the office party

it was late one afternoon. i was in office. suddenly, the fire alarm went off. everyone made their way to the nearest fire exit. down the two flights of stairs, we were all in the lobby, about to head out the emergency exit. the lobby wasn't like my office building's lobby though: it was much later - maybe 8-10 times the size overall, and with a really high ceiling that was maybe thrice as high as my office's. it also had a completely different style - indicative of a glass fronted modern building, not the 100+ year old stone walled office building i work in.

anyway - the fire alarm turned out to be a false alarm and we were told over the PA that we could return to our respective floors. that's when I checked my pocket (front right - that's where it always is!) and realized I didn't have my access card on me, so I couldn't get back in myself. I spotted my manager Tim getting into the elevator (or actually - an elevator, because there were 3, unlike my actual office) and got into that one. it was a massive elevator - practically room sized!

I stood next to Tim, waiting for the elevator to take us to the first floor.

and that's when I realized I wasn't wearing a shirt.

a lady standing across me, wearing a business suit, seemed to notice the same thing at the very same moment.

she said "you might want to wear a shirt to work", to which I mumbled something and hurried out of the elevator, extremely embarassed. I had no idea what to do, but thankfully the lobby had emptied (presumably everyone had taken the stairs or one of the 3 massive elevators), and I had a moment to scan the seemingly bare lobby for something to save my dignity. I saw a crumpled piece of fabric in the corner. I walked over to it and picked it up. It was a discarded, dirty (but not overly dirty) grey hoodie. in fact, it looked exactly like a hoodie that's lying in my shed at home - it's what a handyman left behind after he built an awning for my motorbike in March 2022, and it's been lying in the shed ever since!

I dusted it before putting it on, and it fit, thankfully. I took the fire escape, as that was the only way back up that could be accessed without an access card. there was one access controlled door that I had to get through to enter the office though. thankfully, someone saw me through it when I knocked and let me in. my colleague Patrick. he asked me where I was and to hurry up and get into the frame.

everyone was posing for a photograph. everyone had a can of beer in their hand. I didn't want to hold everyone up so I simply posed without a drink, completely unaware of my grubby sweatshirt - I was on the sidelines as everyone was already in place for the photo, which was just as well. the angle from which the photo was being clicked was very weird - it required a lot of people in a verysmall space, so some were sitting on the desk, some squatting in front of it, and a few of us standing on either side.

the occasion was a visiting manager from one of our overseas offices, and after the photo was clicked, everyone took their seats. a lady (katie?) asked if anyone didn't have a drink and would like something. someone asked for a guinness. she said there weren't any more cans of guinness. someone said they hadn't opened their can of guinness and wouldn't mind swapping it for a can of heineken zero. I asked for a can of guinness zero, but there weren't any. I said any alcohol free beer would do - perhaps heineken zero then?

I took my can, popped it open, and took the last seat available - the one right next to the visiting manager. as we settled in, I looked around and was surprised to see, near the far end of the table - mom!

she was making some sort of hand gestures - she seemed to be suggesting she should move over and sit next to me. I realized that her moving over would be quite disruptive as she would have to squeeze past everyone on her side of the table, and then past the manager as well, and find a place to sit next to me, which was already occupied by plenty of people. and she'd have to find a seat as well, or pull one from somewhere else.

i tried to signal back with to her with my eyes and hands that she shouldn't move and simply sit there.

the manager had started speaking, and he was quite brief. somewhere in the middle I sneaked in a comment or question, and he replied with something humorous. towards the end he left it open for questions which a few of my colleagues asked, and he duly answered. once he wrapped up, he stood up and walked over to the breakout room where he made himself a coffee. everyone else got to their feet as well, and started mixing about.

mom walked over to me and asked me what i thought about the talk. i said it was nothing exceptional but definitely useful.

she asked me what prompted me to make that comment in the middle of his talk.

I told her it was simply something that came to my mind at the spur of the moment.

she asked me why I interrupted him when nobody else did.

I told her it's a fine balance of judgement about when saying something is welcome or considered an interruption. if he hadn't paused the right amount of time and I didn't have whatever came to my mind ready to say, I woudn't have said it. I told her it's something that takes years of practice and skill, and it's something that a lot of people don't seem to grasp how subtle but effective the skill is at building relationships - and also breaking relationships if done wrong.

she told me she was glad I was able to do it with such ease.

and that's when I woke up.

a shaky start

it seems there's always something about me and starting a new job that somehow means things go off-piste quite quickly. there was the time i got locked up in the fire escape, or the previous job where I forgot the one thing HR asked me to bring along (my passport) and had to be sent back home. this one was more eventful.

to begin with, I asked quite well in advance, what my first day would be like - where and when i should report, and to who. I also specifically asked for contact details, somewhat prescient of the drama that was about to unfold - and while everything else was replied to (after about a week!), no contact details were supplied. in fact, during my farewell evening out, my previous team asked me where's the new office, and when I told them I don't know, they asked me if I was sure I'm actually signing up for a legitimate job! coincidentally, there was a news article about the company moving to a new building a couple of streets away from where HR said I'll have to report to.

anyway - I happened to be in the area the evening before, to lead a ride, but as nobody turned up, I used the time to cycle to the building where HR told me I'll have to report. It was past 5pm, so there was nobody at the reception, and I asked a guy who was leaving the building if he knew about the company, but he worked for another one and hadn't heard of it. a peek through to the large board over the receptionist's desk showed the name of the company though - which was reassuring.

