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This happened in the middle of last week. It was around 6 pm. Issues were dropping in like bird droppings on a statue.
I was staring at the growing unattended list in my inbox in a kind of glazed expressionless trance which can only come from continuously looking at hopelessness.
Felt a tap on my shoulder. "I need you to go ahead and carry out an exercise in facial expression control", said my manager to a very startled me.
"Me..?? But I... I mean..", I began. "Go..!", came the interruption, with some decisive thumb pointing ,not unlike a swimming instructor telling his very scared student to jump in.
What happened for the next 30 minutes can only be described as hilariously pitiful. One moment I wanted to laugh out loud...really hard, the next I was enveloped in a kind of why-on-earth-I-am-here fear. Every single one of my facial muscles was hurting from a concerted effort to not let them do what they were attempting to. I did indeed periodically nod in order to break the monotony of thought (self pity!) , and so did the other person. I am pretty sure both of us were thinking that the other one is,without question,correct.
Tips on how to keep a straight face while interviewing someone (while knowing you absolutely dont belong there) would be greatly appreciated..

Quite relevant, I should say :

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The company seems to run on only one philosophy these days : Employee miserability is directly proportional to customer satisfaction.
The fact that I have accepted that life is going to be considerably difficult in the days to come doesnt make it one bit easier.


Ohh, and my co's transport management SUCKS. And I am even more of a jerk to be still dependent on them for ferrying me to and fro. 2 years since I am here, and I still have to think 10 times before I can even consider buying a Nano. Second hand ofcourse. (New cars are the sole preserve of those "software guys").
Ofcourse, in theory, I just might be able to scrape together enough to get something like the above, but I will have to give up a few trivial things. Like eating. And electricity.
I have already given up on having an interweb connection.

Desperately needed : a panacea for boredom.


PS : Lack of sleep and being miserable in general is a great way of losing weight! I am well on my way there by shedding some excess load in the form of hair on my head.

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I am getting old. Really fast.
The day you realise that you find separating your PC paraphernalia too frustrating a process, you are O-L-D. (Something you enjoyed doing a thousand times in a day in college now seems extremely daunting.Things also suddenly get very heavy.)
A fact reinforced by the looks young people hanging around give me these days. "Maan...he must be ooooldd.. Must be atleast TWENTY...ewwww". "No yaar, definitely looks much older, must be nearing twenty-two".
I stare at them whizzing past, as I stand at the bus stop and observing how their 16 year old brains make them believe they are invincible. Frankly though, my "extremely old" brain thinks that a scooter against a JCB isnt much of a match.
But doesnt really matter to the chick who is riding and glares back at me. "Urghh...this guy is old, must be old enough to be a colleague to my parents".

Between a rock and a hard place

Long weekend, this one. One that I wish would end soon. Yes, you read right, I wish this weekend would end, so that I could get back to work.With certain new developments taking place, I have had some "change of circumstances", which put me somewhat away from my usual comfort zone.
So what do I do now ? Do I hang out at home, where I get decidedly superbored or hang out all the while in office , where I get decidedly superbored and decidedly frustrated.

To pass the time here, I am reading stuff like Mathew Reilly's (hadnt heard of him before) "Scarecrow" , which reads exactly like a script for a B-Grade hollywood flick. (Everybody is very good looking, every enemy is a communist and everybody can drive/fly/ride everything).
But it still temporarily gets my mind off everything. I think I should stock up on reading material other than manuals of old gadgets. Maybe technical books (which would probably increase my chances of cracking an interview).

Amongst office things, some more good things came to an abrupt end. (Though I had a feeling they wood)
You win some, you lose most. Life goes on..

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Cant help shake off the feeling that I am simply in the wrong decade. I should have been at this stage in the '80s..

To start off working with computers was so much easier back then. The ITDonkeys had respect..they were demigods ... .and had the world at their feet. IT was where the money was. If you were in IT , there was a real chance you did actually work on something that indeed was "cutting edge" .

There were a lot less big companies running out of money. The MBAs hadnt taken over everything yet.

And I loved the cars! I loved the fact their large engines did nothing in particular , and companies were not letting this insignificant fact bother them. Group B rallying was still around.

Did I mention I liked the cyberpunk movies ? Complete breakdown of social order and "robots and computers" taking over the world. LOL!

Seeing a Nintendo NES still leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. And I absolutely and totally adored the 8-bit games that came in with it.

This decade is simply too crowded, too fast, too unforgiving, too complicated and too vast to explore the edges of. ITDonkeys are well.. just that. And I am working on stuff which wont even cut through paper, let alone "edges". Everybody is bankrupt and an MBA decides whether the I get to keep my job or not.

I did.

First thing in the morning today. Before reporting for my Donkey duties.
You can see that the lady applying the ink was too preoccupied with something (maybe her husband...or maybe my rather strange face).

Ohh...and I fail to understand why the ink-application was shifted from the index finger to its neighbour (not the thumb!). Makes for pretty strange press-photographs.

PS : As a result, got to show my manager , the "birdie" today :).