On Thin Ice
The past few days have been a bit stressful. It all started off on Friday morning when I turned up for work. I was in a pretty good mood coz I was looking forward to a few days of R&R. I walk into the office and I'm greeted with a lot of morose faces. "Why the long faces?", I asked one of my colleagues. "I've been asked to leave", he replied in a deadpan voice. "Where are you going? Which client?" , I asked, innocently assuming that he had some meeting somewhere. He then went on to inform me that he was actually fired and that he was clearing out his desk. It came as quite a shock to me and initially I thought he was yanking my chain. But when it all sunk in, it was quite an eye opener. I mean, we all like to think we are indispensable and that we are invaluable to our companies. At least, that's what HR says to keep the morale up. But the fact of the matter is that when business isn't great, people start getting laid off. I've always been aware of lay offs but its never come and struck me in the face like this. The actual sense of job security that I had all this time has been rattled a wee bit. I was reassured by the MD that I've got nothing to worry about as my product line is doing great, but it does make you start reassessing your situation.
Gloomy things aside, Ani and I set out to pick up Dixi (Ani's sis) from Heathrow. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour journey ended up being a 7 hour journey, thanks to Ani's impeccable navigation skills. She always does this and all I can do is sit there and follow her directions. I'm so paranoid about taking the wrong turn every time we come to a junction where there's more than one option to follow. When she tells me to turn left, I've got to ask her if she's sure, because chances are that she'll look at the map again and tell me to turn right instead. I mean, how many times can you confuse your right and your left? Women! My old driving instructor puts two big stickers on the steering wheel. One is a big "L" and the other is a big "R". He says that most of his women students keep going right when he asks them to go left. I'll be getting into trouble tonight for this, but at least I've had my say. Sorry chechi!!
Did the usual touristy stuff in London. Will try to put up the video that we took. Cooked biryani for everyone. (That recipe will never be put online...Its an ancient family recipe...Stays in the family) Drove back up here via Stratfor-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace) and Birmingham.
Can you believe Shakespeare. I mean, what a stingy miserable git. When he died at the age of 52, he was reasonably wealthy. He left his wife, his only wife, his "second best bed". That's it. Nothing else. His bed. Not the best bed. But the second best one. How miserable can you be. He left one of his daughters, a golden goblet. That's all. A lousy wine goblet. He then left 5 of his houses and all his other wealth to his other daughter. I dunno what she did to deserve that, but that poor lady, his wife, got a bed. Something about that just winds me up so much.
Back at work today. Will be working tomorrow too and then I'm off for Easter.
First Impressions
The ever important First Impression. If that's the best impression, then I'm Screwed...Yes...With a capital S. Ani's sister is flying in to the UK tomorrow. We're going down to London to pick her up. Its not the first time that I'm meeting the 'sister-in-law' to-be... I've met her once before at Ani's house where I made an absolute awful impression. Apparently she ended up thinking that I was a snob or too posh or something down those lines. Why? Well, Ani's mum had made Chinese Fried rice and some chicken dish. Now, when we sat at the table, I requested for a knife and fork. Do you guys face the same problem? I can't eat fried rice with my hands. I just can't force my hands into any Chinese dish. Normal rice or biryani or chapatti is fine. I love eating those with my hands. But there's this force field around my hands when it detects Chinese food in the vicinity. Well, everyone else ate with their hands and looked at me strangely. Well, so then later, Ani's sister told her that I was a snob or something. Weird.
The second time I met her, was at my house. Quite a few of the DASA crowd had turned up to my place and Ani's sis accompanied her. Well, I tried to be as casual and 'just-friends' - like with Ani as possible. Maybe it was something in my eyes that gave my feelings away. I couldn't get a moment alone with her coz her sister was sticking to her like glue. I dunno. Somehow, don't feel I did too well there.
Now, I've been trying really hard to get into their family's good books. For mother's day, I even sent Ani's mum a card, though Ani didn't. So finally, I get to meet her sister for the third time and hopefully she's going to judge me with a clean slate.
Knowing myself, I'll probably cock up somewhere. Christ, for the next 15 days, I've got to be a really good boy. That's my most difficult task yet.
Get out of the way Geriatrics!!
Now don't get me wrong, I like old people and I don't bully them. But one can't help getting impatient with them.
First of all, they always start their sentences with "You know son, when you get to my age...". For f**k's sake. Everything pales in significance in comparison to their life's accomplishments. Just yesterday, I was moaning about how my legs were aching and that I was surviving on pain killers. Well one of the many geriatrics that work here said, "You know son, when you get to my age, that's when you understand what a true knee ache is. I can't climb the stairs to the office without bringing tears to my eyes. You climbed Helvellyn. That's nothing. I climbed Mt. Kilamnajaro when I was your age." SO F**KING WHAT??? Reducing my death defying adventure to a mere stroll over a mole hill doesn't make my leg pain any less!!
And talking about climbing up stairs, that's another place when they piss me off. Have you ever been stuck behind a really old guy/lady while climbing an extremely narrow flight of stairs.? They huff and puff and hold on to the railing for dear life and won't let anyone squeeze past them. You end up going up at a rate of 1 step per minute while all the time getting an excellent view of their wrinkled arse.