I looked for bike racks but there weren't any to be found - I had to chain my cycle to the fence while I tried to ask around for the entrance etc. luckily, the ground floor of the office building also housed a gym, and there were people there. one of the staff said there's no bike racks that he's aware of, and I'd probably be best off inquiring with the reception of the office space.

the next day, I decided to take the bus due to the dodgy bike rack situation, and turned up at 9:20, so 10 minutes early. the receptionist let me in, and told me to take the elevator when I pointed at the company I named on the board behind him. The elevator stopped at a floor which had literally a 10 + 10 foot L shaped passage, one conference room to one side, and a fire escape at the other end. The conference room was big enough for about 6 people. there was literally nobody about so I wondered if the room was the office space, and obviously nobody was in because I was 10 minutes early! It did seem very weird though, as there was no computer equiment or any hint that it was being used as an office space - just an oval table with 6 chairs around it.

thankfully, I heard some (loud, excited) voices from the other side of the fire escape door, so I opened it and had a peek. there were two guys and a girl. it was a bit of a strange sight, as one of the guys was trying to pick up the girl (literally - he had his arms around her from behind and was leaning backward to get the most leverage) while she and the other guy were squealing excitedly. they were caught as off guard as I was, when nervously I asked them if they worked for the company. they didn't, and helpfully told me they were literally just clearing out that company's space as they had vacated it a month ago! they directed me to the main reception, on the next floor, who told me the company had just moved,  and told me where - just two streets away, and in fact could be seen from there! she also gave me the mobile number of someone who worked there, and wished all the best for my first day!

the guy who answered the phone confirmed that they had indeed just moved two streets away, and told me someone would come to received me at the entrance.

the rest of the day was uneventful, but I did inquire about bike racks and was told we have access to bike racks at a nearby building owned by the same landlord. I was given a form I had to fill to get access to the racks, and I left after submitting it. I left the laptop, headset etc in a locker as I didn't have a bag to take it home.

the next day, I cycled to work. I had to make a stop on the way to pick up medicines, which delayed me a fair bit, but eventually made it to office. chained the bike nearby, and tried to use my access card to get in. the reader flashed a weird colour (blue, red) instead of the expected green. a few tries later though, it did flash green after flashing the other colours, and the door unlocked.

I pressed the button for the elevator, which bore a sign saying "authorized users only - do not use without a valid access card". the elevator seemed to be having issues the previous day, as it was incorrectly programmed to let us in on the wrong floor - so we had to first swipe the access card and go to the 2nd floor, and then swipe again and go to 1st. not today though. swiping the access card and pressing any combination of floor did not work. nor did the exit/door open button. after some time and attempts, all the lights in the elevator went into some sort of power save mode - there was just a very dim glow of some sort of emergency lighting, and the only button brightly lit was the alarm button!

I gave some serious thought to pressing the alarm button, but suddenly the elevator seemed to recover  by itself, the lights were back on, and the exit button opened the doors. I was so relieved I didn't even check if my access card now worked, as I didn't want to get locked in the elevator again!

I got out of the elevator, and breathed a sigh of relief. today was getting to be quite the adventure, already competing with the incidents of 29th May 2012!

I took the stairs to the 1st floor, but nobody was able to see me through the locked fire escape door. I tried knocking it and nobody answered either. I called the same guy I called yesterday, and explained the situation. I told him I was at the fire escape door. He said he'd come let me in. I waited for what seemed like a minute, but nobody opened the door. I was quite sure that was the only fire escape door, and that they only other door to the office area was the elevator. I took the stairs back down to the lobby, and waited there instead. he eventually turned up and let me in through the elevator - his access card worked, so it was just mine!

eventually someone explained that my access card had been deactivated last night - triggered by my application for it to be activated for the bike racks! these things happen, I guess. I was going to get a new access card in a couple of hours. back to work.

that's when I realized I had locked the laptop in the locker, but had not carried the key! the key was on the keychain I used yesterday, while the one I had with me today had the cycle keys but not the locker key!

thankfully my only teammate was not in yet, so I dropped him a message and left back home. I asked the guy who let me in, how I'd get in without my access card, and he showed me how the intercom system at the entrance worked. in fact, he was the one who had let me in as the intercom buzzed after an unsuccessful swipe of my access card - and that's the precise moment I swiped my card, and it flashed green as he let me in. hah!

anyway, cycled back home, collected the key, cycled back to office, got in through the intercom, unlocked the locker with my laptop, and I was finally able to get started with work after two hours of drama. what an adventure!

The rest of the day was uneventful - I was showed the bike racks too, my access card worked everywhere and all, so yay!

working from home was not as eventful - the laptop worked without any fuss, although I didn't bother setting up my home screens until almost 5pm - I was just not in the mood to fiddle with wires today. my skype also stopped working on my phone, but that turned out to be a microsoft outage, as the helpdesk guy's phone was affected too - much to his surprise. fun times!

leaving las vegas

yesterday was my last day at my job. I've only worked 3 full-time, corporate jobs in my whole life, and this is the first one that I quit just to change employers - for all the preceding ones, it was something else.

conventional wisdom says you shouldn't be emotionally attached to an employer. but in this case, I was - for personal reasons. if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been in Belfast. unlike Shruti, who had to build her friend circle the hard way, I was surrounded by friendly, welcoming people at work from day one.

and so, changing jobs because I wanted to change employers is a strange feeling. specifically, it was not to change my work. I loved what I was doing. I even loved the people I was working with. It was all the other things. the pay, the policies. the fact that something someone did to me a while ago could have a long term impact on my prospects despite my best efforts. the fact that the management couldn't do anything to set right what seemed to me to be an obvious wrong.

anyway. enough about the past. it's time to look forward to the future! this is the first time an employer actually provided me coaching to help me succeed at my new job. it was supposed to be an hour but we covered so much in half an hour, that that was all I needed. i feel armed!

