cue for the person to ask me about the work they require - instead I have described what I hear next)
X: I am doing very well, thank you. My kids are now in pre-school/I am really (not) looking forward to the summer/Looks like Bangalore is the hot place to be in now..
N: Yeah.. how cool (not). *Some question vaguely connected to previous remark*
X: Blah blah...
N: Alternating between Hmmm... Oh really?.. Hmmm... yes me too..
X: So basically I wanted to ask you....

After all this small talk about small talk though, I must return to my original objective of coming to work - coffee breaks!

He is an Englishman settled in Germany....

She said to me after the presentation I had earlier today. "Ooooh! Ooooh!! Do you think he knows this blogger that I know.. well err.. yeah.. never mind..." 2 seconds later- "Neil Armstrong.. ring any bells yet??" I was dying to ask and then showed incredible self-restraint and did no such thing. I must say I was quite proud of myself for not running back and asking and then upon finding out that he does know German for Beginners, I would have had the pleasure of saying - "what a small world!" But I suppose Germany is a hop,skip and jump away from England (at least on the map) and who knows how many Englishmen there are in Germany.

It turns out that the man was the global hr head of a large german multinational and seemed quite passive during our presentation. Maybe it was the jet-lag. I always blame passivity (is there such a word?) on jet-lag. Actually, I blame almost anything on jet-lag. Stupidity is also a characteristic I often blame on on jet-lag. Like the time some people asked me if everyone in India lived in airconditioned homes just like the hotel they were staying in... uhh yeah... "mostly yes, give or take a few MILLION!!"

Weekends

Notice how weekends seem to last forever and yet you wonder where they went. That always happens to me and this was a particularly blissful weekend with Firdaus in town to entertain li'l ol' me. The man buys me a gift everytime we meet and each time I think to myself - "Why this definitely has to be the last gift he buys me because he is probably broke by now". Yet it appears he has a bottomless pit for a wallet and I am the lucky girl he has decided to spend some of that money on. Good catch eh?

Oddly, there was NOTHING on tv to watch. I have a suspicion it because the channels gave up trying to fight the popularity of India's tour of Pakistan. Hence, everyone was subjected to watching the match even if they didnt want to and had theories of match-fixing which led them to believe a certain outcome was pre-decided. I suppose there is joy in watching what that pre-decided outcome might be and how it will be played out.

Went for a swim with Firdaus while he was here and I think that was the most chatty portion of his trip. The rest of the time was spent trying to cook various dishes - he showed off his mother's recipe and I showed off mine, watching tv (or trying to find something to watch on tv) and general fooling around. I am quite sad that the weekend had to end. Kept trying to sleep in the morning.. hoping we would miss his flight and he would have to stay for weeks and weeks and weeks because no other flights were available. But apparently that was not to be. Sigh...

Oh Joy!!

There is nobody at work right now. Friday afternoons should be like this - chilled out. Am headed out now because I cant get myself to do any work. The excitement of meeting Firdaus has led to me sit and stare at the computer for ages and its about time I left work instead of pretending to look busy. Its usually much harder for me to look busy if I am not, than it is to look relaxed when I am not - geddit? geddit?? Aah never mind. So I am toodling off now... weekends are my favourite part of the week (esp if the boyfriend is around). Woohoo!!

Check this out

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide


A cool wesbite I found courtesy AIESEC where you can generate maps which colour the countries you have visited. While I have briefly visited the US of A, the whole country is red giving a slightly exaggerated picture. Looks like I have a lot of places to visit still. Think I will try to update this every couple of years (dont see myself traveling the world more often than that :() and lets see how many more red areas we can have by time I am 50! Woohoo!!

I found a star it seems

Neil Armstrong is slowly becoming an internet celebrity and I feel like taking the credit for it. In fact, I demand to take credit for it. Silver Tassles has added his blog to her links as well and here's what she had to say about him - "... it's really cool how you discovered that German for Beginners guy. He's hillarious!" Of course, half of that was about how cool I am (modesty is my middle name).

Besides discovering internet celebrities, the other joy in my life seems to have been the discovery that everyone has at least one really annoying, obnoxious person in their office. I am feeling strangely joyous today - which is quite unlike my usual crabby self. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I will be meeting Firdaus after what seems like an eternity (33 days) tomorrow evening. 3 whole days of absolute bliss will descend upon me I think. Happy happy.. joy joy..