Then there's the issue of yacking for ages and ages. Here I was buried in work when another geriatric comes and just stands behind me. She simply stands there without saying a word. She was mentally willing me into asking her why she was there. So eventually when a hole burnt into the back of my neck where she was staring at, I decided to quip " Wussup?". With that short prologue, she went into a story which suffice to say, wasted 30 minutes of my life which I will never get back. Needless to say, it had nothing to do with work, but the main characters in the plot were her husband (who has a desperate need for a 42 inch flat screen tv), her disabled sister (who makes birthday cards as a hobby) and her mum ( who really can't do much at all). Trust me, it took a lot of effort not to glaze over while she was rattling away.
Then finally there's the technophobic attitude. We can't really have that in a company thats selling cutting edge tecnology, can we? The real tech savvy geriatrics are the ones who know how to use Word and Excel. PowerPoint is a bit too much for them to grasp. Forget Access. There's also the issue that they can't cope with software upgrades. I completely floored some of the geriatrics here by simply upgrading the network from using Office XP to Office 2003. Lord alive, the chaos that reigned those first few weeks. They couldn't check mail, they couldn't write mail, they couldn't open their files. For the worst of them, I downgraded them back to old Office XP just so that they don't have daily anginas. I mean, I don't want to be held responsible for putting them under undue stress.
I honestly don't think that our generation would ever turn out like the previous one. Most of us are constantly keeping with the times and technology isn't something to be afraid of.
To HELL and back!!
What started out as a nice romantic hike into the beautiful Lake District ended up being a virtual trip to HELL and back.
Ani and I had decided to go for a walk in the Lakes this weekend. On thursday evening, I got a call from my buddy Steve, asking me if we wanted to go to the lakes with him. No problem, always better to hike with more people. I was thinking of a nice leisurely walk in the woods near Ambleside, Grasmere or Keswick. Little did I know that he planned on scaling Scafell Pike, which is the third highest mountain in the UK but the most notoriously difficult to climb. Luckily for me, my dilly dallying in the toilet in the morning meant that we didn't have enough time to scale the peak and make it back before sunset. So what do we do instead? We decide to climb Helvellyn instead, which is about 3250ft high. Its a bloody 9.5 mile hike and the peak is graded as 'Hard' just short of 'Severe'.
I was all up for it as I misguidedly thought that my three months of active working out would have put me in decent shape. Boy was I wrong. Fifteen minutes into the trek, and I'm panting and cussing. In fact, if it weren't for all the cussing, I don't think I could have kept going on. Ani, however, kept leaping from rock to rock, like a mountain goat. I've decided to call her Nanny Ani. Steve was way ahead of us and at times I couldn't even see him. But I could still hear him. All around me, the words 'George!! You BIG Girl!! Get your ass up here fast!!" kept echoing. It was as if even the mountains around us were laughing at my sorry ass.
The snow and ice didn't help either. Being flat footed, I kept losing my balance and fell over numerous times, much to Nanny Ani's delight. We finally reached the Red Tarn, a lake on the top of the mountain and I could not go any further. Steve ditched us and decided to run up the rest of the peak to the summit. I mean. that's just taking the piss. Here I am, falling over, incapable of one more step, and he decides to JOG the rest of the way. Anyway, Ani and I chilled out at the frozen lake and waited for Steve to get back down. We kept looking out for his red jacket and couldn't find him anywhere. I was hoping he fell over the edge. That would teach him not to run up mountains. But to my chagrin, I saw a red jacket coming down the mountain. Coming down is actually overstating it. He was BUM sliding down. His legs had given up on him, and he just let gravity do its work.
Going down was even more treachorous than going up. My knees were failing me and I was rolling down the hill most of the time. We finally made it to ground level and with my last burst of energy, I sprinted to the pub at the base and rested my sore butt. A pint has never tasted this good.
Outta left field!!!
Here I was bitching about work when today, out of the blue, my Technical Director resigned. I mean, he was the founder of this company, the guy whose patented products put TISS on the security map. The guy who would have been a millionaire if he just hung on for one more year. Tres bizarre!!!
Its only when I dug deeper that I found out that his wife of 20 years had died two weeks ago. Not that they were awfully in love with each other. In fact, they've been separated for the past two years. Apparently she became an alcholhic after he left her, and she drunk herself to death. His whole life has been all about work. He worked non stop and never took a day off. He never took a holiday. He's owed like almost a 5 years of holidays. Thats a hell of a lot of annual leave that he hasn't taken. He was saying today that his wife's death has made him suddenly realise that he's not getting any younger and its time he retired and enjoyed life a bit before its too late for him.
It really made me sit up and think. We study really hard all our life to get a good job. Once we get a good job, we work our butts off to get an even better job. Then we work and work and let life just pass us by. I've tried thinking back and tried to remember any special day that I've had recently. The only thing I can remember is Valentine's day. But apart from that, my life seems to have just slipped by.