I planned to have a week off between jobs because I wanted to do a motorbike trip to clear my head before I start. Unfortunately, the motorbike trip seems unlikely - "Lisa" has been out of action for three weeks - she literally died getting out of the garden and into the driveway with an electrical fault that the mechanic has been unable to diagnose yet. My to-do list is never ending though, and though the initial plan was to take my time between jobs as "me time" and keep the to-do list for "business as usual" time, fate seems to have conspired to do the opposite. Time to mow the lawn!

As I cycled to work yesterday, Sheryl Crow's "leaving las vegas" happened to play. This line struck me:

"Such a muddy line between
The things you want
And the things you have to do"

sleepy and late

we were on our way to office. I was hitching a ride with someone I presumably know, but for some reason I can't recall who now. and another friend Pranav was in the back seat of the car (who, strangely enough, I last met over 21 years ago!)

we were slightly late for work, but not overly so. traffic was somewhat worse than usual, and maybe that's why we were late. the friend who was driving was very sleepy. I could see from her face that she was struggling to stay awake, and I kept talking to her to keep her awake and alert. we got to the junction next to the office, and I suddenly realized when the light turned green and the car didn't start moving, that my friend had actually zoned out at the wheel (still sitting upright with her eyes open).

I nudged her and told her we have reached office, she just had to take the next right into the parking lot.

She snapped back to reality, startled, and said ok. By then the light had turned red again, and Pranav and I got out and told her we'll meet her in the office lobby. I reminded her of where the parking lot is, and she seemed confident that she was alright to take that turn and park and meet us in the lobby.

as we crossed the road to the office, the light turned green, and surprisingly, she drove straight ahead, missing the turn.

I remarked that all we can hope now is that she finds her way back soon enough without any mishap.

There was a coffee bar in the lobby, and there was a longish queue, so Pranav and I queued up and waited for our turn. luckily, our friend turned up right as it was our turn to order. I asked her if she parked okay, and she said yes, and that she wanted the strongest coffee available. I ordered an americano (strange, because a cappucino is my regular). I think it was because it would be quicker to make (I've noticed frothing the milk for my cappucino takes the barista much longer than for people who just order a black coffee and top it up with milk).

While we were waiting for our coffees, my attention was diverted to what I was wearing. I was wearing a white short sleeved shirt with green vertical pinstripes, and a pair of shorts.

I then had a bit of a mental throwback to when I was dressing up earlier that morning, and was picking which shirt to wear. I had picked this shirt because it was the only one which wasn't wrinkled. the shirt didn't fit me perfectly - it was quite loose (especially at the shoulders).

I snapped back to the present and Pranav was looking at my shirt. I told him this is an old shirt, and there was a time many years ago when I for some reason liked to wear oversized shirts. I then looked at my shorts. They were admittedly a weird choice of shorts as they had a camouflage print and had baggy pockets. I said aloud "our dress code is business casual, and shorts are business casual, right?"

I visualized a pair of business casual shorts, and realized they should be better fitting, plain coloured, and preferably khaki or tan. I hoped I didn't get pulled up for wearing inappropriate wear to work. I looked around and nobody else was wearing shorts. In fact, everyone was dressed almost in business formals, with a few in ties (but no suits, thankfully).

That's when the radio alarm went off, and instead of the usual classic FM, it was just static.

my first hackathon

most of the turning points of my life have been serendipitous.

five days ago, i was approached by a colleague at work, who said she needed some help, and wanted to know if i was up for it. we agreed to meet by the coffee machine a couple of hours later, and she pitched her case: there was a hackathon coming up this saturday, and her team had just disintegrated. and they had an idea.

the idea appealed to me. it was one of those things that seemed like it could be done. in fact, as she was describing what she wanted to do, i could literally see it take shape.

i went home that night, and fired up my IDE. it was 2 years behind the times, but ran. logged in to heroku, which i had again signed up for two years ago. it's still free.

i was up till 1:30am that night. just writing random stuff. a hello world REST service that logged its source IP and facebook click ID in a Postgres database that could be edited by strange and funky REST calls.

the next day, the old team regrouped (kinda). it seems that everyone was suddenly convinced again that this is something we should do. i carried my notepad along, scribbled some notes, and took a photo of them before i left office. i couldn't wait to get home, to start writing some real code, which i did: a RESTful service to signup and login. took me all night again.

thursday morning, i had a late start to work as I was expected to work late. not sure what I wrote (I could check my git log, i guess) but i was definitely writing code and pushing it, hitting refresh on my browser. finished work at 10pm, and was back to hacking away. refactored all my code, added the capability to run against an in-memory data store so that I don't mess up the DB with my silly CURL commands.

by friday morning, i felt like a zombie. but i managed to get work done, attend meetings and all that. when i got a call from Shruti at 8pm reminding me that she had been waiting at the restaurant for 15 minutes (I had not left office yet), I knew I was pushing it.