Think hard

What do you want the world to read on your blog today? Nothing intelligent has to come to my mind just yet on that topic. You could, of course, argue that nothing intelligent has ever resided in my mind. In such a situation, I will take offence and never speak to person who put forth such a mightily ridiculous argument. Just look at the size of my words.. each of the them not less that 3 syllables, in the last sentence. This is not the work of someone who is not intelligent.. and rambles on... umm.. err.. yeah.

Meanwhile, the most obnoxious person on the face of the planet in working in my company. The man has NO clue about work (because nobody trusts him with any) and continues to think that he is working for a bunch of nincompoops. That may be so, but he has no right to judge them so especially he shows exceptional potential to be a nincompoop himself. How people can be as offensive as him is purely beyond me and how people like him make it beyond the first round of any interview for a job is another thing that astounds me (yes, it doesnt just surpise me.. it ASTOUNDS me)!!

Mmmm.. bop!

Like what were the lyrics of mmm...bop about?? Do you wonder if it was written by the youngest of the trio when he was still gurgling as an infant and unable to speak? Its ringing in my head for some strange reason and really annoying me because I cant tell whether I am speaking the right lyrics or not.

Its like that song Blue where the guy goes "I'm blue dabada dabadee". My friends and I (then in college, in case you were wondering why we ever had such inane arguments) argued forever about whether the man was saying "dabada dabadee" or "if I was green I would die". If you listen to the song carefully (read: sit next to the speaker) and keep playing the song over and over and over and over again- it WILL sound like "I'm blue, if I was green I would die". Go figure. Meanwhile, we found a wesbite with the lyrics of this song - yes someone actually had to write them down and publish them on a website for the world to know what they they were humming along to- and it was (depressingly) "dabada dabadee". Someone with more imagination could have written the song about dying if he was green and we would have applauded him for his deep, angst ridden music. Instead, we bounce along to blue dabadee dabadee and often say "Hey, I could have written that song- and maybe I could have written it better!!" Bah!

Neil Armstrong - the moon-walker... NOT

Check out German for Beginners . Its a blog
written by the most sarcastic man ever and its just hilarious! Now I know I should be working and not surfing the net for wonderful blogging but as they say in some potato chips ad- kya karein? control nahin hota!

There's chinese for lunch today. For some strange reason our caterer believes that curd is a much required side-dish to almost any form of cuisine he may present to us. This time we had some sort of strange pulao with 2 gravy dishes - and the only way to distinguish them was by colour. One was red and the other looked like soup... only it wasnt really. Fortunately for me, he had also deep fried some vegetables with salt and pepper garnishing to make it seem like I was having veggie chips along with my deliciously fusion cuisine meal. But even more fotrunate than the chips was the fact that 2 of colleagues brought along meals cooked by their mothers and wives which I pounced upon with glee. I am not sure if they appreciated it so much though. This whole assortment of food then needed to be washed down with coffee and preferably scot adams humour, which is when I chanced upon Neil Armstrong's blog. I strongly recommend it. Meanwhile, time to get back to work and earn me living now (or at least try to).

Silver Tassles

Sliver Tassles

This is the blog that I found recently of a girl whose life sounds strangely like mine was a while back. Though she writes really long blogs, I really like the way she writes. For some strange reason she reminds me of myself (as if anybody needs to do that.. I should remind me of myself all the time right?)

Meanwhile, I dont really feel like doing much work today. I am sleepy and extremely thirsty and the works seems unusually boring today. Even more than normal, you say? Yeah, this times its even more than the usual "this-is-boring-shit" rambling. There is only so much you can do while waiting for some emails. I actually have a ton of work to do, but am considering a break for a bit and hence the blog. As usual, this means I wont get home at a reasonable hour. Maybe I am just used to working these hours and cant get myself to go home earlier. There must be a name for this psychological disorder - I know! PSYCHO!!

No value for time

So I come in to work today expecting everything to run smoothly because I have every moment of the day planned out - and kazaam!! A prospective client calls to say they want to meet today, only their office is millions of miles away so I ask them to come to my office which is not possible because, like I said earlier, our offices are a million miles apart. In this city, distances are not measured by km but by time. So let me rephrase that- our offices are hundreds of hours away. But as usual, as is typical of uneducated clients such as these, they think we do not have work other than meeting them. Its as if the picture they have in their heads while speaking to me is of me jumping in joy as soon as I hear from them wondering what I was doing before the call came. Duh!