What is the purpose of life? What are we meant to do? Are we all put here just to work, eat and sleep? What do we accomplish? How do we measure our own successes?
I dunno. Do you think I'm becoming jaded and cynical?
Always Aim Low!!
No, I'm not talking about kneeing your mate in the groins, but I'm talking about work. Here's some words of wisdom from grandpa George.
Working is all about managing expectations. Now I'm sure those of you who are still in university are probably rearing to go and get into a new fancy plush job. Undoubtedly, most of you would slave away and jump into the deep end from day one to impress your bosses and claim that coveted raise or promotion. You are going to bust your ass day and night for your company and work all those extra long hours. Its only with experience and after you start noticing a few grey hairs ( not necessarily on your balding head), that you stop and think. What is the point of meeting all those deadlines way before they were needed? What is the point of staying back after everyone's left to try and sort out everyone's issues? What is the point of clearing that In-tray as fast as it gets filled up? Thats when it dawns on you that the faster you work, the more work you get. Showing initiative and drive gets you the occasional and sometimes frequent pat-on-the-back. But....whats the use of that? You'll still be paid the same. No matter how many late nights you pull, you'll still get raised eyebrows if you come in 10 minutes late in the morning.
Network administration is a real thankless job. No one remembers how many months all the systems were working perfectly. But if people aren't able to browze ebay for 5 minutes due to some socket error, christ on a raft, you've had it. Everyone goes " George, is the server down AGAIN??!!!??".... what the hell???!! what do you mean, AGAIN? When was the last time this happened, 6 months ago?? That's a heck of a record to keep a company's network up and going. But OH NO!!! All the urgent and life and death emails are pending to come NOW....exactly when the bleeding server went down!!!
Needless to say, I haven't had a great day. And so, boys and girls, always keep people's expectations low.
The Much Awaited First Post!
I've been procrastinating for quite a long time now. I've finally gotten around to posting this much awaited first post. Awaited by whom? I'm not going to flatter myself and claim that thousands of people have been gagging for me to put my thoughts down on paper, but i've been waiting to lift my lazy ass and get into gear.
Well, i know the concept of having two people posting on the same blog is'nt mind boggling and revolutionary but one of the main motivating factors to have both Ani and I post on this one blog, is becoz I really couldn't be arsed to sit and make things look pretty. Thats Ani's job.
If you are one of those readers that I don't know, then let's keep it that way. I'm not going introduce myself. You're probably wondering why our blog is called the 'Adventures of Tintin and Snowy'. Again. If you dont know who's who in the jungle, buzz off. If you are really into reading about people you've never seen or met in your life before, then I know just the blog you should be reading. Please go to saurabhsworld.blogspot.com. He's really a much better read.
Now that the riff raff have gone. Get a load of that. What an arrogant prick I sound like, eh? Yeah, I suppose I am. Honest to god guys, I just couldn't be bothered introducing myself. I've never done it, never fancied doing it, never will. I'm just not one of those guys in KGP who would sit in front of yahoo messenger and randomly go to chat rooms and start chatting. Its actually a skill. Tokas is really good at that. He comes up with the most bizarre chat up lines. I mean, the way he chats with a random girl is amazing. I swear, you can literally almost hear her wet panties slip and hit the floor.
Anyway... we were trying to decide what links to put up on this blog and after racking our brains to see what interested us the most, we came up with ...food!!! Coz unlike most of my friends who are still in university and enjoying, as Saurabh puts it,
"sheer decadence & hedonism, iniquity & depravity", Ani and I are
tax paying working professionals who have the telly at home to come back to. Our exciting '
things to do together' options have been whittled away to the pursuit of culinary excellence. Why don't I get pissed and rat-assed(british for drunk) with her, you ask? Coz chetas and chechis, I've lately been reduced to becoming tipsy on 2 pints of lager. How the mighty have fallen. I'd like to largely blame my dad for this but Ani also has to take quite a hefty chunk of the blame too. After 4 years of listening to him give me dire warnings which linked virtually every known disease to man with excessive drinking., I've decided to become a virtual teetotaller. Well almost... I mean, drinking wine, port, sherry, pina coladas isn't drinking. Thats just 'unwinding'... certainly not on par with half a bottle of scotch or 12 pints of lager...
Anyway, I digress. Food! Thats what we were talking about. Well, we've put up a few of our recipes which we use quite often. Try them before you comment on them. If you feel that your particular version is better than mine, then we'd be very interested to give your recipe a shot. In due course of time, if I can cajole Ani into typing up more recipes, then we'll put up some of the more exotic dishes that we do. I'd be very interested in unique dishes that you guys make. So please do mail us your recipes.
Just becoz my world revolves around food doesn't mean I'm a fat bastard like Koshy, Pinku and Abilash. Ani and I have been sticking to our New Years resolution and have been going to the gym regularly for the past two and a bit months. Believe it or not, I've actually lost 7 kgs. Thats on par with my malnourished 1st year in college.
Well thats all for now. We've got to get back to ripping off saurabh's blog. We've been blatantly stealing code, but what a relief not to get busted for plagiarism!!!