I didn't touch my computer that night. just got home, and crashed. or maybe i did touch the computer, because how else did i sleep at 1am if dinner was done at 10:30pm? it's all a blur now.

either way, i slept through my alarm. went from bed to the door in 15 minutes (breakfast at the hackathon, thank goodness for little mercies!).

laptop plugged in, raring to go. met my team, who had mostly arrived before me.

presentations and introductions out of the way, we got started... and stopped. kinda.

technical glitches (the one person who was going to write the UI had a laptop that REFUSED to see the specific wifi we were supposed to use!), another teammate who was supposed to do the presentation had never actually launched powerpoint on her laptop and suddenly realized her laptop does not even have it, and another teammate had an ipad with a remote connection to two freshly paid for amazon cloud servers, that had... nothing. ok, they had had notepad, so it could be used as a glorified text editor. the ipad might have done a better job i guess. as we worked around our technical glitches, general picking away at the problem ensued, until it was about 2pm. at that point we realized we had to change tracks drastically.

the server (aka my code) was ready and running full steam on the cloud, waiting for all the requests it was built to handle... and it kept waiting (it still is waiting, for the record).

everybody was doing their own thing, and we were kinda getting nowhere. i was too demotivated to even try hitting my code once to verify it worked. we abandoned all IDEs. our new strategy was to just do mockups of everything. so we huddled around a flip chart, drew all our screens, then ripped them off, scattered them on the floor (for some reason!) and proceeded to transfer them to the computer. i'm not sure how i contributed at that point besides hovering around, wringing my hands helplessly and possibly gulping large amounts of caffeinated sugar free sodas. it was 5pm before we knew it, and pizza was served. i didn't care. at 5:15 we got to know that we'd be given 5 minutes to present everything. and this was after i was somehow convinced my teammates we'd be given half an hour or something (it was planned to end at 8pm, so we'd have two and a half hours which i assumed would be used entirely for presentations, i assumed there were half as many people around, and i was obviously too caffeinated to do proper math)

and so, while everyone was moving towards the presentation area, i hit ctrl + D on the terminal window that had all my curl commands preped up, and replaced the slide that said "DEMO" with a screenshot of my IDE and the text "COMING SOON" in 96 point bold.

we still managed to get a "highly commended" award, which I think, given the above, is definitely something!

i'm in hackathon-afterburn mode. trying to install node.js on a Linux emulation layer on my 8 year old android tablet at 2am because... why not.

it feels good to be part of something good.

just a minute

my commute usually runs like clockwork. there's a plan a, plan b and plan c, each with tweaks defined for each situation. i wasn't prepared for today though.

I left from home one minute late, expecting to follow plan a: bike to borivali station (west) and take the office bus. however, a traffic snarl on the way caused me to miss the bus. since I realized too late that i wasn't gonna make it, i was unable to follow plan b (the other office bus) - that requires me to take an alternative route, and park in a different spot. i decided to take plan c: the AC bus.

when i reached the AC stop, there was a huge line, and the bus was packed. i decided to wait in queue for the next bus, as I didn't fancy standing for over an hour (i still haven't worked out where the non AC buses start from, that would be a viable plan d). the next bus arrived a few minutes later. I got a seat. brought my ticket, settled in with my headphones,  when suddenly everyone started alighting the bus. i waited a few moments before I realized they were all boarding the next bus, and the driver himself wasn't in this bus either.

I followed the herd into the rapidly filling next bus, sorely cursing my decision to not look for the non AC bus stop when i had first arrived here today. I got the last available seat, thankfully. and then people started getting back out and into the first bus!

apparently the bus was giving trouble but the driver "fixed" it, and it will now be leaving after all. the bus was now full, and there was no chance of a seat. i complained to the conductor that I left the previous bus because I wanted to sit, and thanks to this confusion, i have lost my seat in this bus as well. i asked for a refund of my ticket, but he refused.

a couple of other people joined in the chorus asking for a refund, but the conductor was adamant. i resigned myself to my apparent fate, and moved away from the argument. the bus started moving, and others suggested that we swap our tickets with people who haven't purchased theirs yet. I started asking around, but before I could find someone to swap with, the conductor relented and exchanged my ticket for a refund. the bus dropped the three of us at the next stop, and the couple disappeared before I could ask them how they were planning to travel.

luckily for me, the next stop was adjacent to the non-ac bus stop. and luckily, non AC buses run emptier than ac at that time. and a bus arrived in the next minute.

i got my seat.

i'm on my way to office.

that one minute and a few bad decisions cost me about an hour and a half.

crazy lollipops

I still haven't gotten my head fully around time dilation at relativistic speeds (yeah, even though I watched interstellar for the second time last weekend), but i have noticed one thing: time seems to slow down when i'm physically moving. and it somehow seems to go faster than it should, when i'm either doing nothing, or doing something mental. (no, not mental as in crazy, but mental as in with my mind)

take yesterday evening, for example. i was working till 5:28 PM. that's when i started packing my bag to leave from office, and simultaneously realized i need to pee and am incredibly hungry. and my phone rang too.

packing done, I walked to the washroom, did my business, and paced my way to the elevator lobby. smack in the middle of rush hour, with everyone waiting to catch an elevator down... with me the only guy waiting to catch one going up. 5 minutes of wait later, i hung up and was headed to the cafeteria, wondering if I should step out and give away my precious spot, or wimp out and go back down.

a quick glance at my watch told me I have 6 minutes to get back into the elevator, or I'd miss the bus.

paced past the packaged stuff counter, the guy at the counter wasn't there (i was half contemplating buying a packet of biscuits, if he was). so u made up my mind. parceled chicken lollipops it is.

entered the cafeteria, and there was no rush anywhere. i eyed the regular snacks. nothing I could parcel (or that I'd particularly fancy eating). I confirmed that lollipops were on today's special menu, and brought the token for it. gave the token, while I fished out the bag u used to hold my breakfast on my way to work in the morning.

four generously sized, warm, crisp chicken lollipops, with chilly garlic sauce.

three minutes to go.

