sarcasm at work!

..after spending 20 odd non-productive working hours in the office, I refuse to let die the old me. The stage was set as the so called "Campus to Corporate" instructor started a presentation. An old story of a rabbit and a tortoise. As soon as I read the title of the slide, I remarked "Oh! I got this on email", loud enough to be audible. "So you know this? Very Good. Now sit in front and click next to move through the slides". Was the response.

I did as ordered. These days there is a lot of talk about business ethics and integrity. Every one is forced to believe that being good has its virtues even though they are not evident at the first go. So there we were. "moral of the story" the slide said !. The instructor asked us the same. People say something or other. There are some who say too much. anyways.. some one knocked the door and the instructor had to leave.

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There was this colleague of mine sitting right opposite to me and he shook his head leftwards twice, I made an attempt to pretend as if I was too lame to catch the signal. He wished himself to be heard "Next Slide... Next Slide" He shouted. Incidentally this gentleman was the one who wants himself to be noticed in front of every one. From innocuous looking HR ladies with barely a couple of years of work experience to the Vice President who was extremely quick witted and had an IIM-A guy moving with him to click next to his slides. He had great ambitions for sure and certainly I had no plans to be in his way either. I was just trying of myself to be what I am...

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So with a wicked smile and subtle voice I said "Business Ethics! .You forgot didn't you ? ". He was not of the kinds who seem to give up easily when his "talking" was at stake. "But we never had our session on that" was his retaliation. " In that case this is your first lesson I guess.", there was it. I said it all the same tone and expression to bring this interesting conversation to a grinding halt. And I guess that was enough to soften him up.

The idea was never to overpower him. The consequences of having a similar conversation with someone senior must have been catastrophic. Now as I look back, I realize that all this happened in a quick succession. I barely took time to respond.

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We were bare strangers before this point of contact and this incident made something to happen. We met after the session had a chit-chat. I always noticed him speak in the three days session so far and he did noticed me, may be for the first time :)

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Sarcasm may have never killed anybody. It certainly made people sulk thoughl,and for the like minded "sarcasts" they became friends the moment they discovered the "mutual sense of sarcasm" they posses!

late by 60 minutes

..this Monday morning, was the first day at my csc office and traffic did it to me. Exactly late by 60 minutes I was welcomed by a bouquet of pink flowers, with two female HR's saying "Welcome to CSC" in tandem. There were few pink roses in that bunch I least bothered to count as I hurried on to AG-31. Well that's the room I hurried on to and went to the extreme end of the as it was almost occupied by then. There may not be many people who travelled 50 Kms to reach there, I just thought in my defence.

I was prepared for the first day. That was in terms of selecting the shortest path with minimum traffic. Anoop was my friend whom I relied on this time, a frequent visitor to Noida he told me the shortest possible route in the longest possible time. After wasting six A4 size sheets for the map and almost 140 minutes on this route discussion, guided by the Google maps tool I tried to authenticate his road-map to the real one.

Half way through, I was lost. "Why men don't listen and women cant read maps" a book by Mr. Pease immediately came to my mind. Oh ! boy I always believed in this book until this precise moment of time. Or was my brain too feminine ? Falling back to the main road was like diving in to a sea of sharks. I counted on my instincts. "Move on..." I instructed my mind. After a while the ill-drawn lines in the map started making sense. Oh-yea!! that's the pillar i see as drawn in the map. Landmarks are so very important and I am glad that inspite of my reluctance to hear him, Anoop did recite this map to me thrice. I stopped by an auto rickshaw driver and almost pleaded to guide me through.In retrospect I think he may have been an angel that god just sent from heaven that morning to tell me to turn right and then go straight until i meet a dead end. These types of instructions are easy to remember and more simple to execute. Keep yelling "right turn" until you turn and then "Dead end" unless you see one. Some how I managed to get to the office. Entire day returning back was on my mind. This not what I was supposed to do at my first day. They asked us to fill some 20-25 sheets of paper with some redundant information five or six times. Records are important for sure.

On they way back that night I picked up a wrong lane, and somewhat similar thing I did when going back to the office second day. And the second day coming back a wrong turn cost me 40 minutes. I have learnt a lesson though. If going to office I turned right from a crossing. I have to turn left while coming back !!!