Enough complaining now. Its about time I wrote something more cheery.. ummm.. err... yeah...

Beautifully written

Check this out. Pramath Sinha's last letter to Sumantra Ghoshal. Look out for the pub at ISB! Beautifully written and genuinely heartfelt it seems

http://www.businessworldindia.com/mar1504/obituary.asp

Ever noticed?

Ever noticed how just as you write the words "looks like I wont be too busy today at work and may even leave for home at a decent hour", the world turns topsy turvy? The client you had not heard from in a decade (seemed like it anyway) calls up suddenly to tell you she will die if you dont spend the entire night sending her material that she wont even have a look at. Projects suddenly seem to require delivery that very day and gantt charts are made by the hour and not by the week anymore. That is the story of my life. I wrote an email declaring joy about a regular 8 hour day today only to fnd that there could not be more work to be done this week!!

Disclaimer

This is to let those of us who were offended by my blog titled "Fake" know that this blog is not meant to be offensive. I apologise if my opinionated self borders on obnoxious and annoys. That was never the intention of the blog. The post has herewith been removed to avoid further disputes.

I would really appreciate it if you could post a comment (or send me mail) if I anadvertently say something that may hurt you. As Alanis Morisette said in one of her many angst ridden songs- You live, you learn.

What if..

Saw this movie "Paycheque" this weekend. Have always wondered when I am watching these action packed movies - what if I had to run from evil people like that? Do I have the stamina to run across the city or would I get caught, be tortured and killed simply because I dont exercise enough to have the stamina to run from them? I always come out of such movies resolving to exercise regularly. Usually, I then head for a burger place to get myself some food and prompty forget all resolutions of exercise.

Fantastic

There are people who follow their dreams relentlessly and then there is me.

Let me tell you the story of the girl who found her dream literally at the end of the rainbow. Here was a girl who has been working since she was in school as well. She would do all sorts of part time jobs to get a little pocket money. Soon she had a network and could get jobs in travel houses etc. Before you knew it, she finished graduation and started working with a travel house for a bit. She knew she wanted to be in PR. Didnt know how to go about it. Meanwhile, she landed a job that paid fairly well with a call center and decided to take it up. Not only was she earning well, she also spoke in the best ameican accent available, read up on the country she serviced and learnt a lot, partied tons and generally had a blast. Finally after about a year or so, she decided this was a dead end job and decided to look for a job in PR. When it seemed too tough to do, she took up a job with an IT company doing various things. Today, I am proud to say, my friend has landed a job with a PR company. Her sms said "got job with pr company.. my dream come true". All she had to say to express her joy. No exclamation mark, no call. Just one line to let me know her dream was unfolding itself in reality.

This is the person who threw a huge party for her mother's 50th birthday all by herself at the age of 22. This is the person who almost fell for a man twice her age. This is the person who never let go of what she wanted to do in life. I am proud to say- this person is a very close friend of mine.

Must send mail...

Little energy left... 15.5 hour work day... must.. send.. mail.. to.. boss... before.. passing.. out... (so he knows I worked till 12:40am today).

zzzzz

More on morons (Geddit??)

Perhaps the special force we call fate was not satusfied with my experiences with ditzes, just yet. Hence my encounter with an HR professional of an organisation that has no people - not yet (and if he continues, they may never have any). He has no clue about what he is saying. So there we are - 4 HR professionals in a board room discussing the statistics of benchmarking compensation. And suddenly we have Sir Idio (not his real name... duh!) stand up and grandly walk up to the white board. As we wonder what new idea he is going to throw at us, he starts explaining what we mean when we say "minimum" and "maximum" like so - "And here we have a whole bunch of people each of whom is getting paid 1, 2, 3, 4... the lowest here is minimum and the highest is maximum". As if his explanation was not enough, he decides to draw random dots and circle two at either end of the board to signify "minimum" and "maximum". Ummm.. yeah, thanks for the quick lesson in stats dude!! I figure he really does not understand what we are saying and quickly thank him for his deeply insightful advice. I was proud of myself for keeping a straight face through that. How they let such people into board rooms is beyond me. Board rooms should be restricted to people with a minimum iq of 5. This guy obviously slipped through the cracks.

Obviously not much else happening in my life other than work. Its almost 10 and I am still here... gotta go home now. 13 hours up and time to head to bed.