I dipped each lollypop into the sauce and mopped up generous quantities of it, then dropped them into the plastic bag. stuffed the top with paper napkins. stuffed the plastic bag into the paper bag.

and that's when i realized i had no way to shut the plastic bag (or the paper bag around it, for that matter). i balanced the bags as nicely as I could, vertically, inside my office bag. it was a very risky thing to do, as I had my headphones, tab, ipod and whatnot in there, with nothing to save them from the chilly garlic sauce, should it tip over. but there was no time to think now. under a minute left.

made it back to the elevator lobby. staring at my watch, watching the seconds tick.

checked my phone, because my watch is a minute and a half fast, and i was cutting it close.

when the elevator arrived, it was 5:42 PM, the absolute latest I can catch the elevator and make it for the bus. luckily, it had room for me. I nudged others aside to get in (i'm sure they saw my backpack and figured I was racing for the bus)

the elevator filled up, and started descending through the building. people getting off and on at every other floor. at one point, the elevator doors refused to close because it was overloaded, and i had to hold my composure while the last two ladies who entered last, silently debated among themselves who should get off the elevator. i opened my bag to check that everything was intact.

5:43 PM; i'm on the 9th floor (the cafeteria is on the 13th)

5:44 PM; i'm on the ground floor, and need to dash down three floors of stairs to the basement, across the parking lot, and find my bus.

except that i can't run, because it'd topple the paper bag inside my backpack.

i speed walked, found my bus. seated myself next to my friend (he leaves his desk at 5:25 PM daily, to catch a window seat with a fan).

he told me that I missed chicken lollipops in the cafeteria today, they would have been nice.

I grinned at him, as I opened the bag, and told him that I didn't.

stuck

today was a day of very random coincidences:

i missed my office bus by precisely a minute - i was actually gonna leave my desk 5 minutes early and grab a snack, but i broke a build and the build servers were overloaded so took longer than usual.

my usual lift home (a colleague who lives nearby and generally leaves about 15 minutes after the office bus), left an hour early today.

I got drenched walking to the bus stop in the downpour.

i missed the AC express bus by barely half a minute.

I left two regular buses that would have taken me home as they were too crowded (bursting at the seams with people is a more appropriate description).

took the third bus as it was much emptier than the ones I just left.

the third bus takes the most convoluted route ever.

two and a half hours later, i'm still in the bus, which has taken a two hour circuit of andheri East and is now barely 15 minutes (by any other sane means of transport) from where I started from.

my bike, which I gave for servicing yesterday evening, is still not ready, and will take another day.

the bus hasn't moved in the last 35 minutes.

I'd have been home if i waited another HOUR in office and took the 745 bus home.

I haven't eaten since lunch, which was 8 hours ago. the only edible stuff with me is a 25g packet of chips. I'm saving it for when the hunger gets unbearable.

the bus transmission is making strange metallic sounds whenever it inches forward. its shocks have already bottomed out multiple times so far.

we're somewhere in aarey, in a spot that gets data while still registering no signal. no calls going through.

my bluetooth, tab and ipod are out of charge (i forgot to charge the latter two since yesterday), and my phone's on 25%.

it's pouring cats and dogs outside.

love in an elevator?

evening "office bus" rush hour.

packed elevator. door opens. I take a couple of steps, making eye contact with the cute girl facing me from inside the elevator.

she gives me a look that says "are you really gonna squeeze in here?"

I stop, inches from the closing doorway.

as it closes, the last thing I see is her smile, and she, my smirk.

how to embarrass yourself at work: part 6

okay, there are actually way more than 6 ways to embarrass yourself at work, but this is one i particularly remember:

i was walking from my desk to the restroom. and i felt a bit of flatulence on the way. now i usually am quite the expert at letting 'em loose discreetly (read: silently), so i decided to take my chances. and let out a clearly audible toot, right behind a colleague's (from another team) desk.

i'm not sure if he turned to see who did it, because i walked as briskly as i could to the restroom.

the hilarity of what had just happened was too much to stifle, and so i burst out laughing while i peed. luckily for me, the restroom was empty, and i had an incredibly satisfying fart while peeing.

until, seconds later, the same guy entered the restroom.

and witnessed me laughing, peeing, and farting. simultaneously, and with gusto.

i did my best to stifle my laughter, while staring at the ceiling to avoid eye contact. i'm sure that made me look even funnier, but there was no way i could anyhow acknowledge his presence in that situation.

i'm sure he still thinks i'm some sort of freak. but that moment was priceless... and totally worth it!

the morning drill

every weekday morning, I ride my bike to borivli station, park it about 50 metres from where my office bus waits, and walk to it. the bus leaves shortly after 7:26 (it used to be 7:26 on the dot, but it's now usually 7:29), and it takes me a minimum of 4 minutes to unpark, ride the 2.5km to borivli station, and park. also, I have an incentive to be as early as possible: my favourite seat.

anyway, over the last 6 months, efforts have been on to shorten the the time I take to get ready as well. I started off taking 45 minutes (wake at 6:30), which I then reliably shortened to half an hour. this year, I had shortened it to 15 minutes if I skip something (usually breakfast and tea, but sometimes other things that I shall not specify :D). today, I actually got ready in 18 minutes without skipping anything. I guess I'll have to prove it can be done reliably before I can set it as my daily schedule. but I'm digressing:

last Friday, I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I don't remember if I skipped anything or woke at 6:45, but I had left home at 7:18, and was 2 minutes early for the bus. and I also had no enthusiasm to do the 50m dash the way I usually do it (which is a flat out sprint, btw). so I walked.

halfway to the bus, the driver of a school van parked on the road waved at me. I slowed down, and he asked:

"why do you run everyday, and why are you walking today?"

