A glorious four and a half years at the place I’ve been working at has taught me many a lesson, and provided me with enough fodder and material to even write a complete book out of. Sadly, time are not there, failing which, I’d have given Chetan Bhagat a run for his money.
This particular post is inspired by a colleague, a campus recruit who joined my office in 2007. I don’t remember his name, nor his face. But the conversation I had with him will be etched in my memory for a long time to come.
His first line to me after some preliminary introduction was, “Which office do you work out of?”
Such ghastly displays of corporate whoredom from one so young sent me in a tizzy, and I wanted to take a stick and boink him on the head with it. Instead, I smiled politely and said, “Dude, I work IN phase 1.”
Now, if people decided to apply this form of speech for normal life, you’d have me sitting out of my chair, travelling out of a bus or a train, and staying out of home.
For the most part, people who I’ve spoken to about this anomalous usage of the language say it makes perfect sense, probably because they are inured to its absurdity, although I still maintain that it is counter-intuitive.
In any case, enough of this nonsense. I’ve got a busy day planned at the office, and I need to conserve some energy so that my brain functions out of my head properly.
Edit: Addendum follows.
Fond nostalgia kicks in again as I remember one of my first conversations within the office with someone from the Human Resources dept. Please note that some parts of it might’ve been ‘sexed-up‘ a little for future cinematic license.
HR: “Hari, have you received your next assignment?”
Me: “Yes, O Grand Poobah of HR, I have!”
HR: “So, we’ll have to shift you out of your training room. You’ll be working out of the fifth floor of this office.”
Me: “But I thought I was going to work in the fifth floor of this office!!!”
HR: “Exactly!!!”
I didn’t get it back then. I was dazed and confused. That feeling has only been compounded further in the past four and a half years. I still haven’t figured out much. I am thankful I’m leaving around the time they’d have caught up with my fraudness.
I noticed two “it’s” where the apostrophe is redundant… and I’m no Ungrayjee Geek or Professor Higgins… I’m going easy on those who make such mistakes… a friend paraphrased someone and said “Even if you knew perfect English, with whom would you speak it with?” (or something like that)
That apart… you quitting-aa? Where are you headed to, saar? Masters? New firm? Something else?
On that note,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fbrUjjivw
@Path,
Oh well, we’ve spoken on gtalk and all information has been disbursed. I made the corrections, I was too darn sleepy when I typed out this post.
Regretfully, most of my posts get some post post-processing in one form or the other.
moving on to cooler stuff? so which city are you gonna be working “out” of?! :p
and it really doesn’t take a lot to give Chetan Bhagat run for his money!
cheers!