Lollypop

Love thy neighbor goes an old saying, which I seem to have imbibed recently as I seem to have developed something similar for a neighbor. Now don’t get me wrong, this person is not my home neighbor, but a distant neighbor from my workstation. In my office we are seated in an open bay with separations dividing workstation enclosures & on the enclosure on the other side of my workstation are seated a group of three females, each different from the other two. One of the females, I don’t know why, always reminds me of a lollypop. She is a Bong, married to a Punju, aged around 35 & has a chewy appearance. Like a lollypop, her body also has round top supported by narrow bottom, but going by her age looks full & matured. I have never interacted with lollypop, but have over heard her rumblings & rant from the other side of separation. We have made eye-contacts many times, but since have never been introduced (& our work domains are totally unrelated) there has never been any communication.

Lollypop looks bold & confident & has an intoxicating charm that you would associate with single malt on a smoky night. She has a sex appeal that you would associate with Manisha Koirala or Nandita Das, more of substance though never running short on style. After office hours I once visited lollypop’s workstation after she had left, pretending to be looking for the morning newspaper. I noticed photographs of her children & saibaba , which I don’t know why, left me kind of amused.

Perhaps whats attractive about lollypop is her maturity (not referring to her body here, though the upper parts do seem matured) & the way she looks juicy & spongy even at her age. She dresses as a 20ish girl would, with burning red lipstick, jeans & tank tops & has an inviting skin texture, something like a butterscotch scoop. Add her alluring disposition & you get a right wife material. I never thought of marriage as any thing actually worthwhile, but now seems not that bad if I get to suck lollypop!!

Ladies only

Amazing how gender can alter the way one uses lot many things. A case in point is the toilets & the when & why they are used by both males & females. In my office each floor has two sets of toilet at end of each floor. As everywhere, gents & ladies toilets are adjacent to each other & in many cases doors face each other. Though both the rooms are similar in structure & perhaps have same number of loo outlets, no points for guessing which one has more users & generates more noise.

Ladies toilet is busy perhaps at all times of day & the boisterous voices keep emanating whenever a sizable number is inside. Times when it will be found to be most densely populated inside is morning, after lunch & evening. As a rule many females (including the hotter ones), visit loo first thing in the morning i.e. after entering office building & before logging in their workstations. Guess a beauty make-up & boob adjustment is essential before anybody sets eyes on them. After lunch men/gents/boys also visit the toilet, but it is the other sex who makes more noise inside their den, often commenting on their bosses, stud-resembling men, periods, latest discounts etc.

After smoking was banned in offices, evening visits in ladies toilet has thankfully reduced, for no mouth rinsing is required now. In my last organization many times I over heard whispers of saali sutta kidhar hain from the adjacent loo wall.

I must admit that peeping toms are found in both sexes; since both toilets in my floor face each other, it is almost everyone’s endeavor to put a casual glance in other direction before entering the one marked for use of one’s own gender. Curiosity I guess is common to all mankind (woman kind also), that’s why both the sexes are inquisitive in whats happening in the other toilet. No wonder the toilet sweeper is one of the most envied guys in the office, for he is the only male allowed to enter a zone clearly marked “Ladies only”

Clear & present danger

Life these days in office is like sitting on doorway to hell. Since the job cuts have been announced, a perpetual fear seems to have gripped everybody here. We know we are in excess, we know we do not have much work to do, we know we come under a redundant job code, we know excess flab like us will be trimmed, worse we know there are no jobs in market. Knowing all this, coupled with the ongoing lay-offs in my workplace & almost everywhere else, has put everyone’s balls on fire.

Everyday after reaching back home, first question asked is if there is any news on job front. In office, amidst the growing tension, the shrinking face of boss, seen through his window each time he looks our way, adds fuel to fire. Also with almost no work in office, talk on everybody’s lips is of the impending catastrophe. Now that it is certain some jobs in our unit will also be axed, everybody’s destiny is on test here.

Since the everyday routine of work is also non-existent, all talks during frequent coffee breaks & deliberate time-engaging meetings drifts to who will go & who will stay. Suddenly everyone here seems to be an expert in manpower planning & budgeting, with new theories of organization future plan cropping up everyday. Personally my options if I get chucked here is to become a freelance blog commenter, a bartender or a gigolo…only things which I can perhaps do well to either pass time or to earn my own dough.

One thing I have learnt from this clear & present danger is that if life fucks you, it fucks you hard.

Cost cutting...