I told him I need to catch a bus, which leaves at the exact same time daily, and I'm 1 minute early today.

but there is a deeper question I haven't been able to figure the answer to, yet:

why do I *need* to run for the bus everyday?

office shenanigans

it's been 9 months since i joined the new office. my first few months were kinda lonely there, and the few attempts I tried at making "frandsheep" failed quite tragically.

still, my nervous attempts at being sociable and the general niceness of my office-folk ensured it wasn't a permanent situation, and i'm now quite well-settled. not like the previous place, where well over a 100 people knew me personally (yeah, 5 years is a *long* time!), but it feels like i have some real friends here, and that's what matters.

anyway, what's friends like without a few shenanigans? since we mostly hang out over (and after) lunch, the stories are mostly food related.

like this one day, when i refused to share my gulab jamun dessert. and coincidentally the veggie was something with baby potatoes.

after one slightly sweet spoonful of veggies, i realized what my friends had done: swapped the gulab jamun with a baby potato. lucky for me, i swapped them back... no damage done.

But then, the day came for revenge.

The friend who did the swap was poised with his dessert in his hand. don't remember what it was, but it was something dry and sweet.

and he was engaged in conversation, looking at whoever was sitting to one side... while i, from the other side, liberally sprinkled it with salt from the shaker.

The expression on his face after that first bite was priceless.

ps: typed in a bandra-fast from borivli, while sipping on my party pack of monk and coke. funfun!

pps: title dedicated to nickolai, who is the only person i know who uses the word "shenanigans" :)

how to embarass yourself at work: part 5

yeah, the number is probably more than 5, but i'm not gonna check now.

first, some background. i got a new job recently (yeah, i don't like talking about what i do for a living... let's just say it pays me enough to bring home the bacon :) without being particularly glorious in any other aspect).

on the first day of work, we were shown through the building, so that we knew where the important facilities and whatnot are located. since we were a largish group (too large to fit in an elevator), the guy showing us around told us that he'll take us through the stairs instead.

i don't know why offices insist on calling the stairs the fire escape. i like taking the stairs. they provide a bit of much-needed exercise, some private space when you expect to be on a personal phone call that takes more than 2 minutes, and more.

anyway, the first day of work was spent in all sorts of orientations and talks by people from various functions, so my second day was the first time i was actually free to move around the office. to start off, i had to meet someone two floors below. perfect.

so i exited the elevator lobby and swiped my access card at the staircase.

somehow, it didn't strike me that the staircase was protected by access but the elevators weren't.

anyway, the door opened, and i found myself in the huge stairway. walked down the two floors, and then realized the door was locked from inside. interesting. walked down another floor, and the door was locked from outside. but my access card refused to work on it. i walked down 5 floors in all, and each of them couldn't be got out of.

finally i figured i better go back to my floor and use the elevator. so i walked back up five floors.

the door opened.

but that's when i realized i had to swipe my way through two doors to get to the stairs, and i was back through only one. the second set of doors were glass, and they refused to open from inside.

so i stood at the glass doors, knocking on them and waving out at everyone who passed by, hoping someone would notice. a few did, but they walked on anyway.

worse still, this being my first day, i had exactly one colleague's number on my phone. she didn't work on this floor though. and she wasn't even answering her phone anyway.

as minutes passed, my gestures got more frantic, and finally i managed to grab the attention of two middle-aged looking women who were walking by.

since it looked like nobody could hear my knocks on the door, i had to communicate via sign language. i told them with signs that i was locked outside and my access card didn't work, and theirs probably would.

that's when one of them said "one minute", and i heard her loud and clear through the door.

*facepalm*

she tried her access card. it didn't work.

at this point, i was more freaked out than embarrassed.

it looked like i was locked in the fire escape, and there was only one glass door through which i could communicate.

anyway, while these desperate thoughts were going through my head, the two women were having some sort of discussion among themselves on the other side of the door.

the finally came to the conclusion that the only way out of the fire escape was to walk all the way down 12 floors (my office was only in the upper half of the building), and get out through the lobby.

thankfully, on my way down, i found the door of the 2nd floor held open by a plank of wood. used that door to enter some other company's office. luckily, i got to the elevator without further event, and got out into the lobby (and then took another elevator back to my office - the two sets of elevators are separate and don't go to each others' floors!)

and that, ladies and gentlemen, was how i spent the first 20 minutes of the first day i was allowed to roam freely in my new office.

i woke up, and i was in microsoft!

last night's dream was funky. i dreamed that i started working someplace new, a place with white walls and a white cubicle-maze and white desks. everything white. but a kinda dirtyish white.

and on the first day, in between orientation and induction sessions, a thick envelope of papers arrived at my desk. it was an offer letter. to start working at microsoft. with the join date of that day itself. and a 20% pay hike.

i called the number on the offer letter immediately, and told them that i just received the offer, and will join tomorrow.

a blurry episode of taking a flight to a different city followed, and i awoke in a hotel the next morning, and walked to the office.

as i entered, the guy who was supposed to show me around spotted me. the ground floor had a lawn around the building, with chairs and tables set up, and small groups of people conducting informal meetings at some of them. as we walked around, he told me which team each of the groups were from. there was the mobile team, the live team, the .net team, and so on... all of them about my age, rather brightly and casually dressed, and they all seemed rather relaxed.

till finally, we came to a largeish table that wasn't exactly in the lawn, but rather, in a glass-walled room that was open on one side to it. about five or seven older looking guys at it. in the middle, with a laptop, was steve ballmer, with a wolverine beard. my escort-cum-teammate said this is the windows team, the team i'll be working with: "the biggest and baddest chunk of microsoft".

