Boozing water

                                                                        

                                                                                          

                                                                                                                  

Camera, slightly going on the blink. office mates with fetish for using the remains of drinking sessions as water bottles for daily consumption. Probably takes away the dreariness of work; every time you sip you're briefly taken back to drunken nights of excess and glory and all that. Or there is also the possibility that people were just looking for a water bottle and heard that plastic bottles were unhealthy..

Me and the Tea Ladies

So you know that story in which some professor leaves a question in an important paper which asks the student; 'What is the name of the Janitor?' and that goes on to tell us how important it is to respect the support staff in offices and schools etc?

Well i took it to heart.

So whenever my morning tea is served at work, or whenever someone comes in to empty my waste basket i make sure to give a smile, a nod and a thank you right? just simple manners.

Then the tea lady incidents happened.

They were more girls than ladies. And they were quite pretty in a tea serving latha like way. So i go about my usual smiling routine and they smile back right? And i'm probably the only guy who smiles with them on my floor so they get quite attached to me in a distant sort of way. With 'good morning sir's' etc.

So then i get this series of phone calls, the line sounds grainy and a distant female voice is talking at the other end. I can't make out anything so i hang up the first few times right? then one day the line is clearer and i find out it's the tea lady.

She proceeds to relate to me one of the most bizarre stories i have ever heard.

Apparently a chap at a different division had gone and let her verbally have it accusing her of 'being involved with me'.

Needless to say, i was speechless. absolutely bamboozled. its one of those moments when you're trying to figure out if its actually you this should be happening to, a feeling of utter disconnect.

Then i'm like wtf right? the whole shock of it settled in. So i ask her. Er, why would Mr.xxx go and say something like that to you?

She acts cagey, said she just wanted to make sure things weren't gonna take a turn for the uncomfortable. and hangs up.

I contemplated going and confronting the guy but then drop the idea. Believe me, i've come across weirder people with greater their-own-business-minding-deficency-disorders than him. But the sheer insanity of it struck me like a hammer. Here stand I and a tea lady. Possibly from two different social classes working at the same office. And from the mere fact that there are some smiles exchanged between us every morning and evening, some goon draws conclusions of midnight meet-ups and starlit rendezvous'.

The girl came into work a few more days, then left. Hopefully she just got a transfer and didn't quit or something.

The mystery only cleared up when later I found out that the tea boy was her boyfriend. And in a fit of jealousy may have convinced my 'colleague' (who apparently derives some sort of sadistic pleasure out of these sort of things) to do the deed.

And i didn't even know those two were even going out. He was half her height, and had the most innocent looking face you ever saw.

Well that was the first incident. The second one started a bit after the first girl left. the second girl starts to smile a little bit more and a little bit more coyly than usual everyday, and once I caught her staring at me when i was leaving the lunch room. I started getting this uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach so finally decided that some changes were in order.

I have since developed a more professional smile with a slight nod that communicates politeness more formally than my mal hinawa of old. And i find myself identifying more closely with a previously dark and detested area of accepted societal norms as well. But I still smile at the tea lady, albeit a smile completely removed of all traces of come-on-over-ness. Yes I admit, in retrospect my smiles may not have been all that strictly professional as i had thought.

Irrationalia

'Man is a rational animal’?

Whoever said that definitely has NOT driven through the traffic ridden streets of Dehiwala in the morning whilst being terribly late to work. A manic paranoia that my boss will call at any moment now to ask for that presentation I promised to polish up first thing in the morning had my earpiece firmly planted to my ear. There is a sound of someone knocking on a door. And no don’t worry it's just my sms tone. NOT a 'visitor among us from the 'other side''. And for a wonder, the usual 'news alerts' seemed to have dried up of late as well and the sms was from an actual person! Guess there are not many people dying, major disasters happening or a lot of ass kissing going on at Temple Trees. (I’m pro Mahinder, no really, I am! What? No I’m NOT crossing my fingers…)

I was having breakfast calmly at home (already 10 minutes late to work) when I got the message.

‘Boss in office’

Yelp! What the hell is he doing at work so early anyways? Goddamn. I remember a call at 8.30 last night

'You can give it to me first thing in the morning no?'

I wanted to say NO! You shmuck I… NO!

But I said yes.

And I could’ve given it really, no problem.

Except I was late.

So I pretty much drove poor old Angie like a maniac.

With ridiculously random thoughts running through my mind like,

"Why does no one ever Work on Labor Day?"

"Why am I so fucking horny lately?"

"Why are the morning jokes on TNL so dumb?"

"Why do I chill the hell out every morning taking my own cool time only to be late to work?"

"Why the hell am I working here?"

And the mood teeters on the brink of depression;

"I’m not made for conventional work"

"Don’t want to be a regular worker bee"

"I see no point in it, I’m not happy with my work".

Sure, I’m happy with my job. Now that’s a different thing. At this point in my life and times this is probably the ideal job for me. For reasons I shall allow to remain mysteriously unrevealed. I suddenly realize how much I’m riding on my dreams. And I get that feeling. You know, the one you get when an alien mother ship is about to light beam you into the bowels of its mysterious insides? Utter helplessness and loss of control.

Dreams, hopes, whizzing AC busses, waving cops, wrong side of the road, glaring drivers, hurt pedestrians (feelings feelings! not physically hurt. I usually respect pedestrians, ‘cos we’re all pedestrians at one point or the other), huffed tuk tuk drivers, busting AC that I keep having to switch on and off.

Delusional truck drivers who insist on traveling in the fast lane when it’s so fucking obvious that there are faster things like cars and push bicycles whose drivers are tearing their nerves up in impatience behind them.

The urge to stop and literally, literally beat-up the guy in the idling Camry eating a cheese sandwich slowing me down to 20kmph is overwhelmed by the urge to beat the ticking clock.

Finally the old girl and I got to work.

And now I’m chilling out writing a blog post about all this.

Did the best I could with the presentation, though my boss is the type of deranged dude who’d be perfectly happy with it one moment and then go completely berserk because the font size and background color creates sensory overload in combination with that little picture sitting on the side. Screw the actual content of the thing; leave that to the business world. Over here, we’re into politicking.

Lament of a Worker

Expecting, waiting but it's coming slow,
Winding it's way along hills high and low,
It's engine is slow,
And i think i'll just go,
Mad if I stay here just waiting some more.

Desiring it all but really wanting nothing,
Fussing and messing but no accomplishing,
Twisting it, turning it watching and looking,
Waiting and working but it's just not coming!

What is the point of this whole rigmarole?

We stay here for a few years and then we are bones,

And in that time why can't we live life and go

On in peace to the otherside, and to evermore?

Instead we have this whole tedious process,

You wake up you work till your whole life's a workplace,

You sell your soul and your pride to the thing they call Trade,

Oh what a MONSTER these humans have made!