Today morning I wanted a few print outs of a few mails, but found the printer not responding. Tried again but of no avail. Checked the printer connectivity, server name, documents in queue…nothing deviant detected. Called up the IT experts & was told some of the printers have gone slow & are not responding. Apparently my organization has not renewed contract with the HP vendor due to cost-cutting & as such some printers may default soon!

Some of the cost cutting measures adopted at my workplace are simply amusing & baffling, to say the least. Below highlighted are some innovative, dollar pruning mechanisms adopted by arguably one of the world’s largest corporations:

* Coffee machines on each floor have been reduced. Instead of two on each end, only one survives. The earlier robotic advanced versions have also been done away with. Instead a simpler, tap-resembling chaiwallah type machine is in place.

* The tea bags have been reduced & some of the flavored varieties no longer survive. No more ginger tea, cardamom tea, mint tea etc. Only one standard Brooke Bond tea bag.

* Lights are to be put on only when required. Infact few days back my manager’s cabin was so dimly lit, I thought he may not be in. On closer scrutiny I discovered him very much inside, working only by the glow of the PC screen.

* As per a new policy all mails more than three months old will be automatically deleted from the mailbox. Apparently maintaining all mails on the server is consuming too much of server space, which the organization may not afford very easily.

* Few days back I ordered tea for all participants in a training program. I was asked for a charge number since there will be no more free tea service in the office.

* The new office was supposed to have a gym soon. As the story goes, the proposal for the same was torn to bits by the visiting President last month.

* Company newsletters will no longer be published. Only a soft copy of same will be released on intranet, which all employees can access every month.

* Cream biscuits are no longer served to guests or for that matter anyone. Perhaps you guessed the reason why

* Office stationery is no longer easily available. May require a lot of sifarish for an HB pencil.

* Free late night drop for employees staying late has been done away with. If you are required to stay late, you are your own responsibility.

Going by these trends very soon we may find an organization wide appeal for donating generously to the Company Relief Fund, with donation boxes kept at reception accompanied by pictures of dollar crumbling, stock markets burning & employees crying!!

Death knell mail

What the fuck. Came to office today morning & switched on my system, as I do everyday. Couples of usual mails to be sorted then move on to work, as usual. No different from any other day, except a mail from Corporate Announcements. These mails usually announce new projects, changes at strategic levels, happenings in US head office etc. This time the mail is from Chairman of the corporation from San Francisco & over six seven paras highlights present day economic tough times & ends with announcing reduction in workforce. The mail has literally set the cat among the pigeons & all faces across all the floors look a picture of gloom. It appears there is a tragedy awaiting or as if we all are working in a concentration camp. The tension is palpable & those in recently clearly know they are on the firing line.

The engulfed panic set the tone for rest of the day. A meeting in morning got over early & only when my unit employees were left, talks veered off to the morning mail. Seems I am not the only one who has read the mail, written in immaculate language, over & over again. The way the mail sequentially explains economic imbroglio & logically ends with the dreaded words, it seems lay off is only days away. Had an official lunch in afternoon followed by another meeting. The biryani served in the lunch never tasted so insipid before, & even as I have just returned from the meeting finishing early, don’t know if I should now get back to work, for don’t know how long will anybody work here!!

Lunch in Office

Eating lunch in office can be a time to put down your feet & catch up with whats happening in your life & around. It provides an occasion for camaraderie in the routine & rigmarole of attending office daily & provides an escape route from the rut of everyday boring office. More than the eating, which becomes hogging if non veg food is there, it is the chatting that goes around, which makes it a looked forward to activity.

In my last organization, which I quit three years back, lunch was a quiet affair, with no fixed area or group as lunch companions. It was eat wherever you want with whomsoever you want, as lunch was served & eaten only in cafeteria; & with multiple offices & employee rotation, no permanent place of lunch was possible. In my present workplace, lunch is eaten by all employees of HR everyday together in conference room, with all eating from each others plate & tiffin. With many coming from diversified regions, it also provides for diversified culinary. So one can savor Bengali dal with Mallu fried rice, Punjabi saag with dosa & parantha with nariyal chutney. It is also time to gossip about office & life & know what happens in everybody’s life & home.

The earlier office building had a secluded room for utility purposes, which doubled as lunch room. The present swanky building has open workstations on large floors, so it is one table per group, as a result of which the chatter is also subdued, lest anybody hears in. However this also gives sound bytes from neighboring table which is within earshot distance & has some interesting females. There is no dearth of females in HR either, but don’t know why the spicy gossip evaporates when males are around !