he called out to them, and said i was the new guy, and a couple of them left the table and walked with us into this conference room that was full of PCs lying about, looking rather dumpy with wires running across the table and even on the chairs.

they did a quick presentation, and asked a few questions. one question i remember was they asked for the full form of some acronym. i guessed three of the four letters, which they said is good.

then, my escort said that since it's my first day, they want to keep it light, so we should go for a drive. we picked up cans of sodas from the vending machine, and my teammate and i were joined by this girl in an orange top and blue denims, who said we should go for a drive in her car. a sleek, funky convertible. before we got in, the guy handed me my official phone (a windows mobile), and while getting in the car, he said i can swap my personal phone for an iphone. i told him i'd rather have an android, and he said that's perfectly fine too, and said he saw a galaxy s2 lying around today.

we drove around for a bit, and it definitely didn't seem like anything i've imagined i'd see in india. cobblestoned narrowish streets, a lake on one side, glass buildings on the other. we drove back, and it was evening.

apparently people like to stand around and chill out at a big balcony around sunset. my teammate led me there, introduced me to a few people, and then moved off. people were opening beers all around, and i (inexplicably) fished out a quarter of vodka from my pocket.

when i was about to pour a drink, i noticed a girl standing in the corner, alone. looking intently at me. she was pretty, and quite nicely dressed, but looking rather disheveled at the moment. i remembered seeing her earlier that day. she was one of the receptionists. that's when i looked outside and realized it was drizzling and overcast. and she looked drenched.

behind her, there were a group of girls chit-chatting. as i poured my drink, one of the girls walked over to me and introduced herself. she asked me if i'm a regular drinker, because apparently i didn't know how to pour my drink. she said she'd have poured my drink for me, if i hadn't done so myself. i wordlessly held her gaze for a moment, smiled, and emptied the rest of the quarter into the glass.

and that's when i woke up.

ps: i'm surprised i remember this amount of detail of the dream!

clarification #win

someone added this disclaimer to their reply in a debate happening over email at work:

"sorry if i misread and that you're saying the same thing as I did, in which case i hope it clarifies to others reading it the same way as i did."

mmmm, fresh meat!

i live such a strange life, that on days when my lunch only contains veggies, i still microwave it in the microwave reserved for non-vegetarian meals, in the hope of picking up some non-veggie aroma/flavour.

it's never worked so far, but i still do it, 4 years later.

the triumph of murphy

disclaimer: extremely long sob story to follow. read only if you want to make yourself feel better about your own day. no sympathy will be accepted.

ever since the accident last month, which happened for absolutely no fault of mine, my life's been a little more painful than before.

there's the fact that i lost my backup phone, and was down to using other peoples' phones until i brought one for myself.

there's the thing about not having a bike, which makes getting everywhere more painful, time-consuming, expensive and...i guess painful is the word.

there's my leg, which wasn't so badly affected that i couldn't walk or anything, but is pretty bad anyway. over a month later, it's still painful to climb steps with it, i can't take a couple of quick paces even if i really have to, and i get cramps and stiffness when i sit or even sleep.

as a result, every single working day is a battle for me. i struggle to wake up because i have problems falling asleep thanks to my leg. it's always been hard to get rickshaws, but now it's even worse because i can't run towards or behind them.

rickshaws take twice the amount of time to get me to work than my bike used to. and my one way ric fare is close to a week's petrol money.

i wait in office till 8:30, because it's pointless taking a rickshaw at 8, to sit breathing fumes, caught in a traffic jam, paying by the minute. the airconditioned office drop is better, even if it means trying to work for half-an-hour when i'm already well past my saturation point. and then roaming all around the place to drop individual people, sometimes covering 1.5 times my normal way home, and taking close to 3 times my bike time.

as a result, i'm never home before 9:30pm. which means the only time i can meet my mechanic and make any progress towards getting my bike done is on saturdays.

anyway, i've been pulling through for 5 weeks in this fashion, when today happened.

the story begins with yesterday, actually. i was supposed to meet my mechanic in the evening, approve of all the parts he had purchased, and give him the go-ahead to start repairs.

unfortunately, i also had a meeting scheduled from 7pm-8pm.

when i called my mechanic, he informed me that he didn't get the chance to purchase the parts, so i should come over tomorrow (i.e. today).

great.

except that come 7pm, i got a mail saying that the meeting is can't happen as one of the important attendees didn't realize there was a conflict on his schedule.

struggled to get through the day, got home via the drop.

woke up today morning, late as usual, and then discovered that my stomach isn't in the best of condition. so i couldn't eat the chicken curry that mom had packed for lunch. left it at home. since my lunch is pretty much the reason i carry my bag to work, i decided to leave it at home.

stepped out in the blazing heat, and started my daily search for a rickshaw. except that this time, it took me 20 minutes, covering the road around my block twice, and and atleast 5 refusals before i got one.

reached work late. barely 5 minutes before my first meeting. trudged through the day.

at around 5:45, i realized i had to meet my mechanic today. and also had the meeting at 7.

i called the mechanic. he hadn't brought all the parts yet, but would go to the dealer at 7, so should be back by 7:45 or so. he asked me to meet him then.

alright. so i had to leave at 6, to make it home before my meeting began, and after the meeting, rush to meet the mechanic (he closes shortly after 8). and then possibly finish some work from home.

got out at 6pm sharp. there were no rickshaws outside. i didn't realize the car parked opposite, that was just about to start moving, was the office shuttle to link road.

at 6:05, the shuttle and the extended shuttle were back at the gate. i asked the extended shuttle if it went to link road. and then was informed that that was the car, waiting on he other side of the road. and it leaves every 10 minutes, so i had just missed the 6pm one.

so i sit inside, wait for it to start moving at 6:10, and finally it takes me all around and drops me at inorbit, despite me being the only person in the shuttle. whatever.

inorbit signal. no empty rickshaws at all. but the road ahead seems reasonably clear, unlike at 8pm when it's pretty much gridlocked.

and then i see a bus waiting at the other side of the road, for the signal to change.

i limped across as quick as i could, and got in. it was a route number i recognized, so i was pretty sure it would go near home.

asked inside, and it did indeed go near home, but not very near.

that's when i realized there was another bus behind it, and that one definitely passed near home, as i recall seeing it when i was still biking around.

got in. the bus was packed. found a spot to stand somehow. the bus started moving.

it moved pretty quick, i must say. barely any traffic.

10 minutes later, i got a window seat.

i thanked my stars.

25 minutes later, i was almost home. happy. this is less time than the ric would take on a usual day at my usual time.

the bus then turned off link road, about a 10 minute walk away from home.

and proceeded to go in the exact opposite direction, but from an inside road.

it spent 20 minutes wandering around borivli, until it eventually got to another point around 10 minutes from home. that's where i had to get off.

this stop is the same place where buses that go directly to my home stop. so i decided to wait for a bus instead of walk.

5 minutes later, when i was getting restless and about to reconsider my decision, i saw a bus.

it was jam packed. i couldn't even get an arm in.

i gave up and decided to start walking.

2 minutes later, another bus passed me. empty.

i couldn't run for it, so i just kept walking.

finally reached home. 20 minutes late for my meeting.

rang the doorbell. no response.

rang the doorbell repeatedly. no response.

my parents had gone out.

they weren't expecting me home so early.

they also usually don't think about where i am and when i'll get home, as my house keys are usually in my pocket.

except that today, they were in my bag.

they reached back just as the meeting was probably got over.

i got home, logged in. meeting over.

called my mechanic.

his phone has been switched off.

i have nothing left to say, or think.

i don't even know why i try to continue.

the dictionary

my teammate and me were having a random conversation a few days ago, when he was asking me the meanings of random english phrases and expressions. not sure where exactly he was getting his questions from (he was reading them off his phone), but he was astonished when i answered every single challenge (until he gave me some latin word, the botanical name of some plant, which i obviously didn't know).

he was surprised that i knew all these words and phrases, and was wondering how i learned them. i told him that i came across all of them while reading. which was true. he agreed that these meanings could be guessed from the context while reading, but was surprised that i could remember each and every one of them.

which is when i realized:

i have an eidetic memory for words.

in fact, while i'm terrible at pronunciation, i'm pretty good at spelling too. if there's a word i can't spell verbally, i'll certainly be able to point out the mistake when i see the word in print. something just won't look right to me.

which reminds me of a recent tweet:

manoeuvre. that's the first word i had to ask my mom the spelling of since I was 13. today. hmmm.

probably an exaggeration, but not by a long stretch.

midas' touch

there's been a sad twist to the last 3 years of my life.

every time i get close to a friend from office, he or she either leaves the city or the country.

it's been four friends and counting. two more to join them next month.

i'm very sad. and almost scared now.

i want my friends to be happy, but i don't want any more to go away.

the first rain (for me, this year)

i was in matheran yesterday. it rained for about 20 minutes, from 2am to 2:20am.

i woke up today morning, and the terrace was dry at 7:30am.

it was nice and cloudy when i left from home. i was happy to see my bike's headlight cast a beam as far as 50 feet away, even though it was past 9am.

and then the rain struck. first a drizzle, mild enough for me not to bother taking out my windcheater. till 5 minutes later, when i was navigating bumps in the road from memory.

needless to say, i was drenched when i entered office.

so drenched, that the security guard refused to xray my bag, even after i put it in the plastic tray.

so drenched, that i left puddles from the lobby to the restroom.

i squeezed my socks dry, emptied my shoes, wrung my pants. and then sat for my day long training session.

during our first break, i went to the coffee machine in the hope of getting something
niec and hot to combat my uncontrollable shivering bouts. and the machine was only spewing watery reconstituted milk no matter what button i pressed.

by lunch, most of my pants and shirt had dried, except for a section starting at my waist and ending 6 inches or so below.

my friend who hadn't seen me in the morning asked me how come my pants were wet in such a weird shape.

i had to explain to her in front of a couple of her teammates, that that was because my underwear hadn't dried yet from the morning's drenching (i didn't want to evade the question, since that would probably make them assume worse reasons :D)

anyway, i finally made it through the day, and was waiting for the reain to subside so i could make my hasty exit.

except that it didn't.

i took my time, rearranged my bag, put on my jacket, put all my important stuff in ziploc bags, and set off with some nice good house music blasting on my earphones at near-deafening volumes.

got caught in a traffic jam even before i could turn onto the main road.

inched my way through the rain.

realized the drops that were clouding my visor were now inside my helmet, not outside.

also realized that there was no traffic or pedestrians at the left side of the road.

but did not realize that it was because there was two feet of water all the way.

anyway, once i was drenched i was drenched, so i figured i might as well plow my way through, since i knew all the bumps in the road from memory anyway.

the only person i saw who was even more unprepared for the rain than i was, was this scooty riding girl, who was wearing such a flimsy white top that i almost managed to read the label on her bra while waiting behind her at the signal in malad.